Kurdish rebels vs. Turkish forces
From Al Jazeera -
With the security situation in Iraq deteriorating daily, and the Middle East conflict raging, the feeling in Turkey is that should the Turkish military launch cross-border operations, it would bring more instability to the region.Tahir Ekci, a Turkish lawyer who specialises in Kurdish cases, tells Aljazeera.net: “Turkey may get a ‘visa’ to enter Iraq from the US, but this would not bring any military success. Such operations were undertaken before and were not effective. In fact such operations may unite Kurds on either side of the border … which would bring more problems for Turkey.”
Although, Ankara is under pressure from the Turkish public to act on the recent unrest in the southeast, the general feeling is that this is not likely in the short-term.
“I believe that Turkey would not send troops into Iraq without US permission,” Ekci says.
He believes that Erdogan’s harsh words had to do with forthcoming presidential election in 2007.
It has been widely noted in the Turkish media that the prime minister is eyeing residency at Cankaya - the presidential palace.
“The prime minister was testing out US reactions while sending a message to the Turkish public. There is an election next year and Erdogan must raise his nationalist words against the PKK,” Ekci says.
Siyar Ozsoy, an adviser to the mayor of Diyarbakir, in the southeast, agrees.
“Nationalists always use the rhetoric of anti-separatism as the best pool of votes. The Kurdish issue is very much manipulated by Turkish nationalist politicians to mobilise the Turkish public, especially in times of elections,” Ozsoy says.
Bad idea to send troops there. I’m probably way off the mark here, but it seems as though Turkey wants to intervene in the affairs of another country in order to fix their own domestic crisis. Well hey, if the U.S can do it, so can everyone else, right?
The U.S, however, is right in forcing Turkey to avoid this. It will cause a huge amount of chaos, knowing what the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is capable of. To this day they’re fighting for their own independant homeland, which is far from being possible at this point, and if their bases were attacked, who knows how the PKK will react? The Turkish government is also accused of conspiring against the Kurds by attacking villages and discriminating against Turkish-Kurds. Stressful times for Turkey, and for as long as these grave problems exist, I don’t see them being admitted into the EU anytime soon.
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I think the U.S. is bluffing. What can it do?
1. It cannot suggest sanctions without conceding that a country making a an attack on a country where terrorists attacking them are based.
2. It cannot declare war,
A.it lacks the forces to defeat Turkey
B. since Turkey technically has not given (at least not for the U.S.) a justification for war, when NATO meets it will be obligated to come in on the side of Turkey.
A strong Turkish response might fail, but on the other hand governments often value the perception that something is being done enough to ignore the risks of failure if there is even a small chance for success.