Turkish Army enters Northern Iraq (updated).
By docj Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (23) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted...
[Update 20071218 1600]: Kurdish officials are now claiming that the 300 Turkish soldiers who entered Iraq early this morning have withdrawn.
One can only imagine how this drama is going to play out.
Turkish army sends soldiers into Iraq
The Turkish army sent soldiers about 1.5 miles into northern Iraq in an overnight operation on Tuesday, Kurdish officials said. A Turkish official said the troops seeking Kurdish rebels were still in Iraq by midmorning.
It looks as if this rather messy situation is only going to get messier - and what that bodes for the rather delicate situation in Iraq is anyone's guess.
About 300 Turkish troops crossed the border at 3 a.m., said Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the regional Kurdistan government. He said the region was a deserted mountainous frontier area.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to comment on reports of the Turkish operation.
Well, it is ceratinly a bit of a quandry for us. After all, the Turks claim - and not without merit - they are pursuing Kurdish rebels who have been conducting acts of terrorism in southern Turkey for 2-decades-plus. And if the Bush doctrine applies to the US across continents and oceans, well then it certainly applies for Turkey across borders, no?
Then again, building a larger Turkish presence in Iraq right now - particularly given Turkey's rather famous lack of support back in 2003 - is certainly not a helpful development for the region as a whole.
A fine mess.
And getting finer and messier...
It was not clear how long the Turkish soldiers who entered Iraq on Tuesday would stay, but a Turkish government official said they were sent as "reinforcements" to existing Turkish troops stationed further inside Iraq.
"They are going there as reinforcements, they are not returning," the official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media. ...
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the incursion "is not acceptable and will lead to complicated problems."
"Iraq understands the threat the PKK represents, one that endangers Turkish security," al-Dabbagh said. "But Iraq rejects any Turkish interference in Iraq."
Al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government was given no warning about the incursion.
SecState Condi Rice made a surprise visit to Kirkuk this morning - it seems unlikely this move was timed to coincide with her visit.
...the title and conclusion. This is something that I ruminated on a few weeks ago...for the short term, President Bush has promised to cooperate with Turkey in their attempt to battle terrorists in the north.
It's something that definitely bears watching...
And thanks again for all your work and reporting on site. Fantastic stuff.
Have to tell you, though - this stuff scares the stuffing out of me. From my untrained eye and vantage point a long way away, I have a feeling this could all get really ugly really, really fast.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
by publicly announcing our thanks to the GOT for their
timely intervention in northern Iraq, as part of the Coalitions efforts to stop insertion of terrorist across the IRANIAN border into Iraq.
THEN let's watch the diplomatic gandy-dancing.
GB
De Opresso Liber
Fighting terrorism counts more than politics, as far as I'm concerned.
Could you follow-up on that for me, I think I entirely missed your point. Sorry.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
If this destabilizes Iraqi politics further, I won't care until after Turkey's done rooting out terrorists. Fighting terrorists counts more than building a free Republic there, in my book.
I'm less concerned really with the destabilizing of Iraqi politics - after all, nothing would unify the country faster than going to war with another country, right?
I'm infinitely more concerned that Turkey will decide to set-up housekeeping in northern Iraq and that the Iraqis are not likely to take kindly to that.
Powder keg. Fuze. Lots of lit matches. And all that.
I see your point, though.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
...the north and northeastern areas of Iraq are Kurdish. Arab Iraqis despise the Kurds, and wouldn't shed a single tear were they all exterminated tomorrow by Turkey, Iran, America, or whomever. Turkey's cross-border raids against the PKK pretty much have to be allowed; after all, (1) we ourselves moved into Iraq, in part, on the pretense of fighting terrorists, and (2) we recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization. The big worry is that the Turks will go a bit farther than that, and take the fight to the Kurdish population in northern Iraq much like they have to their own civilian Kurdish population in Turkey. It's a sticky wicket, as they say, and how exactly to deal with it is still definitely open for debate...
Since the very beginning I've been an advocate of helping the Kurds establish a state of their own.
Of course the Turks hate the idea because they're into repressing the Kurds, but a Kurdish state would have given the responsibility of controlling the terrorists to a fairly stable government. And if they failed then the issue would be between Turkey and Kurdistan, not Turkey and Iraq.
The Kurds have been a fantastic ally for the last several years. I truly hope we do right by them.
I thought they were into repressing Kurdish terrorist groups, just like we're into repressiong terrorist groups, the Israelis are into repressing Arab terrorist groups, the English are into repressing Irish terrorist groups, etc. etc.
Turkey is both (1) into repressing Kurdish terrorist groups; and (2) into repressing Kurds within Turkey who are not affiliated with terrorist groups.
...of repressing its own Kurdish population. Much of this stems from the radicals turning the Turkish government against the Kurdish pop. as a whole, and the rest comes from the Kurds daring to want their own state, but it's been real, from the outlawing of the Kurdish language to violent crackdowns on the people.
I've seen it again and again, where plain and simple anti-terror acts are classified as repression of a group. Consider airline security screening here, or the security fence in Israel.
I'm just not very credulous of claims like that until I see details, heh. 70 years ago we had a lot of repression here in the USA, and the left would say we never stopped, but I know better.
I spent a brief time in Turkey as a child and even uttering a few words of Kurdish in a public place would earn someone a fine.
...especially since Iran and Turkey have their own separatist/nationalist Kurdish populations, against whom they would launch one heckuva bloody reign of terror were there an autonomous Kurdish state on their borders, in order to preempt the unification fight that they would certainly know is coming.
Then, of course, they'd invade Kurdistan, who would only have the fickle and untrustworthy backing of the US standing between them and annihilation.
Good call. Let's do that!
Alternatively we could create states with artificial boundaries with no respect to religion, culture, or ethnicity. Oh wait, that's what the English did, and look where it got us.
You clearly didn't get the reference... or know history.
the Middle East as it exists today, with countries that exist today can be blamed nearly entirely on the United Kingdom and France.
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Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
Aren't they using our rationale for invading Iraq?
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I am a Positivist Pastafarian for the alliteration alone.