Turkey may stage invasion into norther Iraq
Pastor Dale Morgan
Turkey may stage invasion into norther Iraq*
21.07.2007 Source: AP ©
Turkey's prime minister said his country could stage an incursion into
northern Iraq if talks with Iraq and the United States after Sunday's
general elections fail to produce effective measures against Kurdish
guerrillas there, media reports said Friday.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was expected to visit Turkey after
the elections to discuss Turkey's demand that Baghdad crack down on
guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq.
"Anything can happen. (Military operation) could come on to the agenda,"
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a TV show on
private ATV channel Thursday night, when he was asked whether a
cross-border offensive would be considered after the elections.
"Whatever is necessary could be done immediately. We are capable enough
to do it," Erdogan said of a possible incursion into northern Iraq,
which he said the rebel group was using to launch attacks on Turkey.
Erdogan's ruling party is likely to win a majority of seats in
parliamentary elections Sunday. Opposition parties have criticized his
government for not showing determination to stage an incursion into Iraq
- a move that could seriously strain ties with both Iraq and the U.S.
"After the elections, we will see him (al-Maliki) here and hold
trilateral talks (including U.S. officials). We have to get the result
we expected here. Otherwise, we will decide on the method of dealing
with this with relevant institutions," Erdogan said.
Turkey has massed troops on the Iraqi border, and threatened to move
into northern Iraq unless Iraq and the United States crack down on the
PKK, listed by Washington as a terrorist organization. Iraq complained
Wednesday that Turkish artillery and warplanes bombarded areas of
northern Iraq, and called on Turkey to stop military operations and
enter dialogue.
The government needs to endorse Parliament's approval for any
cross-border operation. And at least two other parties, the Republican
People's Party and Nationalist Action Party, which are expected to win
seats in Sunday's elections, strongly favor an incursion.
The issue of how to deal with the PKK has been one of the key campaign
topics of all major parties, with opposition parties favoring a tougher
stand and almost all rejecting dialogue with Kurdish lawmakers _ who are
expected to return to Parliament in Sunday's elections for the first
time since the 1990s _ unless they denounce the PKK as a terrorist
organization.
The pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, is running all of its
candidates as independents with the aim of circumventing a 10-percent
vote threshold required for parties to win representation in Parliament.
The lawmakers would then regroup under the party banner after the election.
In the 1990s, several Kurdish lawmakers were ejected from Parliament for
having ties to Kurdish rebels.
One of those lawmakers, Leyla Zana, made even more inflammatory remarks
Friday, calling on Turkey to declare the country's Kurdish-dominated
southeast as "Kurdistan" in a federal structure and grant amnesty to
Kurdish guerrillas, media reports said.
"Ankara, divide the country into states and establish the state of
Kurdistan," Hurriyet newspaper quoted Zana as saying during an election
rally in the eastern city of Igdir.
Zana's statement, which is likely to trigger fierce reaction from
nationalists, was also carried by pro-Kurdish news agencies. Zana spent
more than a decade in prison after speaking Kurdish in Parliament in
1991, in breach of a ban on speaking the language in official setting.
Erdogan, whose government has come under pressure from furious Turks who
chanted anti-rebel and sometimes anti-government slogans during the
funerals of more than 70 soldiers so far this year, has also ruled out
cooperation with the Kurdish lawmakers unless they declared the PKK a
terrorist group.
On the street there is enormous support for a cross-border operation
especially among young nationalist Turks, but some others fear an
incursion could drag Turkey into war.
"I will never support an incursion, don't they realize that staging an
offensive would mean going to war with Iraq?" said Sukru Taner, a
47-year-old taxi driver. "We should try to finish off the PKK inside our
borders first."