Turkey to Warn Iraq on Rebel Sanctuaries

[cal04]

Source: Washington Post

Cross-Border Attack on Separatists Appears Likely If Baghdad Fails to Act


CAIRO -- Turkish leaders this week will give visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki what Turkish military commanders and analysts said could be a final warning to act against anti-Turkey Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq -- or to stand by while Turkish forces go after the rebels themselves, risking a new front in Iraq's war.

Leaders of Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party appear to be in agreement with Turkey's generals that the time has come to move against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish initials, PKK, in its bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, former generals and a military expert close to the Turkish military's general staff said.

At least 30,000 people have been killed since the Kurdish rebels launched a campaign in 1984 for an independent Kurdish homeland in eastern Turkey. Clashes and bombs this week killed 14 Turkish soldiers and rebel fighters. The rebels also kidnapped eight residents of a Kurdish village in the east.

Turkey accuses Iraq's Kurds -- who have built a nearly autonomous Kurdish state in northern Iraq under protection of the U.S. military since the early 1990s -- of giving the Kurdish rebels a haven and allowing them free passage back and forth across the Iraqi border into Turkey.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/05/AR2007080501262.html?hpid=topnews

[Kagemusha]

1. If it's a bluff, it's an increasingly convincing one.

But hey, it's not like Maliki can do anything about the situation to begin with.

[comradebillyboy]

2. Turks about to invade Iraq

I don't think the Turks are bluffing. I expect a major Turkish
military intervention into northern Iraq in the very near
future. There are a couple of hundred thousand Turkish
soldiers on the border ready to rock and roll right now. My
friends in Turkey tell me that there is a lot of popular
support to root out terrorist sanctuaries in  Iraqi Kurdistan.
Turks are getting real tired of PKK terrorism in Turkey and
there is a lot of popular support to take military action. No
one in Turkey thinks the US will do any thing. This will also
fuck up  the surge in Baghdad cuz the only reliable Iraqi
troops are Kurds. I doubt if the Kurdish troops in Baghdad
will stick around when Turkey invades Iraqi Kurdistan. This is
going to get really ugly.

[Kagemusha]

3. Mm, I think holding off and bluffing are not the same thing at all.

A bluff implies you're never going to go in. Holding off implies you're going to go in, just not today, and hope conditions change, but if they don't...

I think Turkey has been holding off.

[comradebillyboy]

4. correct