So let me get this straight......

[Flabbergasted]

The Kurdish Guerrillas (PKK) that we supplied with arms are now our enemies and we are going to war with them alongside Turkey despite popular opinion in Turkey and the fact that Turkey has "stepped away from the idea of invading Iraq." But Novak is: "...sure of success, adding that the U.S. role could be concealed and always would be denied."http://news.aol.com/elections-blog/2007/07/30/novak-spills-some-more-secrets/

US joins Turkey's war against rebel Kurds



The Pentagon confirmed today that it is working closely with the Turkish government to crush Kurdish guerrillas operating from bases in northern Iraq.

But it refused to comment on a report that the US is planning a covert operation to send special forces into action to try to neutralise the leadership of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), which has been mounting attacks inside Turkey.

The US is trying to persuade the Turkish army against taking matters into its own hands by invading northern Iraq, where the Kurds have established an autonomous region.


Washington, faced with a myriad of problems in Iraq, does not need a new front opening up in the country.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, today would neither confirm nor deny that a covert operation is being planned. But he said: "We recognise that the PKK is a serious problem and we're working closely with both the government of Iraq and the government of Turkey to resolve this."

The veteran American columnist, Robert Novak, in the Washington Post, disclosed that Eric Edelman, an undersecretary of defence and former ambassador to Turkey, told selected Congressmen in private last week about the planned covert operation. The administration is required by law to inform Congress of any such operations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,,2138034,00.html

Gül: Ties with US would collapse if arms to PKK claims confirmed

Turkish-US relations would break apart if rumors of US supply of arms to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraq are proven correct, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül said.



Former PKK members fleeing camps in northern Iraq have recently said in their testimonies to security officials and prosecutors that members of the terrorist group in Iraq were being supplied with US weapons. Gül earlier said that Turkey has formally requested an explanation from Washington over the claims and officials said Ankara's concerns were not based solely on confessions of the former PKK members.
Asked whether Ankara has evidence to support claims of the former PKK members, Gül said in an interview with private Kanal A television on Sunday night that there has been no confirmation of the charges. "We have not confirmed anything. But there is such an allegation and there are convincing confessions," Gül said, emphasizing that the charges were being investigated. "We have requested information ."

He said if the US really supplies arms to the PKK, this would eventually be revealed. "If such a thing happens, our relations would break apart," he said. But he added that the allegations could well be part of a plot to undermine Turkish-US ties and said it did not seem logical for the US to supply weapons to the PKK in Iraq openly. "But since there is such an allegation, we have to investigate it," he said.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=116874&bolum=103

Turkey steps back from Iraq invasion after poll

By Nicholas Birch in Istanbul
Published: 24 July 2007

As Turkey's government savoured an overwhelming electoral victory yesterday, regional analysts agreed that the immediate impetus for an invasion of northern Iraq had receded.

Sunday's clear mandate for the Islamic-rooted AKP of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been received as a snub to his secularist and nationalist opponents, who put the fight against Kurdish separatist guerrillas across the border at the centre of their failed campaign.

Orhan Miroglu, one of the Kurdish politicians elected to parliament, said the veiled threat of military intervention and a massive military build-up in Turkey's south-east had failed to attract votes.

"Sunday's results are a victory for common sense and civilian democracy over a politics of nationalism and foreign intervention," he said in a telephone interview from the southern port city of Mersin.

With more than 100,000 troops on the border, Turkey's military has been talking about the strategic value of Iraqi operations for months. But it needs parliamentary permission to cross into Iraq. Mr Miroglu, one of 24 deputies to be elected from Turkey's Kurdish nationalist party, says he will oppose an invasion. "We've had enough war," he says.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2795638.ece