[More of W's Mongolian Cluster ...] Turkey Signals It's Prepared to Enter Iraq

Is Turkey still in Iraq. Israel still is in Shebaa Farms which Lebanon does consider its territory. They are not in compliance with that assumption, but Syria who owns it, and Lebanon both consider it part of Lebanon, and Israel is occupying it and has settled it.

 

Goodness

Rocket River

 

We control Iraq?? LOL! Well, I wish I could laugh about it. No offense, LT, but Saddam controlled Iraq as tightly as anyone could have, pre-Gulf War, and he couldn't stop the Turkish Kurds from operating back and forth across his borders, either with Turkey or, in the case of Iranian Kurds, in Iran. Really, to try and differentiate between Turkish Kurds, Iranian Kurds, Syrian Kurds (yes, they are there, too), and Iraqi Kurds is a bit silly. They are all the Kurdish people, victims of genocide by the same Turks who are threatening now, as well as being persecuted by other major ethnic groups lucky enough to have their own nation-states.

The Kurds are trying to create a state for themselves that encompass a region in which they have lived since time out of mind. They know it better than I know Southwest Austin, and I know it damned well. Frankly, they deserve their own state. We should be helping them create one, as we should be helping make a Palestinian state a reality, through diplomacy, a foreign concept for the current American Administration.


Damn, I enjoyed writing that. Ironically, I've been to Tehran, Beirut, Jerusalem and the West Bank, when it was part of Jordan, and many other places in the region, and before the 1967 War. Pretty freaky, isn't it. I've watched all this unfold over the years, and if I were prone to displays of emotion, it would bring me to tears. It's all so incredibly unnecessary. Peace is possible, but madness keeps driving it away.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

If Syria 'owns' it then how is it part of Lebanon? That it is in dispute belies your conclusion. And even if you're correct there are still the other differences mentioned earlier that make this a poor comparison.

 

Syria is doing Hezbollah a favor trying to keep it going. Syria does own according the UN, and most everyone else in the world. Syria, however, maintains that it is part of Lebanon. They did this so that Hezbollah can continue their war against Israel by claiming that Israel is still occupying a part of Lebanon.

But under no circumstance does Israel have any sort of legal claim to it. However, they still maintain settlements there. If Israel moves out like they should, whether it belongs to Syria or Lebanon becomes an issue between those two. Either way it is one less point for Hezbollah to still claim in recruiting and financing efforts.

 

Yeah, that sounds EXACTLY like the situation between the Kurds and the Turks.

 

That part isn't the same. Nobody is saying the Kurds and Hezbollah are using the same justification for their attacks.

What is accurate is that one group is initiating attacks from area against another nation. In one case it is apparently ok for the attacked nation to respond militarily but in the other it isn't. The politics of the region don't have to be identical for the circumstances of the attacks to be the same.

 

Whoa, whoa, whoa! We're talking about Iraqi Kurds here, not Turkish Kurds. The IRaqi Kurds are definitely a part of the coalition government set up in Iraq. In reality though, Kurds who live partly in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey are the same people, and often do coordinate together both politically and militarily.

I guess we're talking about two different things.

Now you're just reaching to deny that there is a 'double standard'. The Turks and the Kurds aren't exactly on speaking terms either, much like Israel and Hezbollah. Turkey considers the Kurdish rebels inside its own borders AND in northern Iraq a security threat. The situation is more similar than dissimilar to the Israel-Hezbollah situation. Obviously, there are differences, I didn't claim they were exactly the same thing, but the situation Turkey finds itself in right now is generally similar to that of Israel's.

 

No, the point was made that this exposes a double standard of the US. However the differences between to two situations are enough to make the comparison a poor one.

 

Not at all. The Iraqi Kurds have a already said they were willing to move to protect Turkey from incursions in their territory. The US position is that something can be worked out. That isn't a double standard. The US isn't saying Turkey can't protect itself.

 

Hayes, let's try this again...

The 'Kurdish problem' (as the Turks like to refer to it) is an old one, it's not like it's a recent development. Kurdish guerillas have in the past repeatedly launched attacks against Turkey, in fact, Turkey and Syria were on the verge of war (yes, war, as in armed conflict) in 1998 because Turkey accused Syria of harboring a PKK terrorist leader. So this issue is anything but new to Turkey, it's a problem that goes way back, well before the American invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Over that period of time, there has been little to no progress between the two sides (that would be the Kurds, generally speaking, and the Turks). Moreover, Iran itself has repeatedly complained about Kurdish separatists operating against Iranian interests from northern Iraq. The Kurdish problem has brought together three states that have very little in common otherwise: Iran, Turkey, and Syria.

So pardon my skepticism, but I doubt that 'talks' will do much to satisfy the Turks in this case, they might give it a little time to see if progress can be made, but then what should they do if diplomacy fails? According to the Bush Doctrine, they can invade and deal with the problem 'once and for all' (which of course, much like the Israeli promise to deal with Hezbollah 'once and for all', won't amount to much more than bloodshed and destruction).

The Turks would be under no obligation to consult the U.S. before taking action, they can always point to Israel's offensive in Lebanon and the U.S.' own precedent regarding the 'war on terror'.

 

It sounds the same to me. Lebanon has also said they would try to disarm the Hezbollah militants when they signed Resolution 1557. So you're saying you wouldn't mind Turkey protecting itself and bombard the newly "democratic" Iraq?

 

None of this proves your original claim that the US has a double standard. Aside from the specifics which clearly aren't the same, the US's stance isn't that Turkey cannot defend itself. As such there is no double standard.

 

Well, that's a revelation.

What I would 'mind' is not at issue. The claim was that there was a double standard. IMO there isn't.

 

Well thank you very much for sharing your opinion.

 

I'm not sure this is the case. From what I recall Saddam kept the Iraqi Kurds underwraps enough that they couldn't act as a base to launch attacks into other countries. It wasn't until the creation of the no-flyzone that created a Kurdish proctetorate that could be used as a base.

As a side note the Iraqi Kurdish parties haven't always gotten along with each other or the PKK in Turkey and have in times fought each other and even colluded with Turkey agains the PKK. The situation like everything else in the Middle East isn't as clear cut as it might seem.

I think we can say that ideally the Kurds deserve their own state but the problem is how do they get to there without causing a whole lot of more trouble. No other countries in the region, with the exception of Israel and even then that would be qualified, would support a Kurdish state one carved out of Northern Iraq would be a a threat to Turkey, Syria and Iran since it not only would be a base of operations for Kurdish minorities in those countries but also would be rich in oil with the Kirkuk oil fields. Also Northern Iraq isn't just Kurds but there are significant populations of Arabs and Turkmen there who would themselves cause problems for the Kurdish nation. A Kurdish state could itself be beset by ethnic insurgencies of those other people.

 

Good points, Sishir.


Keep D&D Civil.

 

The double standard exists when the U.S. objects to a Turkish 'military solution' to counter terrorism directed at them from a neighboring state, while wholeheartedly supporting/coordinating with the Israelis in their fight against Hezbollah.

 

A few days old, but relevant...

Turkish PM raps US attitude to fighting terrorism

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L18332897.htm

ISTANBUL, July 18 (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan rapped the United States on Tuesday for tolerating Israel's attacks on its enemies in Lebanon while refusing to allow Ankara to crush Kurdish rebels hiding in northern Iraq.

Erdogan is under mounting domestic pressure to get tough with the rebels, who have killed 16 Turkish security personnel in separate attacks over the past week.

"The way they look at terror there (in Israel) and in Turkey is not the same. They show tolerance towards country A (fighting terrorism) and show a different approach to country B. This is unacceptable," Erdogan said.

He did not mention the United States or Israel by name but it was clear to whom he was referring. Erdogan, whose roots are in political Islam, has previously criticised Israel's actions.

Erdogan also repeated hints that Turkey might send troops across the border into Iraq to tackle the rebels if U.S. and Iraqi troops continued to ignore Ankara's demands to act.

"Turkey knows how to take care of itself. The relevant security institutions are working on this matter," Erdogan told a meeting of the foreign economic relations council.

Ankara has long urged U.S. and Iraqi forces to crack down on several thousand militants of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) holed up in the mountains of mainly Kurdish northern Iraq, which they use as a springboard to attack targets inside Turkey.

The United States, like Turkey and the European Union, views the PKK as a terrorist organisation, but says broader security problems in Iraq prevent the kind of full-scale military crackdown on the group that Ankara demands.

FRUSTRATION

Turkey's frustration with U.S. inaction in northern Iraq has deepened since Israel began its military campaign in Lebanon last week to crush Hizbollah which seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid.

"The Turkish public want their government to get tough as Israel has done. If the Israelis can do this, why can't we act to protect our security too," said Huseyin Bagci of Ankara's Middle East Technical University.

Security sources said on Tuesday the army had stepped up land and air operations aimed at locating and destroying PKK militants in remote mountainous areas near the Iraqi border.

But diplomats say Turkey is highly unlikely to mount a full-blown military operation in Iraq without the consent of the United States. They said the government needs to talk tough to please nationalist voters ahead of elections due next year.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.