Ankara threatens military action in Iraqi Kurdistan
by Mavi Zambak
The government, army and population are ever more united in their fight against Kurdish terrorism, but also in their efforts to impede the autonomous region gaining control of Kirkuk’s oil.
Ankara (AsiaNews) – Currents are growing stronger within the Turkish army in favour of halting Kurdish terrorism even to the point of violating the border with Iraq. By exploiting and augmenting popular resentment in the aftermath of the recent explosion, Turkey’s government and army are attempting to exert influence over future of Iraqi Kurdistan and Kirkuk.
Only 4 days have passed since the explosion of the bomb in a market in Ankara, which killed six people, injured hundreds and destroyed buildings nearby.
The building, covered in red and white balloons, giant Turkish flags and slogans, was re-opened to the public last Saturday. People crowded the market in a demonstration of solidarity with market traders and relatives of the dead and wounded.
Among the photos of the dead shop assistants are various graffiti against terrorism and the PKK, the Kurdish workers party, which has been accused of providing the young suicide bomber with explosives which he detonated Tuesday last at the bus stop in front of the cover market.
The Kurds and Kirkuk
The political organisation has denied all involvement, so far no-one has claimed responsibility for the attack; and yet thousands of people have demonstrated against the Kurds with worrying slogans such as “Curse the PKK” and “we will climb the hills and kill them all”.
At the same time, last Saturday President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who is strenuously in favour of Turkey’s secular nature, boycotted the Parliamentary reform aimed at implementing direct elections of the head of state, thus prolonging the tug of war between secularists, the military and the filo-Islamists.
The terrorist attack in the heart of Turkey’s capital came at a highly delicate moment in the country’s relationship between civil and military powers. On the one hand it gravely undermined national security; on the other however, it seems to have favoured closer collaboration between the government and military hierarchy, in the name of the fight against terror, to the point of justifying a possible operation in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Already on April12 last, Yasar Buyukanit, the highest ranking general of the Turkish forces, boldly declared that military action against the Kurds in Northern Iraq was necessary. This threat risks opening yet another front in a region already oppressed by conflicts and tensions and is broadly opposed by the US military which is calling on Turkey to refrain from any military intervention beyond Iraq’s borders.
But Turkey’s military continues to declare that thousands of Kurdish separatists have found refugee in Iraqi Kurdistan using it as a base to launch attacks on Turkey. Massud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan autonomous region, has reiterated that the main attraction for Turkey is instead Kirkuk and its rich petrol deposits, the fate of which is to be decided by referendum in November. Turkey fears that the city will return to Iraqi Kurdistan control, thus shattering Ankara’s hopes of getting its hands on it’s patrimony of oil which counts for half of all Iraqi reserves. At the same time it is also feared that an autonomous Kurdish region at its borders may reignite the desire for independence among Kurds in Turkey. This would explain Turkey’s vehemence in its insistence that it needs to defend itself from terrorism, while at the same time it declares that it wants to protect the Turkish minority resident in Kirkuk.
Tensions with the United States
The Ankara bomb has brought the brought both the military question and the issues of the Kurds once aging to the public arena, indeed it has further united opinion on the military intervention which the army has long desired.
Not even prime minister Erdogan, in the current climate of political tension has drawn back: in order to ingratiate himself with military leaders – with whom has had clashed on numerous occasions recently – and with public opinion, last Thursday he gave his approval to a possible invasion of North Iraq to counter Kurdish terrorism.
It is a most dangerous game, because on one hand it attempts to satisfy the military and his future voters and on the other it creates new problems with the United States, who have no intention of allowing new fronts open in the only calm region in Iraq. In a press conference carried by the Turkish Daily News, Tom Casey, US State Department spokesman clearly stated: “We certainly don't think unilateral military action from Turkey in Kurdistan or anyplace else in Iraq would solve anything”. He added that while the US believes that the PKK represents a real threat, it is necessary to find a peaceful solution. “Which means – he declared –through "continued cooperation" between neighbouring states”.
As this declaration was being reported, the independent news agency in Iraq (VOI) announced that two Turkish fighter jets had violated Kurdistan air space, covering almost 10 kilometres inside the Northern Iraqi autonomous regions’ borders.
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See also
Barzani: overwhelming victory of "yes" to referendum. Ankara and Tehran against Erbil
27/09/2017 10:32
27/09/2017 10:32
