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Analysis: Turkish military build-up
pressures Iraq, U.S.
4.5.2006
By Daren Butler
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ISTANBUL, May 4
(Reuters) - Turkey has massed troops along its Iraqi
border to increase pressure on the United States and
the new government in Baghdad to act against a
growing threat from Kurdish rebels based in northern
Iraq.
But despite a rise in guerrilla violence and media
reports of some cross-border military activity,
Turkey is unlikely to launch a major incursion into
northern Iraq without the consent of authorities in
the region, diplomats and analysts say.
The Turkish army traditionally launches a spring
offensive against the rebels as they descend from
their mountain hideouts, but the latest military
build-up is the biggest for years.
Turkey has sent some 40,000 troops to its mainly
Kurdish southeast region to reinforce some 220,000
already based there in anticipation of Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) militant raids.
"There has been a higher level of military movement
compared to recent years because the PKK has sent
large numbers of militants into Turkey and there is
intelligence that they are planning more operations
than in previous years," a senior military official
told Reuters.
Up to 5,000 PKK rebels are holed up in the Iraqi
mountains.
Senior PKK commander Murat Karayilan on Wednesday
threatened to retaliate if Turkey or Iran attacked
guerrilla bases in Iraq, accusing them of mounting
coordinated anti-rebel operations.
Ankara insists it has the right under international
law to carry out cross-border operations against the
rebels if need be.
At a briefing for defence correspondents this week,
military officials renewed a warning that the army
may conduct operations across the border "if the
conditions arise".
One Ankara-based Western diplomat said the military
build-up had an operational justification, given the
escalation of rebel violence, and a symbolic
political justification, sending a signal to the
Iraqi authorities and the United States.
"They don't want (the PKK) to feel they can be
successful in escalating the conflict. (The other
aim is) to increase pressure on the new Iraqi
government and the U.S. to be more proactive against
the PKK," the diplomat said.
ARMY CAUTION
"None of this suggests that Turkey would be willing
to take the political risk to act on its own in
northern Iraq," he added. Such a step could endanger
Turkey's relations with the European Union, with
which it started entry talks last October.
Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than
30,000 people since the group began its armed
campaign for a Kurdish state in southeast Turkey in
1984. In the last year the level of violence has
reached a level not seen since before PKK leader
Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999.
In recent months, dozens of rebels and soldiers have
died in clashes and Kurdish militants have carried
out bomb attacks in Istanbul. Authorities also blame
the PKK for street clashes between Kurds and
security forces in which 17 people have died.
With the consent of the United States, NATO member
Turkey has kept a contingent of up to 1,500 special
forces in northern Iraq since Iraqi Kurdish groups
clashed there in 1996.
A report in Zaman newspaper on Thursday said the
Turkish military had deployed 30 tanks to monitor
rebel movements in northern Iraq in Bawerli, some 15
km (10 miles) inside the Iraqi border. Observers say
they have long been present there.
In another unsourced report, the Aksam daily named
12 PKK camps in northern Iraq and Iran which have
been identified as possible targets for the Turkish
military.
Radikal newspaper columnist Mehmet Ali Kislali said
Turkey did not have the room for manoeuvre against
the PKK that it had in the late 1990s when it was
able to operate more freely, with U.S. consent, as
Saddam Hussein was still in power in Baghdad.
Now, the Americans -- busy battling insurgents in
Iraq's Arab heartland -- see Kurdish-dominated
northern Iraq as an oasis of calm which a big
Turkish incursion would destabilise.
Washington may class the PKK as terrorist, but its
eradication in northern Iraq is no immediate
priority.
"The United States is an obstacle to bringing the
situation (with the PKK) in northern Iraq under
control. Naturally Turkey cannot threaten to enter
Iraq because of the U.S.. The PKK, which knows this,
can thus continue its attacks," said Kislali.
"This picture makes it essential to carry out covert
operations against the PKK bases in northern Iraq if
the Turkish authorities make such a decision,"
Kislali added.
Reuters
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