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Opposition pressures Turkish government to
take military action in Kurdistan-Iraq
24.1.2007 |
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January
24, 2007
ANKARA, Turkey, -- Turkey's main opposition
party increased pressure on the government to send
soldiers to Iraq as parliament went into a
closed-door session on Tuesday to debate the
country's policy on Iraq and find ways to fight
separatist Kurdish guerrillas based there.
Turkey has expressed dissatisfaction with U.S. and
Iraqi efforts to contain Turkish Kurdish guerrillas,
who Ankara says have been using bases in Iraq to
fight for autonomy in Turkey's southeast.
Opposition parties have been trying to get the
government to consider possible military action or
economic embargoes to force Iraqi Kurds to cooperate
with Turkey. Iraqi Kurdish groups have fought
alongside Turkish Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq during
several Turkish incursions in the past.
The government agreed to put the country's Iraq
policy up for discussion in the 550-member
parliament, but details of the discussion are not to
be made public.
"We want the government to seek the permission of
the parliament to send soldiers to Iraq to protect
Turkmens (ethnic Turks in Iraq) there and to fight
Kurdish terrorists," Altan Oymen, a lawmaker from
the main opposition Republican People's Party, said
earlier Tuesday. "If the government seeks that
permission that would really be a deterrent for the
terrorists and others in Iraq (Iraqi Kurds),
otherwise our fight against terrorism will be
hampered."
Oymen argued that Turkey needed to seal its border
against infiltration by Kurdish guerrillas by
creating a buffer zone inside Iraq, and promised his
party's firm support to deploy troops and encouraged
the government to "obtain the permission and use
it."
Sadullah Ergin, a member of the ruling Justice and
Development Party, signaled that the government was
not in favor of any quick decision to deploy Turkish
soldiers in Iraq.
The United States has cautioned Turkey against any
unilateral military action, fearing that such
intervention could destabilize Kurdistan region
(northern Iraq), the most stable part of the
country.
Omer Abusoglu, a lawmaker of the opposition
Motherland Party, said his party was expecting solid
steps from the government to pressure Iraqi Kurds to
cooperate with Turkey against the separatist
guerrillas, suggesting that Turkey could use its
electricity supply to the region and the trade
through the Habur border point for leverage.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week warned
Iraqi Kurdish groups against trying to seize control
of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, saying Turkey will
not stand by amid growing tensions among ethnic
Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds in Iraq's oil-rich north.
Iraqi Kurds, who claim the region as their own and
hope to eventually include Kirkuk in a region of
self-rule in Kurdistan autonomous region (northern
Iraq), accused Turkey of interfering in Iraqi
internal affairs.
Turkey fears Iraq's Kurds want Kirkuk's lucrative
oil to fund a bid for independence that could
encourage separatist Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey,
who have been fighting since 1984 for autonomy.
Kirkuk, an ancient city that once was part of the
Ottoman Empire, has a large minority of ethnic Turks
as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs,
Armenians and Assyrians.
Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003,
thousands of Kurds pushed out of the region under
Saddam Hussein's rule have returned.
Kirkuk lies just south of the autonomous Kurdistan
region stretching across Iraq's northeast. Kurdish
leaders want to annex the city, and Iraq's
constitution calls for a referendum on the issue by
the end of this year.
AP
*
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced more than 250,000
Kurdish residents to give up their homes to Arabs in
the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city and the region's
oil industry.
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region and it is not under the full
control of Kurdistan Regional Government
administration.
A referendum is to be held in late 2007 to decide
whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be
annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region
in Iraq's north.
* The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan"
Southeast Turkey. The Kurds have no rights in
Turkey.
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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