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US military plans no action to deal with
PKK rebels attacks into Turkey
27.10.2007
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U.S.
won't fight Turkey's Kurdish PKK rebels, Troops will
have no role in Turks' deadly dispute with rebels,
general says
October
27, 2007
WASHINGTON, -- The U.S. military is leaving
it to Turkey and Iraq to deal with Turkey's Kurdish
PKK fighters using their Iraq haven as a springboard
to use in staging cross-border attacks inside
Turkey.
The Turks have thousands of soldiers massed on the
Iraqi Kurdistan border, apparently poised to cross
and take on the Turkish Kurds who have used violence
for decades to reinforce their demands for their own
Kurdistan.
The Kurdistan area of northern Iraq has been the
most stable part of that battle-scarred country
virtually since the U.S.-led liberation in March
2003. Iraqi Kurdistan is a model for their ethnic
peers in Turkey, Iran and Syria, none of whom
exercise anything like the autonomy of the Iraqi
Kurds.
Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, the senior American in
northern Iraq, was asked Friday what the Americans
planned to do about the Kurdish tinderbox.
"Absolutely nothing," he said.
Mixon said at a Friday briefing that the rebel
activity is not his responsibility, he has sent no
additional U.S. troops to the border area, and he is
not tracking hiding places or logistics activities
of rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known
by its Kurdish acronym PKK.
Turkey's top military commander said Friday that the
Turkish forces will not cross the border before the
prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visits
Washington and speaks with President George W. Bush.
Erdogan and Bush meet at the White House on Nov. 5.
"The armed forces will carry out a cross-border
offensive when assigned," private NTV television
quoted Gen. Yasar Buyukanit as saying. "Prime
Minister Erdogan's visit to the United States is
very important. We will wait for his return."
Turkey's deputy prime minister, Cemil Cicek, said
the government demanded the extradition of Kurdish
rebel leaders based in Iraq's north. Amid talks with
a visiting Iraqi delegation, Turkish war planes and
helicopters reportedly bombed separatist hideouts
within the country's borders.
Speaking by videoconference from a U.S. base near
Tikrit in northern Iraq, Mixon told reporters at the
Pentagon that he has not seen Kurdish Iraqi
authorities move against the rebels.
"I have not seen any overt action. ... But those are
the types of activities that are managed and
coordinated at higher levels than my own," he said.
Top Defense Department and State Department
officials this week said Iraq's regional Kurdish
government should cut rebel supplies and disrupt
rebel movement over the border, adding that
Washington is increasingly frustrated by Kurdish
inaction.
As Turkey has increased pressure for someone to act,
Pentagon officials have said repeatedly that U.S.
forces are tied up with the fight against insurgents
and al-Qaida elsewhere in Iraq.
Few of the roughly 170,000 U.S. military forces in
Iraq are along the border with Turkey. Ample air
power is available.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested this week
that airstrikes or major ground assaults by U.S.,
Turkish, or other forces would not help much because
not enough is known about where the rebels are
hiding at a given time.
Asked during a NATO meeting in Europe about the
prospects of U.S. military strikes, he said:
"Without good intelligence, just sending large
numbers of troops across the border or dropping
bombs doesn't seem to make much sense to me."
Americans also fear that a full-scale battle in the
north would destabilize what has been one of the
most prosperous and peaceful parts of Iraq in recent
years — a region run by Kurds who have some
sympathies with the rebels.
Asked if he has detected PKK supply lines running
through his area that Iraqi Kurdish authorities
could curtail, Mixon said: "That would be
speculation. ... I don't track the specific
locations of the PKK, so you'd have to ask somebody
else."
Mixon would not even talk in general about the PKK's
fighting abilities. He was asked why such a small
group of an estimated few thousand guerrillas is
considered so effective, tenacious and threatening
to Turkey.
"I have no idea," he said. "You'll have to ask
somebody in the Turkish government."
Does he think he has any responsibility to try to
avoid a Turkish incursion into the north?
"I have not been given any requirements or any
responsibility for that," he said.
But if terrorists are operating in his region, he
was asked, why not get involved?
"Let me put it to you very clearly," he answered.
The provincial Kurdish authorities have their own
peshmerga militia, Mixon and, "it's their
responsibility" in three northern provinces of Iraq.
He said no one has specifically told him to ignore
the rebel problem, "but I hadn't been given
instructions to do anything about it, either."
If he were ordered to do something, would he have
enough U.S. troops?
"That's a hypothetical question," Mixon replied. "I
haven't studied it.
"I haven't been given any instructions that would
even vaguely resemble what you just mentioned," the
general said. "So I don't see any sense in talking
about it."
In Washington, Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy
responded to Mixon by saying he expected U.S. help.
"We do expect the United States government to use
all of the influence they have over the central
government and the regional government in the north
to deal with this problem," he said.
Ankara has never, and still does not, recognize the
Iraqi Kurdistan regional government (KRG) and
refuses to meet with its representatives in any
official capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear that
any international respect shown to the autonomous
Iraqi Kurdistan region would only embolden Turkey's
own Kurdish minority to seek similar home-rule
status.
More than 37,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas have been killed since 1984 when the PKK
took up arms for self-rule in the country's mainly
Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Iraqi Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using a
Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an excuse to
invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent the
establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq'. Turkey fears
this could fan separatism among its own large
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey.
AP
Since 1991, the Kurds of Iraq achieved self-rule in
part of the country. Today's teenagers are the first
generation to grow up under Kurdish rule. In the new
Iraqi Constitution, it is referred to as Kurdistan
region. Kurdistan region has all the trappings of an
independent state -- its own constitution, its own
parliament, its own flag, its own army, its own
border, its own border patrol, its own national
anthem, its own education system, its own
International airports, even its own stamp inked
into the passports of visitors.
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
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.
Others estimate over 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.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
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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