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Turkey Eyes the Shia Crescent
5.2.2007
Feb. 12, 2007 issue
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February
5, 2007
Iran clearly seeks to lure Turkey away from its
traditional moorings to the West, and the Kurds may
be just the wedge it needs.
- If you were a mullah in Tehran facing a new
western "coalition of the willing," there's one
country you would try to get on your side: next-door
NATO neighbor, Turkey. And lately, the Iranians have
been doing this quite well. The reason: Ankara and
Tehran increasingly share a cause that unites them:
Kurdish guerrillas operating in northern Iraq, and
America's failure to do anything about them.
It would be premature to speak of any entente. Yet
Iran clearly seeks to lure Turkey away from its
traditional moorings to the West, and the Kurds may
be just the wedge they need. During visits to Ankara
in recent months, Iranian officials and other state
representatives—including Ali Larijani, head of the
supreme National Security Council—have gone out of
their way to stress the troubles created for both
nations by the PKK terrorist movement. Despite
myriad promises, U.S. troops in the region do
nothing to prevent cross-border raids. Suggesting
that Turkey should join with Iran and Syria to
establish a tripartite platform of security
cooperation against the Kurdish separatists,
Larijani and others impressed upon their
counterparts the advantages of a large- scale
Turkish military incursion to clean out the
guerillas—possibly in coordination with Iranian
forces, according to Turkish and Iranian news
reports.
Nothing so dramatic appears to be imminent. Yet
clearly, the prospects of a Turkish intervention are
growing. It is certain to be an issue when Turkish
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and military Chief of
Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit visit Washington over the
next week. And, just as clearly, Tehran has every
incentive to stir up trouble. An intervention in
northern Iraq would all but end Turkey's already
troubled European journey and spark a monumental
crisis with the United States. Estranged from
Brussels and Washington, Turkey would see less
benefit in toeing the Western line against Iran. To
be sure, a Sunni Turkey would have some problems
with its historic Shia rival's acquiring nuclear
weapons. Yet that still-hypothetical threat is
considered modest next to the reality of Kurdish
separatism. On this score, at least, Turks do not
see America as being on their side. Iran, however,
is.
Ten days ago, the Turkish Parliament met in a closed
session under the strictest rules of secrecy. The
agenda: northern Iraq and Turkish options. The
country's military spent most of the last 20 years
fighting a bloody war against the PKK, causing
40,000 deaths and costing close to $150 billion. The
guerillas have since regrouped in northern Iraq and,
between 2004 and the summer of 2006, launched a new
terrorist campaign against Turkey. Most Turks
believe that the current ceasefire is merely
tactical and will last only until spring.
As Ankara sees it, the PKK is only part of a bigger
problem. Turkey's longstanding fear that
independence-minded Kurdish nationalists in Iraq
would set a dangerous precedent for Kurds in Turkey
is now being borne out. Emboldened by their
partnership with Washington, Iraqi Kurds have
embarked on an ambitious nationalist journey with a
clear destination: an independent state with the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital. This Kurdish
dream is a Turkish nightmare.
The fact that the closed session of the Turkish
Parliament focused on Kirkuk, where many ethnic
Turkmens live, is not a good sign. With a local
referendum on the city's status scheduled for late
2007 and a critical census coming in April, events
could quickly turn volatile. Iranian forces, grouped
along the Kurdistan border, have shelled a PKK
offshoot in Iraq's Kandil Mountains, and turned
terrorists caught there over to Ankara. According to
various reports, the Iranians have proposed a
coordinated military campaign—an escalation of
hugely unpredictable consequence.
It is no coincidence that Gul and Buyukanit are
going to Washington. The meetings should put an end
to the Bush administration's happy talk about the
stability of Iraqi Kurdistan. Unless U.S. forces act
decisively against the PKK, the Turks will warn,
Ankara will take matters into its own hands. This is
an election year in Turkey, and Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan has every incentive to demonstrate
his nationalist credentials against political
rivals, many favoring military intervention. All
this will inevitably push Turkey toward Iran—and may
even end up creating an unprecedented Sunni-Shia
axis of frustration against America.
news week com
* The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
more than 250,000 Kurdish residents of Kirkuk 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.
Based on Iraq's Constitution, 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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