Category: Iraq

Turkey’s Demands and Kurdistan’s Answers

By REBWAR KARIM WALI

The wave of arrests of Kurds in Turkey as well as violence between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish security forces that began again in July show no signs of abating.

The latest episode was the October 19 attack by PKK fighters on Turkish military bases in Hakkari province that led to the highest number of Turkish casualties since 1993.

In response, the police have joined the military’s new operations against the PKK. The police have also detained and imprisoned hundreds of Kurdish political activists as part of what is known as “KCK dossier.”

The KCK stands for the Union of Communities in Kurdistan, which was founded by the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan. A PKK leader recently told me that the number of arrests have not been this high since the 1980 military coup.

The most recent PKK attack shocked Turkey and drew a strong reaction from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as well. In a message of condemnation, Kurdistan Region’s President Massoud Barzani described the attack as a “crime” and noted that it came as there were ongoing efforts to find a political solution to Turkey’s Kurdish issue.

The office of Kurdistan Prime Minister Barham Salih also denounced the attack. Shortly afterward, based on a request from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, former Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani met with the Turkish prime minister and foreign minister in Ankara on a trip representing the region’s president. It was announced that the Kurdistan Region president would soon visit Ankara as well.

Turkey demands the Kurdistan region provide military assistance in its fight against the PKK. But to what extent is that possible?

“The Turkish army doesn’t have the same zeal and energy as it once did, and the PKK is no longer afraid of it”

According to informed Turkish sources, the Turkish plan appears as follows: A) Turkey can militarily occupy all areas in the Kurdistan Region that the Kurdish Peshmarga and security forces cannot control; B) The Kurdistan Region should promise that its Peshmarga forces will not attack Turkey, aid the PKK or allow its fighters to attack Turkish soldiers.

Turkey, in return, has promised to return control of all areas to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Peshmarga forces when the forces are able to secure the areas.

According to the Turkish sources, the response of the Kurdish delegation to this proposal has been the following: A) The Kurdistan Region understands its responsibility to not allow its soil to be used for attacks against its neighbors; B) The Peshmarga forces will not take part in any fighting in support of any side; C) There is only one solution to this problem and that is a peaceful and political one. D) Ocalan’s conditions need to be improved and the government should talk to him.

Turkey is hoping to achieve two major goals in relation to the PKK.

First, to lower the bar of Kurdish demands before the process begins to amend the constitution. This can be done by delivering a blow to the PKK.

Second, the PKK has become a problem for Turkey’s ambitious foreign policy. The clashes between the PKK and the army undermine Turkey’s focus on its foreign and regional policy, so Turkey wants to rid itself of that problem.

If these are the main Turkish goals in battling the PKK, the Kurdish group also wants to increase pressure on the PKK as much as possible.

Even if Ocalan was not freed, he would be placed under house arrest. The PKK and Ocalan need be accepted as the only partners in resolving the Kurdish issue and need to engage in open negotiations.

The Kurdistan Region cannot engage in any military cooperation with Turkey because the Kurdish political leadership believes this problem can’t be solved through war. The Kurdish public would never allow this to happen.

Therefore, Barzani’s trip to Ankara can be only useful in terms of advancing a political solution. The direction Turkey has taken will lead to nowhere. The role that the Kurdistan Region has played in the past in convincing the PKK to announce a ceasefire needs to continue because that role is important for the PKK, Turkey and the Kurdistan Region.

That role ending would especially harm the PKK. The current complications in Turkey’s Kurdish areas and the end of large-scale civilian activities are a testament to that claim.

But it seems the PKK is no longer ready to accept a ceasefire because it sees the current circumstances as in its interest. Besides, the Turkish army doesn’t have the same zeal and energy as it once did, and the PKK is no longer afraid of it.

The PKK has become a mobile state and has shown that neither the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) or any Kurdish political figure has the capital and initiative to make decisions in the name of Kurds. So, in the end, Turkey should decide that all roads lead to Ocalan and his conditions.

If Ocalan is taken out of Imrali prison and is allowed movement, he will pour some water on the fire that has currently engulfed Turkey. The PKK will lay down arms and Turkey will rid itself of this conflict. The Kurdistan Region can play a crucial role in this regard.

via Rudaw in English….The Happening: Latest News and Multimedia about Kurdistan, Iraq and the World – Turkey’s Demands and Kurdistan’s Answers.

October 29, 2011
Turkey Launches Incursion Into Northern Iraq Against PKK

Christian Science Monitor:

Militants loyal to the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) launched attacks on Turkish soldiers and police Wednesday, killing at least 24. Turkish forces responded by launching raids and airstrikes against the group in northern Iraq.

Kurdish militants launched their most deadly attacks in years on Turkish soldiers and police on Wednesday, killing at least 24 and prompting cross border raids into northern Iraq and airstrikes by Turkish forces.

The attacks by the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, and the robust response by the Turkish government, risk wider resumption of a conflict that has left 40,000 dead since 1984, but been quieter since political efforts to provide greater Kurdish rights commenced in 2009.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed: “We will never bow to any attack from inside or outside Turkey.”

The Wednesday attacks came after a roadside bomb on Tuesday that killed five Turkish soldiers and three civilians – among them a four-year-old girl. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.

“Whoever supports terror, feeds it and helps it; whoever tolerates it and ignores its inhumane attacks, tries to cover the bloody face of terror,” said Erdogan. “I want to let them all know that Turkey is breathing down their necks all the time.”

Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz.

The Turkish leader reached further, too, blaming unnamed local actors for trying to end Turkey’s rise as a regional power. The latest attack, Erdogan said, showed that “terror is a tool in the hands of certain powers. The PKK are subcontractors used by other forces and other powers, trying to provoke Turkish society.”

Some 600 Turkish mountain commandos were reportedly deployed five miles into northern Iraq looking for targets, backed up by helicopter gunships, according to Turkish media. By mid-afternoon local time, reports emerged that 15 PKK militants had been killed.

“No one should forget that those who make us suffer this pain will be made to suffer even stronger,” President Abdullah Gul said. “They will see that the vengeance for these attacks will be great.”

Erdogan and the Turkish foreign minister cancelled trips abroad, and Turkey’s top military commanders traveled to the remote southeast districts of Cukurca and Yuksekova in Hakkari Province, where ethnic Kurds dominate the region.

Warnings to Iraq
Turkey last week warned Iraqi authorities to deal with attacks staged from its soil, saying its “patience” was running out. Despite the potential regional reverberations, the timing of the attacks fits a previous pattern, experts say.

The PKK “tends to escalate” attacks every fall, when they have “maximum maneuverability” before the onset of winter, says Fadi Hakura, a Turkey specialist at the Chatham House think tank in London.

The current PKK strikes are taking place at a time of rising political frustration among Turkey’s ethnic Kurds – a political “failure of expectations” among Kurds, met by a “hardening” government stance, says Mr. Hakura – but Turkey’s military action in northern Iraq is likely to be limited.

“One could expect a more extensive ground incursion into northern Iraq, but this has been tried repeatedly in the past and has not degraded substantially PKK capabilities of carrying out attacks in Turkey,” says Hakura.

Camps in northern Iraq
The PKK has long operated from camps in northern Iraq’s Qandil mountains. In the latest episode of the years-long conflict, Turkish forces have stepped up attacks against the PKK since August, often using intelligence provided by the United States.

The PKK killed 13 soldiers in a July ambush, and nine more in August – prompting retaliatory airstrikes that Turkey says killed 160 PKK rebels.

Relative peace has prevailed, however, while Turkey’s Kurds waited for the results of a high-profile 2009 “Kurdish Opening” by Erdogan’s ruling Justice & Development Party (AKP). While it made some progress on permitting Kurdish cultural rights for the first time, its development initiatives failed to meet expectations.

Past AKP electoral gains among Kurds in the region were wiped away in the national election last June, which gave Erdogan a third term, while also exposing the government’s failure to address key causes of complaint.

One pro-Kurdish parliamentarian was stripped of his seat, while others were barred from the chamber, accused of illegal links to the PKK. It was a pattern repeated from the previous year, when Kurds waving PKK flags rallied across the region against the arrest of hundreds of sitting Kurdish mayors and politicians.

RELATED: Kurdish anger turns into protests over Turkish court case

“Turkey’s most urgent need is peace,” said the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, which has been accused by authorities of links with the PKK, according to the Associated Press. “We call on both the government and the PKK to immediately halt the war, without losing a second.”

A major shift in regional dynamics
Turkey’s acrimonious political fight with its Kurdish population takes place against a backdrop of a changing regional dynamic that is being redefined by Arab Spring revolutions and a Turkey that is becoming a regional powerhouse.

Concurrently next door, a months-long antiregime uprising has already left 3,000 dead and continues in Syria, where the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has threatened to make Turkey pay for hosting the Syrian opposition.

Syria’s pro-democracy movement met to form the Syrian National Council in Istanbul more than two weeks ago. The assassination 10 days ago of a prominent Syrian Kurd in Qamishli, a Syrian border town in Turkey, was mourned also among Syrian exiles in Istanbul, who said the killing would galvanize the opposition.

On the other side of the ethnic Kurdish regions, Iran says it has damaged the Iranian arm of the PKK, known as PJAK, in a series of recent cross-border strikes.

Iran is at loggerheads with Ankara for Turkey’s recent agreement to host parts of a US-engineered regional missile-defense system, which aims to protect against any potential Iranian missile attack.

As the eastern anchor of the NATO alliance, Turkey has the second-largest ground force after the US. But an intelligence-sharing deal – in which the US since 2007 has provided Turkey with real-time intelligence of PKK movements in northern Iraq – is proving to be far from fail-safe.

Negotiations have been under way between Turkey and the US to move the US drones from Iraq – where US forces are being withdrawn by the end of the year – to new bases in Turkey.

“As a friend and ally, the United States will continue to stand with the people and government of Turkey in their fight against the PKK,” US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone said is a statement. “No political cause, and no religion, can justify terrorism.”

Regardless of the ongoing intelligence-sharing, those efforts could not prevent the eight coordinated PKK attacks carried out on Wednesday.

“Despite the most sophisticated intelligence capabilities and technology, the mountains of northern Iraq afford enormous protection for guerrilla-type activity conducted by the PKK,” says Hakura of Chatham House. “It’s similar to the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan: very rugged terrain, lots of caves, and enormous protection for PKK combatants.”

October 20, 2011
Turkey Bombs Kurdish Rebels In Iraq After Deadly Attack

Written by: VOA

October 19, 2011

Turkey has launched a military operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, hours after the militants killed 24 soldiers and wounded 18 in attacks in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border.

News reports quote Turkish officials as saying at least 20 rebels were also killed in the fighting, as Turkish air force bombers hit targets in Iraq and helicopters ferried army troops into the region. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who canceled a trip to Kazakhstan, described the action as “hot pursuit” within the limits of international law, following the deadliest such Kurdish attacks in years.

Turkish authorities say rebels from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, opened fire on military outposts in Cukurca and Yuksekova in Turkey’s Hakkari province earlier Wednesday. Kurdish rebels claimed responsibility, prompting President Abdullah Gul to tell reporters that “vengeance for these attacks will be great.”

In worldwide reaction to the raids, U.S. President Barack Obama condemned what he called an “outrageous terrorist attack,” saying the United States will continue its strong cooperation with the Turkish government as it works to defeat the PKK. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called the attacks “shameful” and stressed the EU’s continued support of Turkey in its fight against terrorism, saying the EU continues to view the PKK as a “terrorist” organization.

In Iraq, Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani condemned the attacks as a “criminal act.” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern, saying it is unacceptable that Iraq’s territory is being used to launch cross-border attacks against neighboring countries. He urged Turkey and Iraq to engage in dialogue to find a peaceful solution.

Last week, Turkey called on Iraq to stop the Kurdish rebels from attacking Turkey from Iraqi soil, saying its “patience is running out.” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Ankara is determined to eradicate the rebel threat in northern Iraq.

The PKK has escalated attacks against Turkish targets in recent weeks. Turkish forces have responded by increasing the number of airstrikes against suspected rebel bases in northern Iraq. In August, Turkey’s military said it killed as many as 160 Kurdish rebels in air and artillery strikes across the border.

The rebels have waged a campaign for autonomy in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast since 1984. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people.

The Turkish government has taken steps to address the demands of Kurds and other minorities for greater rights. Prime Minister Erdogan has been pushing to amend the country’s constitution, which was written in 1982 when Turkey was under military rule — a move seen as key to addressing those demands. But Kurdish leaders say an amended constitution should recognize the Kurds as a distinct element of the nation and grant them autonomy.

The PKK is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union.

via Turkey Bombs Kurdish Rebels In Iraq After Deadly Attack.

October 20, 2011
Turkey’s New Activism in the Former Ottoman Lands and Continuing PKK Attacks

“… [I] contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes,” wrote Walt Whitman, one of America’s most famous poets. It’s hard not to think of those words while considering Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s positions.

Erdogan recently slammed the West, saying that imperialist forces would never give up their ambitions. Yet his country agreed to host a missile early warning radar system for NATO, a military alliance to which all of those targeted imperialist countries belong — along with Turkey.

The PKK, a separatist Kurdish terrorist organization, today launched one of its deadliest attacks in decades, and the Erdogan government implicitly slammed the Western powers for making it easy for the PKK to continue its murders. Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s chief EU negotiator in charge of overseeing his country’s entry into the EU, called the EU Ambassador to Turkey, Marc Pierini, to ask the EU countries not to tolerate terrorism and grant it a gray area to manipulate minds. Yet no one called either Iran’s or Syria’s ambassadors to the Turkish Foreign Ministry to discuss the matter.

Furthermore, Turkey’s fight against terrorism, or its attempts to bring a peaceful end to the Kurdish dilemma can not and should not be considered separate than the massive changes occurring at Turkey’s borders. With America seemingly losing its influence in the Middle East and Europe drowning in a terrible economic crisis, the Arab world agonizes over its lack of democracy and economic development. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, citizens have overthrown longtime dictators, but the path ahead is unclear. The world seems stuck — politically and economically.

Turkey, with its unique position between the developed and underdeveloped worlds, can and should extend itself to both sides. The problem is that Erdogan’s government is trying too hard to motivate change in the region, with the attitude that it can fix everything. Yet it got lost in its priorities, and its balance. This new Turkish activism in the old Ottoman lands has brought nothing substantive. The government has made it a policy to have “zero problems with neighbors,” but Turkey now has problems with everyone on its borders.

Turkey invested courageously in its relationship with Syria and Iran. Without Erdogan’s support, Syrian President Bashar Assad would never have been able to end his country’s isolation after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Turkey also tried to bridge the gap between Syria and Israel, but talks collapsed after Israel’s Gaza military operation. Erdogan took that breakdown personally, and cranked up his criticism of Israel.

Erdogan’s strong Islamist roots, coupled with Turkey’s mixed identity as a Western-oriented secular democracy, created conflict about which direction the country should take.

A confidential cable from the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Feb. 25, 2010 — which was published by Wikileaks — offers a partial answer: Turkey was playing a double game. In the cable, the Undersecretary of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Feridun Sinirlioglu, “contended Turkey’s diplomatic efforts are beginning to pull Syria out of Iran’s orbit.” Erdogan’s government failed not only in its effort to drive a wedge between the two countries, but also to prevent the Assad regime from murdering its own people. And despite his close personal relationship with Assad, Erdogan now strongly condemns Syria. And despite the United Nations’ failure to impose sanctions on Damascus after its crackdown on anti-government protesters, Erdogan announced that Turkey would put its own sanctions in place. Ankara is also actively engaging with the Syrian opposition. Was Erdogan trying to shore up Turkey’s ties in its Muslim neighborhood to benefit Western interests?

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has publicly criticized Turkey’s cooperation with NATO. “The shield will be stationed in Turkey mostly to save the Zionists so that [the Western powers] will be able to react and prevent Iran’s missiles from reaching the occupied territories in the event they take a military action against Iran and Iran launches a missile attack reciprocally,” the Iranian president said. The Tehran Times reported on Sept. 28 that “Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi criticized the stance that Turkey has recently adopted toward regional developments and said, ‘Turkey is stabbing Muslims on the back.’” Yet Turkey and Iran announced this week that they are consulting on building gas-fueled power plants in Iran.

What seems feasible geo-strategically might not necessarily be the same as the actual outcome later. Erdogan is getting tremendous media coverage, but this double game could backfire and hurt Turkey’s regional position and economic wellbeing. In fact, today’s PKK attack should make everyone reconsider as to whether the Erdogan government’s new activism in the Muslim world helped to strengthen its security and national interests.

Further, Erdogan also has said he considers Israel’s nuclear weapons a threat to the region. If Israel has nukes, he argues, why shouldn’t Iran? While this public rhetoric creates the perception that Turkey does not care whether Iran goes nuclear, that certainly isn’t the country’s position. The Erdogan government likes to use Israel as a scapegoat, and it’s dreaming if it thinks that the Jewish state will either sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or give up its arsenal. Turkey also pushed its position after the Gaza flotilla incident, insisting that Israel apologize, pay compensation to the victims’ families and lift the naval blockade of Gaza. The U.N. report — initially prepared at Turkey’s request — found Israel’s position legal.

Turkey faces a real dilemma between stoking its own international popularity and dealing with the domestic implications of its foreign policy. For example, when the 11 Palestinian prisoners including one woman, whom Israel did not want to see free at its borders, arrived to Ankara early Wednesday morning, as part of the swap deal that rescued the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, the Turkish politicians made it clear that those newly released Palestinians acts against Israel do not constitute “terrorism.” One has to wonder, however, how the Turks will explain it to their younger generations as to how to make the distinction between those acts of violence that could be justified. Turkey once argued that there is no good or bad terrorist, but a terrorist is a terrorist. And Turkey’s growing ties to Hamas and others alike in the region will only make it difficult for the Turkish security forces to give less casualties in the fight against terrorism.

Tulin Daloglu

Free-lance writer, foreign policy analyst

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/turkey-pkk_b_1019553

October 20, 2011
Turkey Sends Commandos Into Iraq After Kurdish Rebels Kill 26 Turkish Soldiers

Suspected P.K.K. rebels stage one of the worst attacks on Turkish troops in years

by Margaret Griffis, October 19, 2011

Suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K.) rebels ambushed two military posts in southeastern Turkey today, killing at 26 Turkish soldiers and wounding 18 more. Backed by helicopter gunships, about 600 Turkish commandos then entered several miles into Iraq in response to the attacks. The number of dead rebels is unknown. Turkey also hinted that outside forces might be supporting the rebels.

The P.K.K. claimed to have killed 100 Turkish soldiers, while only five of their rebels were killed during the attacks. According to other reports, though, at least 15 rebels were killed. Due to the remoteness of these mountainous areas where the P.K.K. keeps base camps, independent confirmation of casualty figures is unlikely.

The attacks came just hours after Turkey resumed shelling northern Iraq as part of a larger escalation of violence that began in May after the latest peace attempts failed. The P.K.K. is seeking greater autonomy for Kurds in Turkey, where they have been treated as second-class citizens for decades. The guerilla war has left an estimated 40,000 dead since 1984.

In an official statement, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone said, “as a friend and ally, the United States will continue to stand with the people and government of Turkey in their fight against the P.K.K., which the United States has officially designated as a terrorist organization.”

As well as enjoying the moral support, Turkey has been dependent on U.S. intelligence to stage their counter-attacks on the rebels. The United States has already promised to redeploy Predator drones to Turkey and send helicopters after the U.S. pullout from Iraq.

via Turkey Sends Commandos Into Iraq After Kurdish Rebels Kill 26 Turkish Soldiers — News from Antiwar.com.

October 20, 2011
Kurdish flag dispute stirs Iraqi tensions

By Aseel Kami

BAGHDAD | Sun Oct 16, 2011 10:21pm IST

(Reuters) – Kurds protested in an Iraqi city on Sunday against an order to lower Kurdish flags from official buildings in a disagreement fanning tensions between Iraqi Arabs and the country’s Kurdish population.

Iraq’s disputed territories, particularly the area around the northern oil-wealthy city of Kirkuk, are considered potential flashpoints for future conflict when American troops leave as scheduled at the end of this year.

Hundreds of Kurdish demonstrators rallied in Khanaqin city waving Kurdish flags and shouting slogans against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his government’s decision to take down the Kurdish flag from government buildings.

“We are Kurds and the flag is our symbol. On what basis do they want to lower the Kurdistan flag,” said Rawand Raghib, 23, a Kurd participating in the protest.

Khanaqin, 140 km (100 miles) northeast of Baghdad, lies in the Iraqi province of Diyala, but it is also adjacent to the Kurdish Sulaimaniya city, which is part of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

Maliki media advisor, Ali al-Moussawi, said raising the Kurdish flag in disputed cities was unconstitutional and would provoke Iraqi Arabs living in those areas.

“Raising the flag in these areas is a constitutional violation,” he said.

The last 41,000 American soldiers are due to withdraw from Iraq by year end when a security agreement expires. Many Kurdish officials want U.S. troops to stay after December as a guarantee of stability in the disputed areas.

Residents in Khanaqin said the city was tense with an increase in Iraqi army checkpoints. Cars carried Kurdish flags and some Kurds even changed old Kurdish flags for new ones.

No Kurdish flags were seen being taken down from the city’s government offices, residents said.

The speaker of Kurdish parliament, Kamal Kirkuki, said the flag issue was a “sacred issue”.

“The Kurdish political leadership is ready to use all means to preserve the Kurdish flag,” Kirkuki said in a press conference on Saturday in the Kurdistan capital Arbil.

Semi-autonomous since 1991, Kurdistan has enjoyed more security than the rest of Iraq, where the central government is still fighting insurgents and militia more than eight years after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The Kurds and Iraqi Arabs not only have a long territorial dispute over areas of northern Iraq, but also disagree about oil contracts the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) has signed with international oil firms.

Baghdad and the KRG still disagree over revenue-sharing and a national oil law is fueling more tensions as the central government seeks more control over crude reserves in the OPEC member nation.

(Reporting by Aseel Kami in Baghdad and Shamal Aqrawi in Arbil; Writing by Aseel Kami; Editing by Patrick Markey)

via Kurdish flag dispute stirs Iraqi tensions | Reuters.

October 17, 2011