Society
Close to the border
Published 25 October 2007
Observations on Turkey
Those wondering when Turkey will launch a military offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq should heed the old rhyme: "Remember, remember the fifth of November." Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, is due to visit Washington that day. It is scarcely conceivable that he would order an incursion before that point.
To do so would involve sending troops from Nato's second-biggest army into a country controlled by Nato's largest army, and destabilising the only peaceful region of Iraq. Erdogan could expect a White House welcome several degrees below zero. Why, then, is he sounding so belligerent?
When I interviewed him for the Times this past weekend, he talked of a military operation as if it was inevitable. He pointed out that the Turkish parliament had voted 507-19 to authorise military action. He said that Turkey had repeatedly asked the governments of the US and Iraq to crack down on the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but they had done nothing, and that Turkish patience was exhausted. "Whatever is necessary will be done," he declared. "We don't have to get permission from anybody."
Such comments are designed to assuage the fury of Erdogan's intensely nationalistic countrymen following not only a rash of PKK attacks on Turkish soldiers, but a move by the US Congress to define the mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during the First World War as genocide.
More importantly, Erdogan's belligerent rhetoric is intended to avert the very action he threatens. He is trying to generate such alarm in Washington and Baghdad that they tackle the PKK themselves.
Erdogan is no fool. He knows that the arguments against a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq far outweigh those in favour. Such a drastic move would cause a major breach with Washington, fuel opposition to Turkish membership of the EU, split Nato and compound the chaos in Iraq. It would reverse the progress Turkey has made towards integrating its own Kurdish minority.
And it would stand scant chance of success. The Turkish army has never been able to crush the PKK in its own territory, let alone in the rugged terrain across the border. Erdogan has acknowledged that 24 previous cross-border operations gained nothing. In all likelihood the 3,500 PKK guerrillas in northern Iraq would simply melt into the mountains or seek to destroy the pipelines carrying Iraqi oil into Turkey, while their comrades north of the border stepped up their attacks on Turkish targets.
So far Erdogan's strategy appears to be paying off. Washington did launch what the US State Department called a "diplomatic full-court press". President Bush, the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates, all begged their Turkish counterparts for restraint and promised US support. The Iraqi government pledged its full co-operation. Envoys shuttled frantically between capitals.
The outcome is still far from clear. Neither the US nor the Iraqi government has surplus troops to send to northern Iraq. They are instead pressuring Iraq's Kurdish leaders to curtail PKK activities in their semi-autonomous region, arguing that the relative security they have achieved since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein will be at risk if they alienate Turkey.
Is the regional government willing to crack down on fellow Kurds, stop their cross-border raids and arrest their commanders? Does it have the capability to do so? If the answers to those two key questions are "no" - and they may be - Erdogan's bluff will be called. His nation's anger will leave him with little choice but to follow through on his threat, whatever the cost.
Martin Fletcher is associate editor of the Times
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
