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=> Turkey snaps over US bombing of its bretheren

Turkey snaps over US bombing of its bretheren
Posted by Assyrian Empress (Guest) davidchibo@hotmail.com - Sunday, September 19 2004, 4:01:31 (CEST)
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By K Gajendra Singh

For the first time since the acrimonious exchange of words in July last year
following the arrest and imprisonment of 11 Turkish commandos in Kurdish
Iraq, for which Washington expressed "regret", differences erupted publicly
this week between North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies Turkey and the
US over attacks on Turkey's ethnic cousins, the Turkmens in northern Iraq.

Talking to a Turkish TV channel, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned that
if the US did not cease its attacks on Tal Afar, a Turkmen city at the
junction of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, Ankara might withdraw its support to the
US in Iraq.

"I told [US Secretary of State Colin Powell] that what is being done there
is harming the civilian population, that it is wrong, and that if it
continues, Turkey's cooperation on issues regarding Iraq will come to a
total stop." He added, "We will continue to say these things. Of course we
will not stop only at words. If necessary, we will not hesitate to do what
has to be done."

Turkey is a key US ally in a largely hostile region. US forces use its
Incirlik military base near northern Iraq. Turkish firms are also involved
heavily in the construction and transport business in Iraq, with hundreds of
Turkish vehicles bringing in goods for the US military every day. It is an
alternative route through friendly northern Kurdish territory to those from
Jordan and Kuwait. But many Turks have been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgent
groups and some have been killed.

Turkey contains a large ethnic Turkmen population and Ankara has long seen
itself as the guardian of their rights, particularly across the border in
northern Iraq, where they constitute a significant minority.

The US attacks on Tal Afar, which Iraqi Turkmen groups in Turkey say have
left 120 dead and over 200 injured, were launched, the US says, to root out
terrorists. The US has denied the extent of the damage, saying that it
avoided civilian targets and killed only terrorists it says were
infiltrating the town from Syria.

US ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman commented, "We are carrying out a
limited military operation and we are trying to keep civilian losses to a
minimum. We cannot completely eliminate the possibility [of civilian
casualties] ... We believe the operation is being conducted with great
care," he said after briefing Turkish officials. There have not been any
reports of further attacks since the Turkish warning.

The deterioration in US-Turkish relations underlines the fast-changing
strategic scenario in the region in the post-Cold War era after the collapse
of the Soviet Union, the September 11 attacks on the US, the US-led invasion
on Iraq, now conceded as illegal by United Nations Secretary General Kofi
Annan, and the deteriorating security situation in that country.

Despite negative signals on Ankara's mission to join the European Union,
Turkey is moving away from the US and closer to the EU - it is even looking
to buy Airbuses, and arms, from Europe rather than the US.

At the same time, Turkey is drawing closer to Syria, normalizing relations
with Iran and improving economic relations with Russia, as well as discuss
with Moscow ways to counter terrorist acts, from which both Russia and
Turkey suffer. Russian President Vladimir Putin called off a visit to Turkey
when the hostage crisis broke at Beslan in the Russian Caucasus last week.

And Turkey has also moved away from long-time friend Israel, the US's
umbilically aligned strategic partner in the Middle East. Turkey has accused
Israel of "state terrorism" against Palestinians. A recent ruling party team
from Turkey returned from Tel Aviv not satisfied with Israeli explanations
over charges that it was interfering in northern Iraqi affairs.

With newspapers full of stories and TV screens showing the Turkmens being
attacked in the US operations at Tal Afar, many Turks are angry at what is
being done to their ethnic brethren. These have been large protests outside
the US Embassy in Ankara, and the belief that the US attacks are a part of a
campaign to ethnically cleanse the Turkmens from northern Iraq is
widespread.

"Some people are uncomfortable with the ethnic structure of this area, so,
using claims of a terrorist threat, they went in and killed people," said
Professor Suphi Saatci of the Kirkuk Foundation, one of several Turkmen
groups in Turkey.

He claims that the the attacks are a part of a wider campaign to establish
Kurdish control over all of northern Iraq, and he points to the removal of
Turkmen officials from governing positions in the region to be replaced by
Kurds. He also says that the Iraqi police force deployed in northern Iraq is
dominated by members of Kurdish factions. "The US is acting completely under
the direction of the Kurdish parties in northern Iraq," says Saatci. "Tal
Afar is a clearly Turkmen area and this is something they were very jealous
of."

While Kurdish officials deny any attempt to alter the ethnic balance in the
region, last week Masud Barzani, leader of one of the two largest Kurdish
parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), said that Kirkuk "is a Kurdish
city" and one that the KDP was willing to fight for, which certainly did not
calm fears of the Turkmens and angered the Turks. Many Turkmen see Kirkuk as
historically theirs. Turkey considers northern Iraq - ie Kurdistan - as part
of its sphere of influence, especially the Turkmen minority. Ankara is
especially concerned that the Kurds in Iraq don't gain full autonomy as this
would likely fire the aspirations of Turkey's Kurdish minority.

The US military disputes that its forces laid siege to Tal Afar, saying that
the operation was to free the city from insurgents, including foreign
fighters, who had turned it into a haven for militants smuggling men and
arms across the Syrian border. And a military spokesman denied that Kurds
were using US forces to gain the upper hand in their ethnic struggle with
the Turkmens. The US characterized the resistance in Tal Afar as put up by a
disparate group of former Saddam Hussein loyalists, religious extremists and
foreign fighters who were united only by their opposition to US forces.

Gareth Stansfield, a regional specialist at the Center of Arab and Islamic
Studies at Britain's University of Exeter, said recently that "the most
important angle of what the Turkish concern is [and that is] that there is a
strong belief in Ankara that Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister, and the
Americans, were suckered into attacking Tal Afar by Kurdish intelligence
circles, and really brought to Tal Afar to target ostensibly al-Qaeda and
anti-occupation forces with the Kurds knowing full well that this would also
bring them up against Turkmens and create a rift between Washington and
Ankara over their treatment of a Turkmen city."

Turkey maintains a few hundred troops in the region as a security presence
to monitor Turkish Kurd rebels who have some hideouts in the region. But any
large-scale presence has been derailed by the objections of Iraqi Kurdish
leaders. "That has created an uneasy state of co-existence between Ankara
and the two major Kurdish political parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party
and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a balance which any US military operation
in the area could easily disturb."

Stansfield added that the incident shows how volatile tensions remain
between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds, despite ongoing efforts by both sides to
work together. "The Turkish position has become increasingly more
sophisticated over the last months, and arguably years, with Ankara finding
an accommodation with the KDP and PUK and beginning to realize that while it
is not their favored option to allow the Kurds to be autonomous in the north
of Iraq, it is perhaps one of the better options that they are faced with in
this situation," said Stansfield.

He added, "However, the relationship between the two principle Kurdish
parties and the government of Turkey will always be sensitized by the Kurds'
treatment of Turkmens and indeed now the American treatment of Turkmens
vis-a-vis Kurds."

Transfer of sovereignty and the Kurds
In January this year, the then Iraqi Governing Council agreed to a federal
structure to enshrine Kurdish self-rule in three northern provinces of Iraq.
This was to be included in a "fundamental law" that would precede national
elections in early 2005. The fate of three more provinces claimed by the
Kurds was to be decided later. "In the fundamental law, Kurdistan will have
the same legal status as it has now," said a Kurdish council member,
referring to the region that has enjoyed virtual autonomy since the end of
the 1991 Gulf War.

"When the constitution is written and elections are held, we will not agree
to less than what is in the fundamental law, and we may ask for more," said
the Kurdish council member. Arabs, Turkmens, Sunnis and Shi'ites expressed
vociferous opposition to the proposed federal system for Kurdish Iraq. They
organized demonstrations leading to ethnic tensions and violence in Kirkuk
and many other cities in north Iraq. Many protesters were killed and scores
were injured.

However, when "sovereignty" was transferred on June 30 to the interim
government led by Iyad Allawi, the interim constitutional arrangement did
not include a federal structure for Kurdish self-rule, although to pacify
the Kurds, key portfolios of defense and foreign affairs were allotted to
them.

A press release from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) stated that "the
current situation in Iraq and the new-found attitude of the US, UK and UN
has led to a serious re-think for the Kurds. The proposed plans do not seem
to promise the expected Kurdish role in the future of a new Iraq. The Kurds
feel betrayed once again." It added that "if the plight of the Kurds is
ignored yet again and we are left with no say in the future of a new Iraq,
the will of the Kurdish people will be too great for the Kurdish political
parties to ignore, leading to a total withdrawal from any further
discussions relating to the formation of any new Iraqi government. This will
certainly not serve the unity of Iraq." Underlining that the Kurds have been
the only true friends and allies of the US coalition, the release concluded
that "the Kurds will no longer be second-class citizens in Iraq". However,
the Kurds did not precipitate matters.

Demographic changes in north Iraq
Kirkuk, with a population of some 750,000, and other towns are now the scene
of ethnic and demographic struggles between Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds, with
the last wanting to take over the region and make the city a part of an
autonomous zone, with Kirkuk as its capital.

The area around Kirkuk has 6% of the world's oil reserves. In April 2003, it
was estimated that the population was 250,000 each for Turkmen, Arab and
Kurd. A large number of Arabs were settled there by Saddam Hussein, and they
are mostly Shi'ites from the south. The Turkmens are generally Shi'ites,
like their ethnic kin, the Alevis in Turkey, but many have given up Turkmen
traditions in favor of the urban, clerical religion common among the Arabs
of the south. Kirkuk is therefore a stronghold of the Muqtada al-Sadr
movement which has given US-led forces such a hard time in the south in
Najaf. The influential Shi'ite political party, the Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), also has good support, perhaps 40%, in
the region. Kurds are mostly Sunnis, and were the dominant population in
Kirkuk in the 1960s and 1970s, before Saddam's Arabization policy saw a lot
of Kurds moved further north.

According to some estimates, over 70,000 Kurds have entered Kirkuk over the
past 17 months, and about 50,000 Arabs have fled back to the south. It can
be said, therefore, that now there are about 320,000 Kurds and 200,000 Arabs
in the city. The number of Turkmen has also been augmented. During the
Ottoman rule, the Turkmen dominated the city, and it was so until oil was
discovered. It is reported that, encouraged by the Kurdish leadership, as
many as 500 Kurds a day are returning to the city. The changes are being
carried out for the quick-fix census planned for October, which in turn will
be the basis for the proportional representation for the planned January
elections, if these are even held, given the country's security problems.
Both the Turkmens and Arabs have said that the Kurds are using these
demographic changes to engulf Kirkuk and ensure that it is added to the
enlarged Kurdish province which they are planning. The Kurds hope to get at
least semi-autonomous status from Baghdad.

North Iraq and Turkey's Kurdish problem
Turkey has serious problems with its own Kurds, who form 20% of the
population. A rebellion since 1984 against the Turkish state led by Abdullah
Ocalan of the Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has cost over 35,000
lives, including 5,000 soldiers. To control and neutralize the rebellion,
thousands of Kurdish villages have been bombed, destroyed, abandoned or
relocated; millions of Kurds have been moved to shanty towns in the south
and east or migrated westwards. The economy of the region was shattered.
With a third of the Turkish army tied up in the southeast, the cost of
countering the insurgency at its height amounted to between $6 billion to $8
billion a year.

The rebellion died down after the arrest and trial of Ocalan, in 1999, but
not eradicated. After a court in Turkey in 2002 commuted to life
imprisonment the death sentence passed on Ocalan and parliament granted
rights for the use of the Kurdish language, some of the root causes of the
Kurdish rebellion were removed. The PKK - now also called Konga-Gel -
shifted almost 4,000 of its cadres to northern Iraq and refused to lay down
arms as required by a Turkish "repentance law". The US's priority to disarm
PKK cadres was never very high. In fact, the US wants to reward Iraqi Kurds,
who have remained mostly peaceful and loyal while the rest of the country
has not.

Early this month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey's
patience was running out over US reluctance to take military action against
Turkish Kurds hiding in northern Iraq. In 1999, the PKK declared a
unilateral ceasefire after the capture of its leader, Ocalan. But the
ceasefire was not renewed in June and there have been increasing skirmishes
and battles between Kurdish insurgents and Turkish security forces inside
Turkey. Turkey remains frustrated over US reluctance to employ military
means against the PKK fighters - in spite of promises to do so.

Iraqi Kurds have been ambivalent to the PKK, helping them at times. Ankara
has entered north Iraq from time to time - despite protests - to attack PKK
bases and its cadres. Ankara has also said that it would regard an
independent Kurdish entity as a cause for war. It is opposed to the Kurds
seizing the oil centers around Kirkuk, which would give them financial
autonomy, and this would also constitute a reason for entry into north Iraq.
The Turks vehemently oppose any change in the ethnic composition of the city
of Kirkuk .

The Turks manifest a pervasive distrust of autonomy or models of a federal
state for Iraqi Kurds. It would affect and encourage the aspirations of
their own Kurds. It also revives memories of Western conspiracies against
Turkey and the unratified 1920 Treaty of Sevres forced on the Ottoman Sultan
by the World War I victors which had promised independence to the Armenians
and autonomy to Turkey's Kurds. So Mustafa Kemal Ataturk opted for the
unitary state of Turkey and Kurdish rebellions in Turkey were ruthlessly
suppressed.

The 1980s war between Iraq and resurgent Shi'ites in Iran helped the PKK to
establish itself in the lawless north Kurdish Iraq territory. The PKK also
helped itself with arms freely available in the region during the eight-year
war.

The 1990-91 Gulf crisis and war proved to be a watershed in the violent
explosion of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey. A nebulous and ambiguous
situation emerged in north Iraq when, at the end of the war, US president
Bush Sr encouraged the Kurds (and the hapless Shi'ites in the south) to
revolt against Saddam's Sunni Arab regime. Turkey was dead against it, as a
Kurdish state in the north would give ideas to its own Kurds.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the Gulf were totally opposed to a
Shi'ite state in south Iraq. The hapless Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites paid a
heavy price. Thousands were butchered. The international media's coverage of
the pitiable conditions, with more than half a million Iraqi Kurds escaping
towards the Turkish border from Saddam's forces in March 1991, led to the
creation of a protected zone in north Iraq, later patrolled by US and
British war planes. The Iraqi Kurds did elect a parliament, but it never
functioned properly. Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani run
almost autonomous administrations in their areas. This state of affairs has
allowed the PKK a free run in north Iraq.

After the 1991 war, Turkey lost out instead of gaining as promised by the
US. The closure of Iraqi pipelines, economic sanctions and the loss of trade
with Iraq, which used to pump billions of US dollars into the economy and
provide employment to hundreds of thousands, with thousands of Turkish
trucks roaring up and down to Iraq, only exacerbated the economic and social
problems in the Kurdish heartland and the center of the PKK rebellion.

But many Turks still remain fascinated with the dream of "getting back" the
Ottoman provinces of Kurdish-majority Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq. They were
originally included within the sacred borders of the republic proclaimed in
the National Pact of 1919 by Ataturk and his comrades, who had started
organizing resistance to fight for Turkey's independence from the occupying
World War I victors.

So it has always remained a mission and objective to be reclaimed some time.
The oil-rich part of Mosul region was occupied by the British forces
illegally after the armistice and then annexed to Iraq, then under British
mandate, in 1925, much to Turkish chagrin. Iraq was created by joining
Ottoman Baghdad and Basra vilayats (provinces). Turks also base their claims
on behalf of less than half a million Turkmen who lived in Kirkuk with the
Kurds before Arabization changed the ethnic balance of the region.

With its attacks on Tal Afar, the US is stirring a very deep well of
discontent.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to
Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as
ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the
Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Email: Gajendrak@hotmail.com.
<mailto:Gajendrak@hotmail.com



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