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November November 7, 2007
Turkey set to attack, but limits seen
By Selcan Hacaoqlu and David Rising Associated Press /
ANKARA, Turkey - Tens of thousands of
have been evacuating their camps and melting
Turkish troops were poised yesterday on the away into cities and other regions.
border with Iraq awaiting the order to attack Kurdish
fighters, and President Abdullah Gul said the coun¬
try will do "what it believes to be right" to tame the
rebels,
more stories like this
But with winter rapidly approaching in the moun¬
tainous region, and pressure from the United States
to avoid an all-out cross-border incursion, officials
and analysts said Turkey will probably be looking
toward a limited offensive involving raids and aerial
assaults.
Several possibilities are being discussed, including
F-1 6 strikes on rebel positions, helicopter raids, and
special forces missions, according to a government
official familiar with the planning.
"The area is heavily mined and a big incursion with
tens of thousands of troops is out of the question,"
he said, speaking on condition of anonymity be¬
cause he was not authorized to speak to the press.
With the Turkish government talking openly for
weeks about the likelihood of an attack, the official
said intelligence information shows the guerrillas
A high-ranking retired military officer who partici¬
pated in the planning of previous incursions into
northern Iraq in the mid-1990s said he had received
the same information.
"They are apparently evacuating camps along the
border ahead of a Turkish operation, as usual," said
the officer, also on condition of anonymity.
The United States and Iraq have been pressing
Turkey to avoid a major cross-border attack on
Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, rebel bases in
northern Iraq out of fear such an incursion would
bring instability to what has been one of the calmest
areas in Iraq.
In northern Iraq, a spokesman for one of the two
parties that governs the semiautonomous region
urged Turkey to refrain from any attack, but sug¬
gested scaled-down raids would not be as destabi¬
lizing.
Turkish Daily News November 7. 2007
"We reject any kind of Turkish military strike,
whether limited or not," Azad Jindyany, spokesman
for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said in Sulaimaniyah.
"A limited one would cause a limited
problem, but an unlimited strike would destroy the
whole situation."
The former military officer said Turkey was planning
for air strikes from planes and helicopter gunships,
as well as special forces commando raids.
But scaled-down assaults wouldn't necessarily rule
out the use of large numbers of troops, he said.
"A few thousand troops could still penetrate the
Iraqi border to block escape routes of the rebels
during a pinpoint raid," he said.
PKK rebels have killed more than 40 Turks in hit-
and-run attacks over the past month, mainly sol¬
diers, raising the public pressure on Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to retaliate.
Gul said yesterday that Turkey had made its deci¬
sion on what to do about the PKK rebels.
"Turkey will carry out what it believes to be right
with determination," state-run Anatolia news agency
quoted Gul as saying.
While he did not specify what the decision was, the
president made it clear that Turkey feels the PKK is
leading to instability in the region.
The comments were made a day after President
Bush met in Washington with Erdogan and prom¬
ised him the United States would share military
intelligence in the hunt for PKK rebels.
Following that meeting, Erdogan strongly suggested
an attack was imminent.
US to provide intelligence aid for 'limited1 operation
US mulls providing Turkey intelligence to help 'limited, targeted' anti-PKK operations, White House says
UMÏT ENGJIMSOY
WASHINGTON Presid ent George W. Bush
has told Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan that the United States will boost intelli¬
gence help to Turkey in its fight against the northern
Iraq-based outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
terrorists, but the Turks want to make sure that
Washington keeps its promise this time. "It is time
for concrete action, not rhetoric," Erdogan said at
the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS), a think tank here, hours after a 90-minute
meeting with Bush at the White House Mon¬
day." Step one is to make sure that our intelligence
sharing is good," Bush told reporters at the end of
talks wi th Erdogan. "Good, sound intelligence
delivered on a real-time basis using modern tech¬
nology will make it much easier to deal effectively
with people who are using murder as a weapon to
achieve political objectives," Bush said. Bush's
spokesman, Dana Perino, provided some details on
the nature of Washington's pledge for intelligence
support. Recent U.S.-Turkish anti-PKK cooperation
talks have included "intelligence information that we
can give to the Turks as they carry out limited and
targeted exercises against the PKK," she said.
New military liaison:
Qualifying the PKK as a common enemy of both
Turkey and the United States, Bush also announced
the creation of a new anti-PKK liaison between top
60
military officials from the two NATO nations."We
talked about the need for our military to stay in
constant contact. To this end, the prime minister and
I have set up a tripartite arrangement for his number
two man in the military to stay in touch with our
number two man and General Petraeus," he
said.With "number two men," he was referring to
Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Ergin Saygun
and Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were both present at
the White House talks. Gen. David Petraeus is the
top commander of U.S. and coalition forces in
lraq."This was nice talk, but we really urge the
United States to abide by its pledge this time and let
this intelligence apparatus work," one Turkish official
said. "Otherwise they will lose all their credibil¬
ity." Increased PKK attacks from bases in northern
Iraq on Turkish targets last month prompted Parlia¬
ment to authorize the government to order a military
incursion into Iraq to fight the PKK there. Turkey
repeated calls on Washington and Baghdad to put
an end to the PKK's presence in northern Iraq have
so far produced no concrete outcome. While the
United States says that Turkey has the right to
defend itself against terrorists, it staunchly opposes
unilateral Turkish military intervention, fearing that it
will further destabilize the war-torn country. Erdogan
said that international law had provided Turkey with
the right to take cross-border measures against
terrorism. "The process for an operation has already
started," he told Turkish reporters here after his talks
with Bush.
Timing not clear:
But he also hinted that such military action was not
imminent. "We will fulfill our responsibility at the
necessary time and on the necessary basis and
when the conditions become ripe," he said at the
CSIS. But Bush dismissed as "hypothetical" a ques¬
tion about the potential impact of a Turkish incursion.
At a separate appearance at the National Press
Club, Erdogan said he was "happy" with the talks he
had with Bush. Pointing to some European nations,
Erdogan said Turkey did not receive the interna¬
tional support it deserved in fighting against the
PKK. In a related development, Nechirvan Barzani,
"prime minister" of the semi-autonomous Kurdish
regional government in northern Iraq, an entity not
recognized by Turkey, has proposed the creation of
a four-way mechanism between Turkey, the United
States, Iraq and Iraqi Kurds to jointly deal with the
PKK problem. In an article published by the Washing¬
ton Post Monday, Barzani said the problem caused
by the PKK's presence in northern Iraq cannot be
resolved without Iraqi Kurdish involvement. Erdogan
left here late Monday for an official visit to Italy.