You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Revue <strong>de</strong> Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro <strong>de</strong> la Prensa-Basm Ozeti<br />
Kurdistan<br />
America between the Turl{sand Kurds<br />
ANKARA AND WASHINGTON, De<br />
As tension rises between the Turkish government and Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, the<br />
~ • "",",,'><br />
'/.r;'c' ;>:: '.'_ Americansare inaquandary<br />
/'<br />
.... ~.<br />
i~ ~<br />
\T:(~9::};<br />
",:;~<br />
ITIS looking ever more awkward for the<br />
Americans to keep two of their closest allies<br />
in the Middle East simultaneously<br />
sweet: Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, who enjoy<br />
extreme autonomy in what is now the<br />
only stable part of Iraq. Kurdsthere are particularly<br />
rattled by several of the recommen<br />
datIons of the Iraq Study Group, cochaired<br />
by a former secretary of state,<br />
James Baker (see page 46). The Turks, for<br />
their part, are increasingly angered by a renewal<br />
of attacks in Thrkey by guerrillas of<br />
the home-grown Kurdistan Workers' Party<br />
(PKK).Moreover, they have never liked the<br />
i<strong>de</strong>a of an autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan,<br />
seeing it as a magnet for Kurdish nationalism<br />
in the region-especially in Thrkey itself.<br />
In<strong>de</strong>ed, there is a growing chance that<br />
the Thrkish army will, perhaps as the<br />
snows melt next spring, inva<strong>de</strong> northern<br />
Iraq in an effort to clobber the PKKin its<br />
safe haven just insi<strong>de</strong> Iraq (see next article).<br />
The Iraqi Kurds might then feel obliged<br />
to help their ethnie kinsmen fight<br />
back against the Turks. At that point, it is<br />
unclear what the Amerieans would do, for<br />
they <strong>de</strong>em it vital to stay friends with both<br />
the Thrks,who are members of NATO, and<br />
the Iraqi Kurds,who have hitherto been by<br />
far the most pro-American group in Iraq.<br />
Iraq's Kurds disliked the Study Group's<br />
suggestion that Iraq's centrai government<br />
should tighten its control over Iraq's provinces.<br />
They hated a recommendation that<br />
a promised referendum on Iraq's disputed<br />
oil-rich province, Kirkuk, be postponed.<br />
And they were horrified by the report's caIl<br />
for America to improve relations with<br />
Syria and Iran, which have both long suppressed<br />
Kurdish nationaIism.<br />
The Iraqi Kurds' biggest worry now is<br />
that an American wobble might hasten<br />
the feared Turkish invasion of their enclave.<br />
The Thrks would argue that they<br />
merely wish to knock out some 5,00o-odd<br />
PKKrebels in the mountains close to the<br />
bor<strong>de</strong>r, then withdraw. But Iraq's 4m-5m<br />
Kurds fear that the Turks' true aim would<br />
be to ruin their successful experiment in<br />
self-rule, whieh has been inspiring Turkey's<br />
own restive Kurds,some 14m-strong.<br />
"It's no longer a matter of if they [the<br />
Thrks] inva<strong>de</strong> but how America responds<br />
when they do," says a seasoned NATO<br />
military observer. America would be loth<br />
to let the Iraqi Kurds help their PKKkmsmen<br />
fight back, since Turkey is a cherished<br />
NATO ally and a pivotai Muslim state in<br />
the region. Thrkey's airbase at Incirlik, in<br />
southern Turkey, is a hub for non-combat<br />
materiel flown in for American and allied<br />
troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.<br />
The increasingly confi<strong>de</strong>nt Iraqi Kurds<br />
sometimes helped Thrkey fight against the<br />
PKKin the 1990S, but now they say they<br />
will no longer kill fellow Kurds. Instead,<br />
they have been strengthening links with<br />
their Turkish cousms, offering jobs and<br />
scholarships in northern Iraq. The Ameri-<br />
cans have been telhng the Turks to stay out<br />
of Iraq, <strong>de</strong>spite the PKK'Sprovocations.<br />
So far Turkey has obeyed, hopmg that<br />
America would <strong>de</strong>al with the PKKitself. Its<br />
failure to do so is perhaps the biggest cause<br />
of rampant antI-American feeling in Turkey.<br />
ln July Turkey's mildly Islamist prime<br />
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ISsaid to<br />
have warned PreSI<strong>de</strong>nt George Bush, in<br />
several telephone caIls, that he mIght be<br />
unable to restrain his hawkish generals<br />
after 15Turkish soldiers were killed n{PKK<br />
attacks in a single week. Sorne 250,000<br />
Turkish troops then briefly massed on the<br />
Iraqi bor<strong>de</strong>r, jolting the Americans into<br />
naming a former NATO comman<strong>de</strong>r, Joseph<br />
Ralston, as a "special envoy for countering<br />
the PKK"(bis own <strong>de</strong>scriptIOn). But<br />
the PKK'Sattacks went on, <strong>de</strong>spite its proclaimed<br />
ceasefire in September.<br />
One big reason for Turkish restraint<br />
against the PKKin Iraq has been repeated<br />
warnings from the European Union,<br />
which Turkey has been bent on Joining.<br />
But that restraint may weaken as the EU, or<br />
at least sorne of its leadmg members, continues<br />
to snub Turkeym ItSefforts to obtain<br />
membership.<br />
If Turkish forces do inva<strong>de</strong> Iraq, Amer- ~~<br />
45