Turkey determined to turn the
screws By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - The Iraqi ministerial
delegation that went to Ankara this weekend to
discuss solutions to the stand-off in
Turkish-Iraqi relations returned to Baghdad
empty-handed. These were supposed to be "make or
break talks". Turkish officials described them as
"the last chance to resolve the issue before
resorting to a possible cross-border operation". A
Turkish diplomat described Iraqi proposals,
without naming them, as "unsatisfactory".
Apparently, the Iraqi government refused
to arrest and extradite
members of the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) stationed in northern Iraq.
The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki,
already facing a difficult domestic situation in
which security is completely lacking, simply
cannot come to blows with Iraqi Kurds. It is the
Kurdish bloc that has kept Maliki in place after
most of his allies abandoned him early this
summer. If he had alternatives to bolster him
domestically within Parliament, like Sunnis or
fellow Shi'ites, perhaps Maliki could have taken a
different position to avert a military showdown.
But Maliki has done it before. He
personally did it in Ankara in August when meeting
with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan.
Smiling for the cameras, he told the world that he
would work against the PKK. With a straight face,
he added, "Iraq does not allow party members [to
operate] from its territory and will not allow it
in the future." Too bad the Turks did not have
footage of the Iraqi prime minister's speech to
back their argument against the visiting Iraqi
delegation, which repeated Maliki's line that the
PKK does not work under the umbrella of the Iraqi
government.
The Turkish team included
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and Interior Minister
Besir Atalay. Representing the Iraqis were Defense
Minister Abdul-Qadir Jassem and National Security
Minister Sherwan al-Waili. As testimony to just
how angry the Turks are, they banned Kurdistan
Minister of the Interior Kareem Sinjari from
entering Turkey with the Iraqi delegation. In
addition to sending minor officials to welcome the
Iraqi delegation, the Turks lodged them in a
police guesthouse, rather than a five-star hotel.
At least one of the meetings was also attended by
Nancy McEldowney, the US charge d'affairs.
Meanwhile, 100,000 Turkish troops remain
stationed on the Iraqi border, awaiting orders
from Erdogan. Already, Turkish warplanes have
attacked PKK positions in the mountainous
districts of Siirt, Hakkari and Sirnak near the
border with Iraq. And crude oil prices rose on
Friday to US$92 a barrel.
Many consider
Turkey's display of displeasure as an ultimatum to
Maliki; a final warning before Turkish tanks roll
into Iraqi territory. That, however, is unlikely
to happen before Erdogan meets US President George
W Bush in Washington on November 5. General Yasar
Buykanit, the Turkish chief-of-staff, commented,
"We will wait for his [Erdogan's] return."
Cemil Cicek, the deputy Turkish prime
minister, explained his country's position in a TV
interview, saying that Ankara wants the Iraqis to
extradite "all" members of the PKK stationed in
Iraqi Kurdistan. A list has been given to the
Iraqi government, which has, to date, done nothing
about it, despite the chorus of commitment coming
from Iraq's (Kurdish) President Jalal Talabani and
Maliki. Cicek added, "Every member of the PKK in
northern Iraqi is guilty. They are murderers - to
say the least - because they are members in a
terrorist organization." He summed up, "We want
all of them."
Sanction
politics The Turkish National Security
Council - backed by the Turkish government and
military - recommended last week economic
sanctions against Iraq to force its government to
change course over the PKK. Kurdistan, however, is
a stable and prosperous area; it would suffer
serious damage if sanctions were imposed by the
Turks. Destruction of Kurdistan would enrage the
Iraqis, the Kurds, and the Americans who have
supported the Iraqi Kurds unconditionally in
making their autonomous district more prosperous
than most parts of the Arab world.
Kurdistan has its own international
airport and is filled with professional hospitals,
modern supermarkets, lavish restaurants and
factories. A BBC correspondent noted the extensive
construction work taking place in northern Iraq,
saying: "Everywhere you look, bulldozers are at
work. Things are booming. People have money,
people are spending it, they feel it's safe to
spend and to build for the future."
Most
of this was the product of Kurdish money pouring
into the district from those who had fled Saddam
Hussein's regime in the 1980s and made successful
careers for themselves in the diaspora. Those
wishing to invest are exempted from taxes during
the first five years of business operations and
facilities such as free land are given to them by
the Kurdish government.
A five-star luxury
hotel is being erected in Sulaymaniyya to
accommodate the increasing number of tourists who
flee hellish Iraq and come to Kurdistan. Even
migration to Kurdistan is on the rise, including
by ethnic Arab Iraqis who are always searching for
"safer" living conditions - something that a
Turkish invasion would no longer provide.
At first, the migration was confined to
laborers or unemployed young men who wanted to
work at one of the many construction sites dotting
Kurdistan, but today many educated professionals
are making the journey as well. It has been
estimated that about 25% of ophthalmologists from
Basra have established medical centers in
Kurdistan. Since the fall of Saddam in 2003, about
40 Arab professors have gone to Kurdistan to teach
at Sulaymaniyya University.
Turkey can -
if it wants - cut the electrical power it provides
to Iraqi Kurdistan and prevent the passage of fuel
products through its territory. It can stop
cement, foodstuff, iron and paper exports to Iraq.
Thousands of Turkish cargo trucks, for example,
pass through Kurdistan and pay the provincial
government in Irbil a levy of US$100 a truck. The
Turks can find alternative destinations and
deprive northern Iraq of this revenue.
Mahmud Mashadani, the speaker of the Iraqi
Parliament, snapped back that if Turkey were to do
this, Iraq would cut the flow of oil to Ankara.
"Northern Iraq cannot be pressured," he said,
adding, "Iraq is a rich country and if there are
pressures, we will cut off the Ceyhan pipelines."
Erdogan is furious with both the US and
the European Union for not doing their share in
hunting down PKK terrorists. He doesn't really
blame Maliki, knowing that the man is practically
helpless. Speaking on national TV at the weekend,
Erdogan said that not one EU country had arrested
members of the PKK, although the group is branded
as "terrorist" by the EU, the US and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.
A former US
ambassador to Turkey, Morton Abramowitz, wrote an
article in response in Newsweek, titled "Toward
the point of no return". Supporting the Turkish
prime minister, he noted, "If the Bush
administration and Congress set out to
deliberately undermine the Turkish government and
its efforts to modernize the country, they
couldn't have done a better job than they are
doing already." The article asks why American
units have not engaged the PKK.
Major
General Benjamin Mixon, the US commander in Iraqi
Kurdistan, sent a clear message to the Turks which
contradicted everything US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice has been saying to Turkish
authorities. He stressed that the US planned to do
"absolutely nothing" to counter the PKK, noting
that Iraqi Kurdistan is an autonomous region that
is controlled by an elected provincial government,
and that he had been given no orders to do
anything about the PKK.
Earlier, Rice had
called on the Turks to show self-restraint, saying
that the US was "very worried" about the situation
and was willing to offer maximum cooperation to
defuse tension between Turks and Iraqis. That was
echoed by Bush but no action followed, or any
indication for the Turks that the United States
was serious about the PKK.
While waiting
for their prime minister to land in Washington,
the Turks are preparing for two big events, and
emotions are soaring in all parts of the country,
along with fluttering Turkish flags. One event is
this Monday - anniversary of the day the republic
was created by Kemal Ataturk in 1923. The other is
November 10, the anniversary of Ataturk's death in
1938. On that day, there will be a minute's
silence throughout Turkey at 9:30am. People will
be thinking of Ataturk. People will be thinking of
Erdogan. And people will be thinking of the PKK
and how to crush this menace, which has haunted
Turkey since 1978 and led to the killing of over
40,000 people.
Sami Moubayed is
a Syrian political analyst.
(Copyright
2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
