Winter weighs on Turkey's
options By Andrew McGregor
As Turkish troops mass along the border
with Kurdish northern Iraq, chief of the Turkish
General Staff General Yasar Buyukanit has promised
to make the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) "grieve with an intensity they cannot
imagine".
While an attack on northern Iraq
seems imminent, important questions are being
raised in Ankara about the effectiveness of a
cross-border operation. What meaningful objectives
are obtainable? Can the PKK be crushed through
unilateral military
action? Should the campaign
wait until spring? There is political pressure on
the Turkish government to do something now, a
sentiment reflected in the urgency of Turkish
demands for Iraq and the United States to take
action against the PKK.
Large-scale PKK
attacks, such as the October 21 ambush in Hakkari
province (about four kilometers from the border)
that killed 12 Turkish soldiers and involved over
200 Kurdish fighters, clearly seem designed to
provoke a Turkish border crossing. The aim may be
to cause a rift between Turkey and its allies
while involving the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in
a difficult and dangerous winter campaign in
Iraq’s northern mountains. The PKK has also
threatened to cut the oil pipeline to the Turkish
port of Ceyhan and even strike oil tankers heading
for Turkey. Following the deadly attack on the
21st, 11 Turkish battalions were moved up to the
border to prevent the movement of PKK fighters
across it.
The electoral success last
summer of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development
Party in former PKK strongholds in southeast
Turkey has put pressure on the PKK to try and draw
Turkey into a major struggle in northern Iraq with
international implications for Ankara. Iraq's
Kurdish Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, claims
that the PKK has been infiltrated by Turkish
intelligence, and suggests that Ankara is seeking
a provocation that will allow it to intervene in
northern Iraq to "disrupt the Kurdish regional
administration, [and] to cripple the
infrastructure".
Public demands for
immediate military action against the PKK have
dominated raucous protests in several Turkish
cities. Many of the demonstrations now condemn the
United States as well as the PKK. Senior Turkish
politicians have also been abused at massive
public funerals for "martyred" troops. In response
to the attacks, TSK troops and Cobra helicopter
gunships have already begun making "hot pursuit"
of PKK fighters across the border. Turkish tanks
and artillery shell targets in northern Iraq
almost daily.
The difficulty for Ankara is
that a quick raid on PKK installations in Iraq is
likely to have little long-term effect. Turkey has
already launched dozens of major raids on northern
Iraq without doing anything to end the PKK
presence along the border. PKK guerrillas possess
little more than what they can carry on their
back, and are thus ready to pull out to safer,
pre-planned positions at a moment’s notice. Only
an extended occupation stands any chance of
success, and this will be difficult, if not
impossible, without cooperation from Baghdad,
Washington and northern Iraq's Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG).
Ankara is receiving
mixed messages from the United States. Last week
the US military commander in northern Iraq,
General Benjamin Mixon, declared that US forces
were not involved in tracking PKK movements and
intended to do "absolutely nothing" to end Kurdish
cross-border attacks on Turkey. On the same day,
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated that
the United States "will do what is necessary"
against the PKK while warning Ankara to abandon
plans for a major cross-border incursion.
There are also signals from the Pentagon
that the US military may be ready to use Predator
reconnaissance aircraft to supply the TSK with the
intelligence necessary to make pinpoint special
forces strikes against PKK targets while avoiding
a larger invasion.
Turkish air capability
is limited. There are few attack helicopters
available, and Turkish F-4 and F-16 jet-fighters
flying from the Diyarbakir air base are largely
ineffective against PKK mountain positions without
the specialized munitions used by the United
States or the fuel-air explosives Russia used
against Chechen hideouts in the Caucasus
Mountains. For now though, the Turkish warplanes
continue to mount strikes on Kurdish villages and
PKK positions inside Iraq while providing air
support for search-and-destroy missions within
southeast Turkey.
Turkey's nine US-built
Cobra attack helicopters have undergone extensive
refits to enable them to carry out night missions
against the PKK. In September Turkey signed a deal
with an Italian aerospace firm to provide 51 new
attack helicopters to add to Turkey's force of 90
US-made Sikorsky Black Hawk assault helicopters.
On October 21, the chairman of Turkey's
Grand Unity Party, Muhsin Yaziciolgu, called on
the TSK to develop new strategies, such as the
formation of "mobile units composed of high-level
officers having extraordinary powers and
responsible in taking initiatives". A brigade of
professional commandos is undergoing training at
the Isparta commando school in Egirdir, but these
are not expected to take the field until 2009. Six
existing commando brigades are replacing
conscripts with volunteer professionals in a
process that is expected to be completed by next
spring.
Last week, 3,000 members of the
police special forces joined Turkish regulars,
mountain commandos, Gendarmerie forces and village
guards in the fighting against PKK guerrillas.
Thousands of imams trained in "national unity
issues" are also on their way to southeast Turkey
to explain the unacceptability of terrorism in
Islam.
Snow is already falling in the
higher mountain passes. There is a danger that a
Turkish winter offensive could get bogged down in
difficult and roadless country without the benefit
of the Iraqi Kurdish guides that used to accompany
Turkish missions against the PKK. As the earth
turns to mud under heavy rains and snow, the TSK's
armor will find the going difficult. Winter storms
could also mean troops on the ground might lose
the benefit of air cover and medical-evacuation
services.
There are several options
available. The TSK could cooperate with Iranian
Revolutionary Guards Corps forces in a strike
against the PKK and Party for a Free Life in
Kurdistan (PJAK) strongholds in the Qandil
Mountain region 100 kilometers south of the
border, probably the most effective option
militarily, but the most dangerous politically,
and potentially the most embarrassing for the
United States. Such a strike would have
substantial risks for the TSK, which has never
penetrated so far into Iraq.
The onset of
winter usually marks the end of the PKK's
campaigning season until spring, as the fighters
retire to bases well inside the border while only
a small number remains behind in southeast Turkey.
The TSK will have to penetrate 20 to 30 kilometers
deep into Iraq to get to PKK's winter camps. The
alternative would be to create a buffer zone on
the Iraqi side of the border and wait until spring
for a major offensive (barring the success of
diplomatic efforts in the meantime).
Even
if Turkey could obtain Baghdad's cooperation
against the PKK, there is little chance the
beleaguered Iraqi national army could carry out a
successful campaign in the Kurdish mountains. The
Kurdish president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, claims
that even the Kurdish Peshmerga militias could not
expel the PKK. The effect of a military offensive
on the future status of the disputed oil-center of
Kirkuk must also play into the calculations of
Turkish planners.
Economic sanctions and
border closures present an alternative to military
action until spring. Sanctions could include
closing the Habur border gate through which $3
billion in trade now passes annually. A large
quantity of American military supplies also pass
through the Habur gate, but Ankara is now
exploring the possibility of diverting Turkish
trade with Iraq through a number of Syrian border
crossings, avoiding Kurdish Iraq all together.
Other options include a halt in vital
Turkish investment, cutting supplies of
electricity to northern Iraq, and the evacuation
of Turkish contractors responsible for most of the
rebuilding and infrastructure creation in northern
Iraq. Over 600 Turkish construction firms are
currently at work in northern Iraq.
In the
presently charged atmosphere, the Turkish business
community has expressed wide support for economic
measures if necessary. In the event of economic
sanctions by Turkey, Iraq's government may save
the PKK the trouble of cutting the pipelines to
Ceyhan. Iraqi speaker of Parliament Mahmud
al-Mashhadani warned on October 25 that the Iraqi
government would cut the flow of oil to Ceyhan
should Ankara apply sanctions.
There is
little chance of a large cross-border military
operation starting before Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits Washington on November
5. As the TSK awaits orders, every day that passes
increases the difficulty of mounting a successful
operation in northern Iraq.
Dr
Andrew McGregor is the director of Aberfoyle
International Security in Toronto, Canada.
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