Turkish ambassador: Kurdish guerillas using American weapons: The Swamp

Posted July 11, 2007 11:55 AM

by Aamer Madhani

With reports of Turkey building up troop levels on its border with Iraq, the country’s top diplomat in Washington said this morning that U.S. weaponry has been found in the hands of Kurdish guerillas who have been staging attacks along the two countries border.

Ambassador Nabi Sensoy said that he does not believe the United States is supplying the weapons directly to fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party, a group better known as the PKK that for years has been fighting for an independent Kurdistan within Turkey. But Sensoy pointed to the weaponry as emblematic of U.S. officials doing too little to stop the PKK from staging attacks out of northern Iraq.

"I think the Turkish people have shown enough patience," Sensoy said. "We have to show the public some concrete results."

Turkey has been fighting the PKK since the early 1980s and has periodically crossed into Iraq to battle with guerillas staged on the Iraqi side of the border. For years, Iraq has also hosted thousands of refugees from Turkey aligned with the PKK that live in decrepit camps along the border and in the north-central Iraqi city of Mahkmour.

Sensoy said that Turkish officials have been pressing the U.S. to make sure that American weaponry is not funneled to the PKK by Kurdish members of the Iraqi government to the guerillas. Meanwhile, Washington has been pressing Ankara to dial down the tough talk against the Kurds.

The Kurds have been among the strongest allies of the U.S., and the three northern provinces in Iraq’s Kurdish region have been largely peaceful.

But some worry that the peace in the north could be in peril, and that the saber rattling by the Turks underscores how a U.S. pullout from Iraq could further complicate the fragile region.

In recent weeks, the Turks have renewed complaints that members of the PKK are carrying out attacks against their countrymen on in its southern border. The rhetoric has become more serious as Turkey's military chief, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, last month asked his government to set political guidelines for an incursion into northern Iraq.

The Turks claim that PKK fighters have killed dozens of Turks this year alone, and the Turkey Army has killed more than 100 of the PKK fighters in the same period.

The tension between Turkey and Iraq’s Kurds has also been exacerbated by Iraq’s plans to hold a referendum in December to decide whether the oil-rich city of Kirkuk should become part of Iraq’s Kurdish region. The city, which is home to large populations of Arabs and Turkmens, is considered by Kurds as the economic nucleus that would make an eventual Kurdish state viable.

Earlier this week, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said that the Turkish army has deployed 140,000 soldiers along its border with northern Iraq as part of a "great mobilization.” The Pentagon and State Department have disputed the accuracy of Zebari’s numbers. Today, Sensoy said that there has been an “ongoing movement” of Turkish forces, but he would not comment on exact force levels.

Sensoy was coy about what it would take for the Turks to invade Iraq. He added that the U.S. has failed to use its leverage to get the Kurds to take necessary action to stamp out the PKK>

"On the one hand, this part of ... normal precautions being taken within our borders," he said of the troop buildup. "But of course, I cannot say Turkey would be able to rule out any alternative in the fight against the terrorists."

Comments

Are there Neocons in Turkey that want to bomb America now? Neocons here say we have a right to attack Iran because insurgents in Iraq are receiving training and using Iranian IEDs. Isn't this the pretense a Neocon needs?

Posted by: jethro | July 11, 2007 12:18 PM

Free Kurdistan!!!

Posted by: Logic Prisoner | July 11, 2007 1:29 PM

If they feel their security is threatned, Turkey has the right to invade. Our logic was the same when invading Iraq.

Posted by: Lorenzo Thurman | July 11, 2007 2:51 PM

Yeah!! Bomb em to the stone age! Smells like.....Victory!

Posted by: The Decider | July 11, 2007 3:12 PM

All of us who believed in the strong possibility of a regional conflict if America doesn't stay engaged in Iraq are certainly deluded. No, Turkey won't do anything because the Kurds are still fighting for their own homeland. And, of course, the centrifugal force from the weakness and infighting in the south isn't at all responsible for making the Kurds align with other Kurds in Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkey to create a greater homeland. And Iran won't get involved either. Nope, we won't be responsible for creating a regional sh** storm, and hundreds of thousands more won't get injured, killed or turned out of their homes. Great.

Posted by: John W. | July 11, 2007 5:13 PM

John W-

All of those currents were already in play before we invaded Iraq. That's why our decision to go in was so unbelievably stupid.

Our presence isn't going to keep a stopper on the Kurdish problem. It's escalated to this point with us there, and it will continue whether we are there or not.

What do you percieve the US military solution to the kurdish problem to be? Do we fight for the Kurds or against them?

Posted by: Tony | July 12, 2007 1:59 PM

Tony:

You say, "All of those currents were already in play before we invaded Iraq. That's why our decision to go in was so unbelievably stupid."

While I agree that our decision to go in was incredibly foolish, I can’t agree that “all those currents were already in play.” Like it or not, Saddam Hussein had his foot pressed firmly on the throats of his people. Just as it was with all the rival factions in Yugoslavia before the fall of communism there, everyone kept their place out of fear. We unloosed these currents with our invasion because we created the power vacuum that made it happen.

But then you say, "Our presence isn't going to keep a stopper on the Kurdish problem. It's escalated to this point with us there, and it will continue whether we are there or not."

I agree with this too. I never said we had to stay there personally. I emphasized that we have to "stay engaged." Staying engaged doesn't necessarily mean keeping troops on the ground. It does mean keeping actively involved in seeking military and diplomatic solutions to the problems, even if we are not physically present.

This is to be contrasted with washing our hands of the mess. You see, there seems to be two diametrically opposite viewpoints as to what we should do in Iraq. One says we should keep fighting. The other side takes the exact opposite view and says we should get out and wash our hands of it completely. No one seems to advocate any reasonable middle ground.

I say, instead, that we have to stay involved. The moment we are out of it completely, it is bound to turn into more of a humanitarian crisis than it already is. We have a moral obligation not to let that happen - because we are the ones who put the current forces of evil into motion. This is a view of the question that more people need to consider, including our leadership.

Posted by: John W. | July 12, 2007 2:51 PM

Coming up next;

Turkey is the newest member of the 'axis of evil'.

It's the only solution.

Posted by: C.Morris | July 12, 2007 9:35 PM

not kurdish guerillas they are kurdish terrorirst. Che Guevera is a guerilla but not pkk. Think the difference

Posted by: runaway | July 26, 2007 8:02 AM

"runaway"

No body fighting for his own land could be called terrorist, I should say the turks are oppressors!

Posted by: kir zila | August 31, 2007 7:09 AM

are turks oppressors????!!!

they didn' invade a country for the petroleum,