I was close yesterday when I suggested that Turkey may again up the ante in their struggle against the PKK, a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group that is operating in the border region between Northern Iraq and Turkey. Now they’ve sent some ground troops in:
KIRKUK, Iraq – The Turkish army sent soldiers about 1.5 miles into northern Iraq in an overnight operation on Tuesday, Kurdish officials said. A Turkish official said the troops seeking Kurdish rebels were still in Iraq by midmorning
The troops crossed into an area near the border with Iran, about 75 miles north of the city of Irbil, said Jabar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdistan’s Peshmerga security forces.
About 300 Turkish troops crossed the border at 3 a.m., said Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the regional Kurdistan government. He said the region was a deserted mountainous frontier area.
Is it politically dangerous for the US to conduct counter-terrorist ops against the PKK? Would we lose crucial Kurdish support if we took on the PKK, and is that why we are aren’t making a big deal out of these cross border incursions? Perhaps…
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US/Turkey Relations
“Is it politically dangerous for the US to conduct counter-terrorist ops against the PKK?”
No. The Kurdish powers-that-be have to choose, and they will chose US.
I’m an NCO in the US military and my wife is an Iraqi Kurd. (I’m not going to elaborate for “personal security” reasons.)
Yes, the PKK is and has been screwing with the Turks for years, however we need to look a little closer as to why the Kurds are pretty p**sed off at the Turks.
Kurds in Turkey are heavily oppressed and harassed – and they have been for years.
We are talking about a country that put an elected legislator in jail for simply speaking the Kurdish language in their legislature.
Additionally, ask yourselves why the Turks raised holy hell over simply “acknowledging” the Armenian “Issue” (aka genocide, mass murder, whatever).
Yea the PKK uses some nasty means but the Turks and their Govt and military are far from innocent in all this.
Read up on the history of the region a bit.
“The Kurdish Question in Iraq” by Edmund Ghareeb and “A Modern History of The Kurds” by David McDowall are good ones to start with.
We’d do well to tell the Turks to Back Off and to pressure Barzani and Talabani to reign in the PPK or else face repercussions and loss of “economic incentives” in their region.
~Dakota
I’m an NCO in the US military and my wife is an Iraqi Kurd. (I’m not going to elaborate for “personal security” reasons.)
Yes, the PKK is and has been screwing with the Turks for years, however we need to look a little closer as to why the Kurds are pretty p**sed off at the Turks.
Kurds in Turkey are heavily oppressed and harassed – and they have been for years.
We are talking about a country that put an elected legislator in jail for simply speaking the Kurdish language in their legislature.
Additionally, ask yourselves why the Turks raised holy hell over simply “acknowledging” the Armenian “Issue” (aka genocide, mass murder, whatever).
Yea the PKK uses some nasty means but the Turks and their Govt and military are far from innocent in all this.
Read up on the history of the region a bit.
“The Kurdish Question in Iraq” by Edmund Ghareeb and “A Modern History of The Kurds” by David McDowall are good ones to start with.
We’d do well to tell the Turks to Back Off and to pressure Barzani and Talabani to reign in the PPK or else face repercussions and loss of “economic incentives” in their region.
~Dakota