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US concerned over unrest at Turkish-Iraqi border
By Jerome Bernard
AFP
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com 06 11 07The United States on Friday voiced concern over the current unrest at the Iraqi-Turkish border, after recently warning Ankara against any cross-border military action in pursuit of Kurdish rebels.
"We hope there is no unilateral military action taken on the other side of the Iraqi border," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Turkey when he was visiting Singapore on June 3.
"The Turks have a genuine concern with Kurdish terrorism that takes place on Turkish soil," Gates said, adding that the United states was working with Ankara to resolve the problem.
US concerns appeared to materialize a few days later, although reports of a major Turkish offensive in northern Iraq were promptly denied by Ankara, Washington and even by the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
"A Turkish-PKK war in Iraq must be avoided at all costs," Heritage Foundation analyst and former US deputy defense secretary Peter Brookes said in a June 4 New York Post op-ed piece.
"Turkey could send troops into Iraq any day now ... This is the last thing we - or the Iraqis - need. Preventing it must be a top priority of America, Iraq and Europe," he added.
Turkey says the PKK, whose 22-year insurgency in eastern and southeastern Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives so far, is acting under the protection of Iraqi Kurds allied to the United States.
Violence increased with the spring thaw as rebels hiding in the rugged mountains of the region launched attacks on security forces while others infiltrated Turkey from their northern Iraqi bases, effectively ending a unilateral cease-fire the PKK proclaimed in October 2006.
Turkey launched several cross-border operations into Iraq in the 1990s, but failed to dislodge rebels based there.
It maintains a 1,500-strong presence several kilometres (miles) inside Iraqi territory to prevent the PKK infiltrating along the mountainous, 384-km (240-mile) border.
Ankara continues to pressure the United States and Iraq to act against the PKK and maintains its threat of taking action itself if they fail to do so.
To address its concerns, the United States in August 2006 appointed former NATO commander, retired general Joseph Ralston, special US envoy to coordinate Turkish-Iraqi talks about the PKK.
Gates on Sunday said Ralston was in constant contact with Turkish officials.
Former US ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke last year recommended that US troops be deployed in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Since the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, Turkey's cross-border incursions against rebel Kurds have decreased in size and scope.
The situation could be reversed and worsen, however, if oil-rich Kirkouk south of Iraq's Kurdistan, decides to join the Kurdish region in a referendum scheduled for this year, raising Turkish fears it might sow the seeds of an independent Kurdish state.In the United States, the Iraq Study Group Report, co-chaired by former secretary of state James Baker and former lawmaker Lee Hamilton, said a referendum on the future of Kirkuk would be "explosive" and should be delayed.
" The risks of further violence sparked by a Kirkuk referendum are great," said the report.
Despite all the danger signs, a Turkish military invasion of northern Iraq appears unlikely for now, some observers said.
" Turkey is unlikely to buck its American ally. That would embarrass the United States and be seen as a broad indictment of its Iraq policy," wrote The New York Times this week.
AFP 09 0250 GMT 06 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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