More Fun with Kurds and Turks

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is agitating for some kind of crackdown on PKK rebels as elections near:

ANKARA, Turkey: Turkey's prime minister on Wednesday again called on allies to act on a promise to tackle separatist Kurdish rebels who have been staging attacks from bases in northern Iraq.
Turkey has long complained of U.S. inaction against the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, and Turkish officials are debating whether to stage a military incursion into Iraq to hit the guerrillas who have escalated attacks on Turkey.

Erdogan said Turks no longer wanted to hear words of support against the PKK and expected action instead.

"We want them to move from words into action," Erdogan said at a speech to a meeting of trade chambers from more than 100 countries. "Turkey has joined the struggle against world terrorism. That's what we expect from those who appear to be our friends. That is our most natural right."

This is a problem that is not going away. While the recent flare-up has died down somewhat since the recent cease-fire in June, it clearly retains the potential to explode at any time-the political pressure to do something drastic is mounting, and the U.S. and Iraqi governments show little willingness to intervene, despite the administration's tough talk opposing terrorism of all kinds. The inconsistency of the Bush administration regarding the GWOT is apparently frustrating the Turks, especially Erdogan, who is in the difficult position of having to satisfy both an increasingly belligerent, invasion-minded military in his own country and the U.S., who desperately need to avoid this confrontation at all costs to avoid further disaster.

The presence of the PKK in northern Iraq is known of and understood by the administration. I hate to link to this article, as it is from National Review online and written by AEI operative Michael Rubin, which doesn't exactly recommend it to me. But, after wading through the dumb, there is some relevant, and revealing, information going back to 2004:

As war in Iraq approached, Turkish diplomats and generals both raised concern about the presence of the PKK. They have continued to do so since. American officials respond that Washington takes seriously Turkey's concerns. But, a gap remains between U.S. rhetoric and actions, severely straining Washington's credibility. "You guys simply don't understand how seriously we take this," a long-time Turkish diplomatic acquaintance told me at an Ankara teahouse last month.

According to both Turkish and U.S. sources, CENTCOM has promised to share with Turkey plans which address the PKK, but consistently fails to deliver. There may be legitimate reasons for planning delays, but CENTCOM leaves the impression that it is filibustering. "I can understand their concerns," said a Turkish general, acknowledging that rooting PKK out of inhospitable terrain is difficult, "But I can't understand why they won't be honest with us."

CENTCOM also suffers a credibility gap at home. Even as I was stopped by PKK fighters, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Joint Staff continued to claim ignorance of the PKK's exact location. This was dishonest or disingenuous. As we continued on from the de facto PKK checkpoint, we could see from the roadside a well-tended PKK graveyard and also a permanent PKK compound under camouflage, mesh netting. Twice rounding bends beneath high bluffs, we saw automatic weapon-toting PKK fighters over looking the road.

The Joint Staff's claims are more troubling given rumors that, last autumn, apparently without interagency authorization, some members of the 101st Airborne met with PKK representatives in Mosul, thereby legitimizing the terrorist group in direct contravention to the policy of the commander-in-chief...


...While I lived in Iraq, every few months I would visit Sidikan, a mountainous district northeast of Diana, sometimes spending the night on a floor of a mud brick farmhouse so as to not have to rush back to the CPA's hotel in Erbil. Local farmers would complain about the PKK, which extorts taxes and seizes land and property. "All of us know where the PKK is. Any of us could point out where they are, if the U.S. army asked," one old farmer said. It was a sentiment that was expressed by various elders in different villages. Karim Khan Bradosti, the tribal leader in the area, has repeatedly offered assistance and cooperation to American forces in the fight against the PKK.

Again, AEI...make of that what you will. Nonetheless, I see no reason to doubt the basic facts of the story. So the administration, despite hardline rhetoric they would like to apply to, say, Iran, is looking the other way when the terrorists in question are allied with our only friends in Iraq. And if the NRO article is any indication, those terrorists are not exactly good to the residents of the area.

I can understand the desire for a Kurdish homeland. They were promised one in the aftermath of World War I, in the Treaty of Sevres. Since that was scuttled in the Treaty of Lausanne, they have grown into the world's largest ethnic group without a homeland. This status ensures that they will agitate for some kind of independence for as long as they feel they have a chance to get it. So again, even if it cools down now, the Kurd problem isn't going away. These are the true fruits of military intervention where we should not have gone. While the Bush administration used simplistic rhetoric and clash-of-culture ideology to paint terrorists as a monolithic threat because they all "hate freedom," the fact is that the different ethnicities, sects and nations all have their own idiosyncratic aspirations and desires, which we will become involved in by our physical presence in the region. The neocon desire to control the region for their purposes, as if they can press certain buttons and get desired results through the mighty "show of strength," is a pure fantasy and always was.