USA Turkish Times - Operation prospects generate shockwaves across Iraq

Operation prospects generate shockwaves across Iraq

Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi arrived in Ankara yesterday in a hastily arranged visit after the Turkish government asked Parliament to authorize a military incursion into northern Iraq to hit outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) bases there.

Meanwhile in Baghdad, the Iraqi government called for urgent negotiations with Ankara.

"We are ready to hold emergency talks with senior [Turkish] officials to solve all remaining problems and give assurances that will help regulate relations between the two neighboring states," a statement from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said. "The Iraqi government calls on the Turkish government to hold urgent talks," said the statement. Al-Maliki also called for a "crisis cell" in the government established to monitor developments along the Turkish border to meet on Tuesday. A high-level delegation will be sent to Turkey for talks, he said after the meeting.

According to the statement, Al-Maliki "will not accept military solutions as a way of dealing [with issues] between the two countries even though we [the Iraqi government] realize and understand the worries of our Turkish friends. The Iraqi government will try by all means to defuse the crisis with its neighbor Turkey and is concerned about maintaining security and stability." Al-Maliki called for a tripartite committee made up of Iraq, Turkey and the United States -- which is responsible for Iraq's borders -- to be given time to find a solution to the crisis.

The government on Monday sent a motion seeking parliamentary authorization for a cross-border operation into Iraq to crush the PKK bases there, saying its past appeals for cooperation have failed to produce any result.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also stepped up the Turkish rhetoric, saying the Iraqis must distance themselves from PKK terrorists. Parliament is widely expected to endorse the motion today.

Al-Hashemi also met with President Abdullah Gül and Erdoğan. Ahead of al-Hashemi’s arrival in the Turkish capital, lawmaker Salim Abdullah of al-Hashemi’s Iraqi Islamic Party said late on Monday that the vice president discussed his Ankara trip on the telephone earlier on Monday with Massoud Barzani, leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

“He is authorized by Massoud Barzani to talk to Turkish leaders to find out exactly what their demands are and to see to what extent they can be met by the Iraqi government,” Abdullah told The Associated Press from Amman in neighboring Jordan.

“We understand Turkey’s concerns,” al-Hashemi said upon his arrival in Ankara. “But diplomacy should be given a chance. I hope I can convince the Turkish leaders.”

The Turkish Parliament’s approval will allow the government to decide the timing, scope and frequency of any cross-border operations. Both Iraq and the United States have urged Ankara not to follow through on the incursion threat, but Turkey argues its hand has been forced by the lack of US and Iraqi help cracking down on PKK activities.

“We all have an interest in a stable Iraq and a desire to see the PKK brought to justice,” Gordon Johndroe, a spokesperson for the White House, said on Monday, while urging Turkey once more to show “restraint.”

“But we urge the Turks to continue their discussions with us and the Iraqis, and to show restraint from any potentially destabilizing actions,” Johndroe stressed in remarks which were Washington’s most explicit call for restraint since its ally Turkey began considering a quick military cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to crush the PKK using Iraq’s Kurdish region as a base of operations.

In a sign of problems a cross-border operation into Iraq may create, Barham Salih, a senior Iraqi Kurdish official, said yesterday that any Turkish incursion would have “grave consequences” for the region. Speaking on BBC radio, Salih said Turkish threats to launch an incursion into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels could lead to a spiral of military action. “I affirm that any unilateral action by Turkey in violation of Iraqi sovereignty will have very grave consequences to Iraqi stability and to stability in the region as a whole,” said Salih, who was once a top official in the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq. “If Turkey, as a neighbor of Iraq, allows itself the right to intervene militarily in Iraq, what is there to prevent other neighbors from intervening?”

Soon after the Turkish government formally submitted its motion for an incursion into Iraq, the EU also urged caution on Monday. “It is a dangerous situation... It can indeed be deadly, but it is not the first time,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters in Luxembourg.

Russia, with which Turkey shares the Black Sea coast, also called on Turkey on Tuesday not to launch a military incursion into its neighbor. Russia’s lower house of parliament, meanwhile, said the US invasion of Iraq was a “gross violation of international law.”

In a resolution, lawmakers in the state Duma -- which is dominated by the Kremlin-backed party United Russia -- said the 2003 invasion had “inflicted irreparable damage to civil society” in Iraq. “In the absence of convincing evidence of Iraq’s production, storage or use of prohibited forms of weapons, this step by the United States and its allies ... has become a gross violation of international law,” the resolution said.

“A military operation in northern Iraq will further destabilize the already tense situation in the region,” said the resolution, which passed 338-0. Turkey should “evaluate all possible negative consequences of a cross-border counterterrorism operation ... and display characteristic wisdom, foresight and restraint,” it said.

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