Turkey is calling their recent, short-lived campaign to hunt the PKK in Iraq a success. Naturally, Turkey would not be withdrawing from Iraq if it had not been everything they dreamed it would be.
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey pulled its troops out of northern Iraq on Friday, ending a major offensive against Kurdish PKK rebels that Washington had feared might destabilize the wider region.
The withdrawal came a day after U.S President George W. Bush urged a swift end to the offensive. Turkey’s armed forces General Staff denied any foreign influence on the decision.
Yeah, right.
I said it before, I’ll say it again…
Get your shit together, Turkey.
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3 Comments
The PKK has been called a terrorist group. The Kurds in Northern Iraq have had it pretty good for a long time. When it looked as though the rest of Iraq was going to hell in a hand basket where the Kurds live was having all kinds of foreign investment coming in. I’ve even seen commercials on the TV where they were advertising themselves “as the other Iraq”. On these border crossings by the Turkish military I’m going to give Turkey the benefit of the doubt. The border is what it is and the PKK has to respect that. They can’t try to re-establish old tribal boundaries. It’s 2008, not 1008. Maybe there’s a nod, nod, wink, wink between the US, Iraq and Turkey. Turkey, take care of what needs to be done, don’t go crazy and establish permanent bases. We’ll go through the usual statements of “concern”, but, I think Turkey is being helpful in not de-stabilizing Northern Iraq with tribal crap. Then it’s a Muslims taking care of Muslims. I’m going to give Turkey a pass. For now, anyway.
I think that Turkey pretty much blew it on this one. I’m not buying for a second that they accomplished their mission and this withdraw has nothing to do with foreign pressure.
As for the Turk/Kurd relations, Turkey treats its own Kurds as less than full citizens, to say the least. Additionally, Turkey has implimented policies designed to strip the Kurds of their identity, even going so far as to make their Kurdish names illegal.
IMHO, Turkey is a shady, untrustworthy nation.
Konservo, you’re preaching to the choir. All you’ve said I believe to be true. I’m very concerned with things working out well south of the border. Iraq can’t afford to have the PKK throw the screws into keeping stable the northern third of Iraq. We’re “this close” to succeeding in Iraq and then the Iraqi military will probably (hopefully) be able to keep things under control in all of their country. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t, Turkey wants to get into the EU. With that as their long range goal I don’t think Turkey will get stupid. To the Kurds it would be ideal they could carve out an area straddling the Iraq/Turkey border. Maybe they’ll have to settle for living in Iraq where they’ll be welcome and let it go at that. Well, I can dream, anyway. Be just our luck we’ll wind up with the standard nightmare.
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