Turkish Armed Forces Strike Kurdish Camps in North Iraq

[leftchick]

http://www.aina.org/news/20060429184038.htm

Istanbul -- The Turkish armed forces have launched their first military operation along the Iraqi border where Turkish troops have concentrated for days.

The Northern Iraqi cities of Amedi and Zaho, sheltering Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) militants, were hit with mortar attacks in "Operation Crescent."

First reports say that locations where militants were lodged in the regions of Geliye, Pisaxa, Pirbela, Sheshdara, Sheranish and Elanish were demolished.

The "Burgundy Beret" units performed a recognizance mission in the area a while ago as part of the Special Forces Command.

Troop deployment to the region from different parts of the country continues.

Along with the transfer of commandos, heavy construction equipment is also being brought to the border for use during a possible cross-border operation.

The Iranian military extended their operation 10 kilometers to maintain security along the border.

A security cordon has been established to ensure the safety of troops that check not only Mt. Cudi, but other passages and routes for safety.

There is also top-level security present en route to the Border Gate Habur-2.

In another development, Kurdish militias (Peshmergas) under the leadership of Massoud Barzani tightened security measures along the Northern Iraqi border.

[lovuian]

1. Turkey attacking the Kurds and Mosque being destroyed

Looks like Iran and Turkey may have an agenda here of their own...

[wellst0nev0ter]

2. Don't Look At Me; I Never Saw This Coming

:sarcasm: of course :eyes:

[One Honest Guy]

3. If the Turks wanted to really lean on the Kurds....

...there would be nothing left in northern Iraq but oil jacks and rocks. Really, really flat rocks. Kurdish radicals have been stirring up trouble inside Turkey for the past two weeks or so. With bombings and violent protests. I was wondering what the course of action was going to be. I was thinking along the lines of mass rounds ups, but I guess Turkish leadership is few steps ahead of me. This is just Turks letting the Kurds know who's the boss.

[sweetheart]

24. Yep, they'll gass them and napalm them like their own people

Clearly all those Kurdish people are not fighting for
self determination, so they should be massacred...

Turkey should not be allowed in to europe.

[Orrin_73]

26. You are talking nonsense

Only a small fraction of the kurds belong to the radicals. The vast majority of kurds are peaceloving. A few weeks ago some 14 pkk terorrists were killed in clashes between the army and the pkk, guess what? 9 of the 14 were kurds from northern iraq, syria and iran. Majority of the were non turkish citizens, if foreign terrosists would attack your country what would your country do????

What has this to do with turkey's admission to eu?

[sweetheart]

30. Indeed, napalm is banned for use on civilians

British RAF personnel would leave the bases whilst the
turkish airforce loaded up napalm for dropping on that "insurgency"
in the past during the northern no fly zone. It is pretty well
known that Turkey has done some horrendous crimes against its
kurdish peoples in the name of "terrorism" and "separatism".
The military dictatorship that did those crimes is still
at rest and not apologetic.

Of course dropping napalm is a war crime, but americans don't
mind if its for internal repression, and now, hey, turkey can
join the EU and forget it ever happened. But i'm sure the
kurdish people do not forget, and until they have political
self determination, turkey can do the ugly.

They are not ready for the EU, IMO... The country has yet
to do some progression on equal rights, kurds, women and
the rule of law... it makes a joke out of the rest of the EU.

I'm talking truth... and the war crimes against the turkish
kurds are not forgiven, or forgotten, nor are the tiresome
clanging about terrorists that believable from an orthodoxy
that has gotten away with murder.

[Orrin_73]

31. There is no kurdish insurgency

Only a small marxist-leninist terrorist group like the pkk. There are some 7 million kurds in turkey and only very small group makes the trouble. Besides there is no place called kurdish teritory there are also millions of turks living in south eastern turkey.
As a turk Im against turkey's admission to the eu, for personel reasons. Turkey should not become a colony of eu!

[sweetheart]

32. making it all better

I'm for turkey entering the EU, as it would have to clean up
its act, provide for better rule of law, justice institutions
for *all* its citizens, and equal rights for its women.

THe culture stands to gain tremendously from EU membership.
It is not a federal oppression, but a standard of community.
I just don't think the country is ready, the whole pusch being
immature fostered by the US geopolitiicans who want to
keep Turkey out of the middle eastern sphere of influence.

Its too bad israel is such an AWOL country, or a pan-middleastern
"middle east Union" could compete with the EU and be a better
more natural alliance of regional stability than the EU.

I'm curious what DU'er "hel" says about EU membership.

[One Honest Guy]

37. "THe culture stands to gain tremendously" ?

Yeah, the "western culture". I mean if there was one word you could characterize the West, I would choose greed. In the words of Leonard Cohen, "Take the only tree that's left and stuff it up the hole in your culture". And I mean this in the friendliest way possible.

[sweetheart]

38. Take a look at what the eastern european nations...

have been up to to join the EU... and in every case, the
developments have been progressive... like the word that
describes DU's politics.

People have come to some very distorted ideas on the EU,
but for many persons like the Roma, it is not "greed".
Perhaps in the american maligned vision of a united
states of europe that is equally corrupt... but not in
the real europe.

[One Honest Guy]

39. "eastern european nations", as you put it,

are getting robbed blind under the guise of privatization. I've been to your "real europe", lived there for many years. Currently, there are two main political components in Europe. Fascists and Neo-Fascists. You can keep your "real europe".

[struggle4progress]

33. Turkey has wanted to take over the Iraqi oilfields in Kurdish areas ..

.. since the beginning of "Operation Iraqi Liberation."

First they claimed a historic stake in the fields, then they claimed an independent Kurdistan would threaten their interests. They were quite vocal about this in the early days of the war, and only delicate negotiations prevented the Turkish military from moving into the country immediately. Current activity sounds like an attempt to engineer an excuse to partition Iraq, to the benefit of Turkey, now that Bush has serious political problems with the war.

Turkey eyes Iraqi oil fields in midst of war rumbling
January 8 2003

Turkey, one of Washington's most important allies against Saddam Hussein, claims that it may have a historical stake in Iraq's northern oil fields. Yasar Yakis, Turkey's Foreign Minister, is examining early 20th-century treaties to see if his country has a claim to the vast oil fields of the Mosul and Kirkuk provinces, which the Turks ruled during Ottoman times. In comments published Monday in the Hurriyet newspaper, Mr Yakis said: "If we do have such rights, we have to explain this to the international community and our partners in order to secure those rights" ... "He is revealing Turkey's true intentions, they are playing a dangerous game," said one senior Arab diplomat. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/07/1041566412178.html


Kurds enter oil-rich city of Kirkuk as regime's control disintegrates; Turkey sending military observers

BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writers
Thursday, April 10, 2003

Kurdish fighters poured into Kirkuk on Thursday ... Kirkuk was Iraq's No. 2 oil center, and wresting control of the city from Saddam has been a long-held dream of the Kurds ... Turkey has said repeatedly that it would not accept Iraqi Kurdish control of the city, fearing it could encourage the creation of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq and inspire Kurdish rebels in Turkey. In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he had reached an accord with Turkey to have Kurdish forces pull back from Kirkuk. At the same time, the United States agreed that Turkey could send a small group of monitors to Kirkuk ...
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:feYZeDg2N9UJ:www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff%3D/news/archive/2003/04/10/international1304EDT0660.DTL+Turkey+Kurds+oilfields&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6&ie=UTF-8 <google cache/original story at SFGate.com has been removed>

[saltpoint]

4. As grim as this news appears to be and probably is, I'm even less

encouraged knowing that Condoleeza Rice is our Secretary of State.

[HereSince1628]

5. It may have been expected, BUT, it represents a new country

conducting combat in Iraq. Which is to say it is objective evidence of a broadening of the conflict to include issues and countries not part of the US initiative.

This is not a good thing.

[alfredo]

6. If the Kurds gets solid control of Kirkuk, they will be able

to convert the oil revenue into weapons for Kurdish rebels in Turkey.

[HereSince1628]

10. Yes and a war between Iraqis and Turks over Kurdish self rule

expands the countries engaged in combat and takes the issues well beyond any reason yet give by the Bush administration for the invasion of Iraq.

It seems the Kurds are already operating against Iran, too.

[alfredo]

11. Remember there was a thread about Shiite militias moving into

Kirkuk to do battle with Kurds. I'm sure all parties in Iraq wants control of Kirkuk and its oil fields.

[Tempest]

15. Shiites are moving into Kirkuk to lay claim to oil rights

It's a pre-emptive move by the Shiites to prevent the Kurds from solidifying their regional government and to dilute the Kurds' claim to oil in the area.

[alfredo]

17. the Kurds were always the wildcard in my opinion.

If the Kurds get Kirkuk I think they will be much more likely to break away.

[Tempest]

19. Kirkuk is the key

Most of Iraq's oil reserves are in and around Kirkuk.

If the Kurds control Kirkuk, it would make them richer and more powerful than the central government in Baghdad.

And that's something the Shiites will have none of, nor will Turkey since it will put the Kurds in a better position to fight the Turkish army and annex Turkish terrority for an independent state.



Bush is going to hand over the Kurds to Turkey in order to prevent an escalation of the Middle East conflict and the breakup of Iraq.

Just like his father handed over the Shiites to Saddam after the first Gulf war..

[alfredo]

28. We also sold out the Kurds. They suffered when bush sr

didn't back them up when they answered his call to overthrow Saddam.

[struggle4progress]

34. That wasn't the first time: Nixon screwed em, too.

[alfredo]

36. They hate us for our freedoms.

Our freedom to fuck them over at will.

[One Honest Guy]

12. Yup.

I'm guessing they will be used by us for covert operations inside Iran and Syria, if they aren't already. Independent Kurdistan is an impossible dream. They are surrounded by hostile nations. Completely landlocked, and they have no powerful lobby on the capitol hill like jews had in 1940s. There is no future for Kurds. Siding with Americans in Gulf War I sealed their fate.

Also situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan is heating up. They are about to get into another shooting war. Little more regional instability might be just the thing necessary to push them into it.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[One Honest Guy]

29. DEBKA?

That site is pure propaganda. I put in the same category I put sites that rant about Nazi UFOs and time-traveling Bigfoot creatures.

[enigma000]

7. Only so far the Turks can go

They don't want to risk a confrontation with the US. Not as Turkey and the US are close allies.

[Tempest]

16. Turkey will go as far as they need to

They will do what it takes to prevent Turkish and Iraqi Kurds from attacking the country and trying to take Turkish land for an independent state.

Watch for Turkey to put pressure on Bush to reign in the Kurds and PKK. If that fails, Turkey will build up troops on the Iraqi border and there will be continued operations into Iraqi territory.

Turkey is not concerned about U.S. action or reaction. As members of NATO, the U.S. can't do much about Turkey's operations without violating the pact and causing a complete breakdown of international agreements on military cooperation.

[CHIMO]

8. Guess That Now That Iraq

Has it's own government, that NATO can start pulling some strings.

[Tempest]

20. Technically, there is no government in Iraq

There's a parliment, but no permanent prime minister has been chosen or voted on yet.

The government is still being formed.

[HuffleClaw]

9. hmmmmmm

and what will bush say about this i wonder?

[NYC]

13. Possible cross-border operation.

...Along with the transfer of commandos, heavy construction equipment is also being brought to the border for use during a possible cross-border operation...

[Roland99]

14. And there are thousands and thousands of the Kurdish militia just waiting

for the call to arms.

[daleo]

18. Did Turkey ask Bush's permission?

The article doesn't say so, therefore I doubt if they did. Maybe Bush isn't "the decider" that he thinks he is.

[Zhade]

21. OH NO YOU DON'T!

Get back up there! This is too damn important to miss.

:dem:

EDIT: #5, too!

[barb162]

22. not a happy development; I hope this doesn't enlarge

[Theduckno2]

23. How will the recent push to disband Iraqi militias will play into this?

It looks as though any plans to disband militias could be tailored to cripple the peshmerga at the expense of any autonomy aims of the Kurds.

Anyone reading Juan Cole, even intermittently, should have seen this as a possibility.

http://www.juancole.com/

K/R

[allemand]

25. The Iranians too: Iraq says Iran forces shelled Kurds in Iraq

BAGHDAD, April 30 (Reuters) - Iraq's Defence Ministry said on Sunday that Iranian forces had shelled Kurdish rebel positions this month and crossed 5 km (3 miles) into Iraqi territory.

Iraqi Kurdish officials had said Iranian forces shelled Iranian Kurdish rebel positions inside northern Iraq on April 21 to repel an attack, wounding at least four civilians.

"Iranian forces bombed border areas in the Haj Umran area, the Iranian forces crossed 5 km over the border and bombed Lolan with more than 180 heavy artillery shells targeting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)," a ministry statement said. (...)

The breach by Iranian forces could fuel accusations of Iranian interference in Iraq by Sunni Arab politicians.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30597131.htm

[jpak]

35. Operation Clusterfuck enters Phase 2 of Lumpy Gravy

How more fucked up can this get?????

Is ChimpCo going to let Turkey run wild in Kurdish I-raq and control OUR oil there????