Turkey prepares for military operations in Iraq

[Red October]

SIRNAK, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey said Tuesday it had begun preparations for a military operation into Iraq to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who have launched deadly attacks on soldiers in recent days.

Private NTV and CNN-Turk news channels reported that the government has decided to seek parliamentary authorization to launch a possible cross-border military operation in Iraq to pursue the rebels there. It was not clear when the government would seek the authorization.

A statement released after a meeting of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and security officials did not say that such an operation would definitely occur. Turkey has said it would prefer that the United States and its Iraqi Kurd allies in northern Iraq crack down on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

"Institutions concerned have been given the necessary orders and instructions to make all kinds of legal, economic and political preparations to end the presence of the terror organization in a neighboring country in the upcoming period, including if necessary a cross-border operation," the statement said.

The statement did not mention any preparations by the military, which declared months ago that it was ready for an incursion into Iraq.

It said the PKK, which has fought for autonomy for Turkish Kurds since 1984, was trying to increase attacks in order to disrupt economic, social and political development in Turkey that had sapped support for the group.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the attacks were a "source of deep concern" for the Iraqis, Turks and the U.S. He urged Iraq and Turkey to cooperate against terrorists.

"If they have a problem, they need to work together to resolve it, and I'm not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go," he said. "Sovereign states make decisions about how best to defend themselves. We have counseled, both in public and private, for many, many months, the idea that it is important to work cooperatively to resolve this issue."

The United States opposes a Turkish military operation in the relatively peaceful north of Iraq because it would complicate efforts to stabilize the rest of the country. Such an operation could be costly and inconclusive for Turkey, jeopardizing ties with Western allies, and hardening animosity among Turkey's minority population of Kurds.

Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said parliament would have to approve any large-scale operation into Iraq, but said Turkish troops were entitled to limited, cross-border operations if they were attacked by rebels from Iraqi territory.

"If we're talking about hot pursuit, then there is no need for parliamentary authorization. If it's a cross-border operation, then there is need for one," Gonul said.

Backed by airpower, Turkish soldiers pressed ahead with a major offensive against separatist rebels in Sirnak province, close to the Iraq border.

Soldiers targeted suspected escape routes used by fighters and tracked rebels in the Gabar, Cudi, Namaz and Kato mountains in operations that began after 13 soldiers were killed in an ambush Sunday. Two more soldiers died in explosions Monday.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabagh said the violence in Sirnak and the killings of the Turkish soldiers was of "great concern" to Iraq. He extended condolences to the victims' families and solidarity with the Turkish people, but stressed that regional cooperation is key to confronting all terrorist groups.

Al-Dabagh invoked a September counterterrorism agreement signed by Iraq and Turkey that prohibits Turkey from sending troops to Iraq's north, and said that preserving that agreement was the way to maintain the security and sovereignty of both countries.

Turkey had demanded the right to send troops into Iraq's north to pursue Kurdish rebels. Iraq did not agree to the demand under pressure from the leaders of its semiautonomous Kurdish region.

Turks are furious that PKK rebels carry out attacks on Turkish soil and then slip across the border to mountain hideouts in the predominantly Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Turkey has accused Iraqi Kurds of tolerating their ethnic brethren in the PKK; one punitive measure at Turkey's disposal is to close the border with northern Iraq, hurting the economy of the landlocked region.

Still, the latest images of soldiers' coffins draped in the red and white Turkish flag intensified pressure on Erdogan.

Opposition leaders, chastened by defeat in general elections in July, condemned Erdogan's ruling party. One opposition group called for a cross-border operation, and another blamed the PKK attacks on the government's "lack of determination" to fight terrorism.

Nihat Ali Ozcan, a terrorism expert, noted that a cross-border offensive could disrupt efforts to assimilate its minority Kurdish population into the political process, especially after a bloc of pro-Kurdish lawmakers won seats in the July elections after an absence of more than a decade.

Erdogan also has a sensitive relationship with his own military, which has put the Islamic-rooted government on notice that it will not tolerate any effort to undermine Turkey's secular traditions.

The PKK is branded a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union. Its war with Turkey has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Iran, which is also fighting a Kurdish rebel group linked to the PKK, reopened five border crossing points with Kurdish-run northern Iraq on Monday. The border points had been closed September 24 to protest the U.S. detention of an Iranian official.


Thoughts on this?

[Cheung Mo]

The treatment of the Kurdish people throughout the Middle East is irrefutable proof that the intersts of Islamists and cappies are one and the same. (Of course, we knew that when the U.S. was funding religious wackos in Afghanistan.)

[spartan]

I hope the PKK has a surprise for these Turkish Imperialist bastards!

[Dimentio]

This could really complicate the situation.

[spartan]

Apparently the Turks are pissed off as the US have been giving arms and money to Kurdish organizations in northern Iraq.

The reason the US is doing this is because 1) The Kurds in Iraq tend to side with the US against the Arabs and Persians and 2) The Kurds have apparently started launching attacks in Iran so this would obviously help the US against Iran who are the USA's biggest threat in the middle east at the moment.

Of course this helping of Kurdish militants in Iraq by the Americans also affects (Often indirectly) their key ally Turkey, who of course are the USA's biggest and most important ally in the middle east at the moment, as the US is also indirectly helping the PKK (Who are Kurdish Seperatists within Turkey launching attacks against Turkey) who have contacts and links with the Iraqi Kurdish groups who the Americans are supplying.

[Comrade Rage]

I knew this would happen sooner or later. To tell you the truth I thought it would happen when the Kurds partially seperated themselves from Iraq in 2002.

This can, of course, be expected by a government that still denies it's genocide against the Armenians. :angry:

[dez]

Bush's mess begins to really stink.
:wub:


"State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the attacks were a "source of deep concern" for the Iraqis, Turks and the U.S. He urged Iraq and Turkey to cooperate against terrorists.

"If they have a problem, they need to work together to resolve it, and I'm not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go," he said.

Oh, lol.
:D


"Sovereign states make decisions about how best to defend themselves. We have counseled, both in public and private, for many, many months, the idea that it is important to work cooperatively to resolve this issue."

More irony?


The United States opposes a Turkish military operation in the relatively peaceful north of Iraq because it would complicate efforts to stabilize the rest of the country. Such an operation could be costly and inconclusive for Turkey, jeopardizing ties with Western allies, and hardening animosity among Turkey's minority population of Kurds.

No... More... People to share the loot?
:o

[Comrade Rage]

I'm not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go
Glass houses. :lol:


The United States opposes a Turkish military operation in the relatively peaceful north of Iraq
Relatively peaceful in that there are less than a hundred places where it's on fire at the moment. :lol:

[Devrim]

Originally posted by spartan+October 09, 2007 10:30 pm--> (spartan @ October 09, 2007 10:30 pm) I hope the PKK has a surprise for these Turkish Imperialist bastards! [/b]
Do you mean this sort of surprise:


Selahattın Aparı
Separatists and terrorists from the PKK used machine gun fire on a minibus carrying 14 people, killing 12 people including seven Village Guard militiamen.

It is not quite up to the standard of their campaign of killing school teachers, but it fits in well with the PKK's strategy of attacking the civilian population. Just to make it clear to those who may be confused people travelling by public transport in Turkey are not the bourgeoisie, who. tend to have cars. So it is more dead workers to add to the tally.

Of course the 'Turkish Imperialist bastards' that the PKK has a 'surprise' for will be civilians of both Turkish, and Kurdish origins, and conscript soldiers, also of Turkish, and Kurdish origins.

It also needs to be pointed out that while civilians are being murdered by both sides in Turkey, and Turkish soldiers are dying, the children of Kurdish peasants, from both Iraq, and Turkey, civilians, and PKK militants, will be being massacred in Iraq by the Turkish army.

The reality of the situation is that the working class has absolutely no interest in supporting either Turkish, or Kurdish nationalists in this squalid little military adventure.

Devrim

[Andy Bowden]

What exactly are village guard millitiamen? They sound like soldiers, would that not make them a legitimate target?

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Andy [email protected] 10, 2007 09:48 am
What exactly are village guard millitiamen? They sound like soldiers, would that not make them a legitimate target?
Wiki says this:

Village guards (Turkish: Korucular, officially Geçici ve Gönüllü Köy Korucuları ("temporary and voluntary village guards")) are paramilitaries. Originally they were set up and funded by the Turkish state in the mid 1980s under the direction of Turgut Özal. Their stated purpose was to act as a local militia in towns and villages, protecting against attacks and reprisals from the insurgents, terrorists and guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The rationale behind set up of the system was that it would be helpful to the Turkish Army to have an additional force of people who knew the region, and the language in order to assist in military operations against the PKK.[1]

They have been implicated in attacks on Kurdish internally displaced persons returning to their villages after forced evacuation.[2] Around 50,000 to 90,000 village guards are still present in southeastern Turkey,[3][4] also referred to as Turkish Kurdistan.

Members of the village guards are frequently targeted for attack by PKK guerillas as they are seen as traitors. Accepting to become a village guard is a largely voluntary process, although there are exceptions (see below).[5] A village guard can expect to be paid up to $200 (~130€) per month.

Human rights

Whilst by no means officially endorsed by the Turkish Government, some village guards are reported to have been involved in "disappearances", extrajudicial executions [7] and torture[8], sometimes dressing themselves up as PKK guerrillas in false flag attacks.[9]

A report by the Turkish Parliament in 1995 confirmed that village guards have been involved in not just these but a wide range of illegal activities, including killing, extortion, drug smuggling[10]. Human Rights Watch has stated that for years that have received reports of "violations by village guards—murders, rapes, robberies, house destruction, and illegal property occupation, among others". They add however that not all of these reports have been confirmed first hand.[11]

People who refused to join the village guards have had their homes burned,[12] or have been forced to leave and their homes and property seized. They have endured sexual assault and humiliation by the Turkish security forces.[13] There have been some attempts by the Turkish authorities to compensate people who have lost property in this way. A member of the Turkish Parliament, Unal Erkan and former governor of some areas of south-eastern Turkey states that, "village guards often operated outside the control of the gendarmerie, and that many villagers faced pressure to enter the system".[14]

The Turkish Interior Ministry approximates that 296 murders have been committed by village guards in the time between 1985 and 1996.[15]

The journalist Gottfried Stein relates former lieutenant in the Turkish Army Yener Soylu as describing the process of persuading some villagers to join the village guards:[16]

We posed the people with a choice, either they acted as village guards, or they would be resettled in other provinces. In the evening, we staged what appeared to be a skirmish with the guerrillas, we shot at windows and also directed heavy weapons against the village. As the people depended on their harvest and animals, we destroyed their fields and slaughtered the animals. If this did not help, we surrounded the village and sent in the counter-guerrillas.


Obviously the Village Guards are a tool of the state. In a lot of case though people are forced to become village guards. Generally, the victims in the war are peasants caught up between two different armed gangs, i.e. the state, and the PKK.

I would question your whole idea of a 'legitimate target' though.

And even that aside, what are the passengers of the minibus, who weren't village guards, collateral damage?

Devrim

[вор в законе]

Killing conscript soldiers is a legitimate target. Otherwise perhaps we should also let the NAZIS wipe of entire Europe because Wermacht's fascist soldiers were part of the working class.

That said, I don't believe PKK's aim is the establishment of socialism. They are something between the Algerian FLN and the IRA.

So the question to ask is whether national liberation is progressive or not.

[Guerrilla22]

Not the first time the Turks have launched operations cross the border, they did so numerous times during the existence of the Kurdish regional government that ran the enclave protected by Operation Northern Watch, bombing and shelling villages indiscrimantely. The Peshmerga finally had to attack PKK camps, in order to drive them into the mountains, so that the Turks would stop targeting Iraqi Kurdish villages.

[Revolution Until Victory]

What is the ideology of the PKK anyways??

Didn't they abandon Marxism after the fall of the USSR? I have read in some sources that they are no longer communists and adopt a somehow Islamic line to gather support from relegious kurds. Is this accurate? did they really abandon Marxsim? if so, are they still even "moderate leftists"?

[spartan]

RUV:
What is the ideology of the PKK anyways??
They are still pretty Socialist but not as much as back in the day when the USSR existed and they could get weapons from them for claiming to be Marxist-Leninist like most "left wing" anti colonial movements :lol:

Didn't they abandon Marxism after the fall of the USSR?
To a degree as alot of left movements abandoned Marx to a lesser extent when the USSR collapsed.

I have read in some sources that they are no longer communists and adopt a somehow Islamic line to gather support from relegious kurds. Is this accurate? did they really abandon Marxsim? if so, are they still even "moderate leftists"?
This would not be surprising but i think they are just your average National liberation movement nowadays who obviously need to appeal to as much of their people as possible so they have probably adopted a form of Populism (Especially in their propaganda) to achieve this as their main backer the USSR does not exist anymore.

[Leo]

What is the ideology of the PKK anyways??

They claim it to be something they call "democratic confederalism" those days. The accurate description of their ideology is, as always, bourgeois nationalism.


I have read in some sources that they are no longer communists and adopt a somehow Islamic line to gather support from relegious kurds.

They had never been communists as actual communism necessarily implies being oriented towards the working class. They were nationalists, and they still are. This said, they don't have an Islamic line and I don't remember them ever having anything of that sorts. Although I have heard that they did want to kill all the Kurdish alevis (a relatively moderate and secular Shia sect) in the past, I don't think it's their position now.


are they still even "moderate leftists"?

Their legal party is social democratic.


They are still pretty Socialist but not as much as back in the day when the USSR existed and they could get weapons from them for claiming to be Marxist-Leninist like most "left wing" anti colonial movements

They didn't claim to be "Marxist-Leninist" because they wanted weapons, they claimed because Stalinism was was where their origins lied at. Anyway, they didn't get that many weapons from the USSR anyway, nor were they really very supportive of the USSR. They were a part of the current which tried to take the middle ground between Russia and China. Their biggest supplier and supporter was the Syrian state.


They are still pretty Socialist

I know that they aren't actually. Their supporters in the big cities are, at best, social democratic.

[Revolution Until Victory]

They had never been communists as actual communism necessarily implies being oriented towards the working class. They were nationalists, and they still are.

lol, of cousre, I wasn't asking what they actually were in reality. I just meant that they labeled themselves communists during the USSR and abandonded that label afterwords.


This said, they don't have an Islamic line and I don't remember them ever having anything of that sorts.

ok


Their legal party is social democratic

which means they still identify themselves on the left, no matter how moderate.

[spartan]

I just heard that Turkey have recalled their ambassador to the US in protest at the Armenian bill in the US which if passed will see the US officialy recognise the Armenian genocide!

It looks like to me that things are starting to heat up!

[Eleftherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 10:59 pm
I just heard that Turkey have recalled their ambassador to the US in protest at the Armenian bill in the US
Fuckers


It looks like to me that things are starting to heat up!

Not really. It does not mean much, just that Turkey disapproves of Congress's action.

[Leo]

which means they still identify themselves on the left

...as much as the British Labour party of course.


I just heard that Turkey have recalled their ambassador to the US in protest at the Armenian bill in the US which if passed will see the US officialy recognise the Armenian genocide!

I don't think anything like that has actually happened.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 12, 2007 06:55 am

I just heard that Turkey have recalled their ambassador to the US in protest at the Armenian bill in the US which if passed will see the US officialy recognise the Armenian genocide!

I don't think anything like that has actually happened.
According to today's papers he has been withdrawn for talks in Ankara, and will be beack in about ten days.
Devrim

[Leo]

Oh, ok then.

[Revolution Until Victory]

...as much as the British Labour party of course.

Ture. But what I wanted to make sure of is where do they stand in terms of ideology today ( and I mean by this what they label themselves, not what they really are). So they are still leftist, after abandoning communism and adopting moderate leftism. In other words, they are an active guerrilla, leftist group in post-USSR world. good news.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Revolution Until [email protected] 12, 2007 07:22 am

...as much as the British Labour party of course.

Ture. But what I wanted to make sure of is where do they stand in terms of ideology today ( and I mean by this what they label themselves, not what they really are). So they are still leftist, after abandoning communism and adopting moderate leftism. In other words, they are an active guerrilla, leftist group in post-USSR world. good news.
They are vicious anti-working class nationalists. I don't se how this is good news.
Devrim

[Revolution Until Victory]

They are vicious anti-working class nationalists. I don't se how this is good news.
Devrim

As I said, doesn't really matter what their true nature is, wether communist or bourgousie, anti-working class or pro-working class. All that matter, in my opnion, is what ideology they claim to represent. They claim to uphold leftism (no matter how moderate). They are active. After the fall of the USSR, all leftist movments around the world, with few exceptions, was effected negatively, and the left, in most cases, seemed to loose its dominance to such ideologies as political Islam, among others. Active leftist groups who stage constant military operations and are targeted are a benifet to the communist movments worldwide in which they help in strenghing the left after the USSR. The more spectacular the military operations of a guerrilla group, the more targeted is this gourp, the more dominante it becomes, which results in its ideology (at worst moderate leftism, and at best, communism, the ideology of the proletariat) dominating. The reuslt would be a dominant leftist group after the hard blow the left got after the end of the cold war. The more active leftist gourps are, the better. ETA, Indian Maosists, Nepali Maoists, Peru, Turkey, Philipense, Bhutan, PFLP, DFLP, PKK, Zapatistas, Chaves, Tamil Tigers, etc. The only way leftist groups can challange other ideologies that have stolen its dominance (such as political Islam) would be to return extremely active and be extremely targeted by the reactionaries and the imperilaists.

That's why the fact that the PKK, a "leftist" guerrilla group, is extremely active is good news to the left worldwide.

[YKTMX]

I'd oppose any Turkish "excursion" into Kurdistan, obviously. And I support wholeheartedly the right of the Kurds to have their own state if that is what they want. There's a problem for the Kurds though and it's that they're no longer "anti-imperialist" in the true sense. Indeed, as we know, Kurdistan has been the most stable region of Iraq during the occupation and many Kurdish leaders, like the egregious Quisling Talabani, have gained political influence as a result of their compliance with the Americans. And now, when the Americans look willing to allow, even assist, the Turks in another attack on Kurdistan, the Kurds are completely disarmed, politically and morally.

For one, how can they accuse the Turks of an illegitimate intervention in this case when the Kurdish elite supported the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq?

How can they claim that their compliance with American imperialism is advancing the cause of Kurdish national self-determination when America's main ally in the region is now preparing to cross the border once again, with American approval?

This is a problem the Kurds have made for themselves I'm afraid.