Kurdish fighters defy the world from mountain fortress as bombing begins
As Turkey begins using helicopters and artillery to attack Kurdish guerrillas three miles inside Iraq's border, Patrick Cockburn is reporting from the Iraq side of the dispute in today's Independent and, from what he's reporting, the PKK aren't going to be easy to remove.
With the Turkish army massing on Iraq's northern border, Cockburn has travelled into the area controlled by the PKK and he appears to have found a guerrilla force ready for battle.
I have no idea if Cockburn is right in what he is saying, but I will say this; he is one of the very few journalists who has been right in everything that he has said so far about the Iraq war, and if he says that the PKK will be almost impossible to move from the Qandil mountains then I would be inclined to believe him.Guerrilla commanders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were defiant in the face of an impending invasion. In an interview high in the Qandil mountains, Bozan Tekin, a PKK leader, said: "Even Alexander the Great couldn't bring this region under his rule." The PKK has its headquarters in the Qandil mountains, one of the world's great natural fortresses in the east of Iraqi Kurdistan, stretching south from the south-east tip of Turkey along the Iranian border. If Turkey, or anybody else, is to try to drive the PKK out of northern Iraq they would have to capture this bastion and it is unlikely they will succeed.
Despite threats of action by the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, the PKK leaders give no sense of feeling that their enemies were closing in.
For a guerrilla movement awaiting assault, the PKK's leaders are surprisingly easy to find. We drove east from Arbil for two-and-a-half hours and hired a four-wheel drive car in the village of Sangassar. Iraqi police wearing camouflage uniform were at work building a new outpost out of cement blocks beside the road leading into the mountains but only took our names.
This is all a further indication of the Pandora's box which Bush opened when he invaded Iraq. The establishment of a quasi-independent Kurdish state represents a great threat to Turkey, Syria and Iran, all of whom have large Kurdish populations seeking independence.For all its nonchalance the PKK is facing a formidable array of enemies. The Iraqi government in Baghdad has no direct influence over the Kurdistan Regional Government, led by President Massoud Barzani whose administration is made up of his own Kurdistan Democratic Party and President Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. This is the only force capable of trying to eject the 3,000 PKK fighters.
So far the KRG shows no sign of doing so. One reason is that, paradoxically, the Turkish government will not talk to the KRG although it is the only Iraqi institution that might help it – Ankara is fearful of the growing strength of the KRG as a quasi-independent state on its borders.
In the cases of Syria and Iran I'm sure this didn't bother the Bush administration, however, the place where trouble has flared is, predictably, Turkey; an NATO ally who also happens to have the largest area of land where the Kurds are claiming independence.
Now, the only people who can really do anything constructive about the PKK are the Kurdistan Regional Government, who Turkey won't talk to in case this is seen to legitimise Kurdish claims of future independence.
The Kurdish region of Iraq is the only area of that entire country where Bush can claim there has been anything which even resembles success. So what does he do now?
Turkey won't recognise the KRG, so does Bush order the Iraqi government to attack the only part of Iraq that has appeared to benefit from his invasion? Do American forces go in? Or do they sit back and allow the Turks to invade and start a battle for the Qandil mountains which Cockburn says is unlikely to succeed?
It's a bloody mess. But then, Former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith claimed in his book, "The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End", that Bush was unaware two months before he invaded Iraq that Muslims were divided into Sunni and Shia sects. So it's highly unlikely that he understood the danger that an invasion represented for Iran, Syria and Turkey regarding their Kurdish populations.
And it's even more unlikely that he has any plan for sorting out the fiasco which is now unravelling in northern Iraq.
Click title for full article.
5 comments:
As Turkey begins using helicopters and artillery to attack Kurdish guerrillas three miles inside Iraq's border,
Turkey has been launching attacks against the PKK inside Iraq for over a decade, mostly using airpower and artillery, but with the occasional troop incursion. This is nothing new.
And of course the PKK aren't going to be easy to remove, otherwise Turkey would have done it long ago. When I was at Incirlik in the early 90's, Ocalan was still running the show for the PKK and southern Turkey was in a de facto state of civil war. When Ocalan was captured things quieted down for a little bit, but the rise of the Islamist's in Turkey doesn't sit well with the PKK, who are marxist and probably see their rights eroding further. It is also important to keep in mind that the PKK is a Turkish Kurdish terrorist group, and although they have often run across the border to Iraq, they are not an Iraqi group.
The establishment of a quasi-independent Kurdish state represents a great threat to Turkey, Syria and Iran, all of whom have large Kurdish populations seeking independence.
The quasi-independent Kurdish state has been in existence since 1991. What these powers see as a threat is a completely independent Kurdish state separate from Iraq.
Turkey has been launching attacks against the PKK inside Iraq for over a decade, mostly using airpower and artillery, but with the occasional troop incursion. This is nothing new.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't their parliament giving permission to invade Iraq a fairly new development?
And of course the PKK aren't going to be easy to remove, otherwise Turkey would have done it long ago.
What's the occupying power going to do about the PKK? Or are they going to find themselves guilty of "harbouring terrorists?"
It is also important to keep in mind that the PKK is a Turkish Kurdish terrorist group, and although they have often run across the border to Iraq, they are not an Iraqi group.
They are "terrorists" - and that's how the US defines them - operating in a country where the US are the Occupying Power. What do the US propose to do about this?
The US has asked the Iraqi government and the Kurdish government to mitigate the situation, which is what all parties desire.
Yes, that's it, the US is harboring PKK terrorists. Now go take your meds.
That is simply a fact, Jason, based on Bush's own definition of "harbouring terrorists" that he made after 9-11.
But, as is so often the case with you, facts are troublesome things, which is why you loathe opinion polls.
Post a Comment