Turkey Bombs Iraq

Turkey have started bombing northern Iraq.

Kurdish rebels recently killed 13 Turkish soldiers and the Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, has come under great pressure from the Turkish army - and faced great resistance from Washington - to invade the Kurdish sector of Iraq.

Turkish warplanes bombed positions of suspected Kurdish rebels Wednesday, and the prime minister said preparations for parliamentary approval of a military mission against separatist fighters in Iraq were under way.

A cross-border operation could hurt Turkey's relationship with the United States, which opposes Turkish intervention in northern Iraq, a region that has escaped the violence afflicting much of the rest of the country.

U.S. officials are already preoccupied with efforts to stabilize areas of Iraq outside the predominantly Kurdish northern region.

This is the last thing that Bush needs, but it does further emphasise the Pandora's box that he opened with his invasion of a land made up by Kurds, Shia's and Sunnis - that was only ever held together by the iron fist of Saddam.

The pressure is continuing for an actual invasion:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said preparations for a parliamentary authorization for a cross-border mission were under way, but did not say when the motion would reach the floor. The preparations "have started and are continuing," he said.

A member of the governing Justice and Development Party said a request for parliamentary approval for a cross-border ground offensive was unlikely to come to the floor before the end of a four-day religious holiday on Sunday. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Turkish troops targeting the guerrillas' suspected escape routes in mountainous areas in Sirnak province have "squeezed" a group of about 80 rebels on Mount Gabar, in Sirnak, the Hurriyet newspaper reported. Escape routes were being bombed by helicopter gunships while transport helicopters were airlifting special commando units to strategic points.

Turkish troops were also shelling suspected PKK camps in the regions of Kanimasa, Nazdur and Sinath, in northern Iraq, from positions in Turkey's Hakkari province, just across the border, Hurriyet reported. Tanks were positioned near the town of Silopi, in Sirnak province, the paper said.

Oh dear, oh fucking dear... and just when Petraeus is talking about stabilising the country, comes trouble in the north; from the only part of Iraq that could ever seriously be called a success story.

I have no bloody idea what happens next. Abdullah Gul has been forced to call his hand, I find it seriously hard to believe that this is what he wanted to do. But the Americans have annoyed the Turks, and to be fair to Bush, he saw it coming:

Turkey and the United States are NATO allies, but ties have also been tense over a U.S. congressional bill that would label the mass killings of Armenians by Turks around the time of World War I as genocide. President Bush strongly urged Congress to reject the bill, saying it would do "great harm" to U.S.-Turkish relations.

But, Bush also said that he would make no distinction between countries which harboured terrorists and the terrorists themselves. So his own code might come back and bite him on the ass.

“Those who create, feed and support terrorism should know that no force can stand against the determination of the Republic of Turkey to protect its inseparable integrity,” the state Anatolian news agency quoted President Abdullah Gul as saying.

Gul is in a corner, the army are pushing for action. You're watching, I'm watching, we'll all be bloody watching how this one pans out...

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Tags: Turkey, Kurds, Kurdistan, Iraq, United States, Iraq war, Surge, Petraeus, Bush