Turkey’s move towards a full-scale invasion of northern Iraq looks more like a crab’s walk than a charging bull. The ruling party of moderate Islamists has many foes to target, and not just the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the ostensible enemy.
One is the Turkish military, who are still not fully reconciled to the current dominance and popularity of the country’s Islamists. Army chiefs have been beating the nationalist drum for some time, seeking to imply that the government is weak. They were not happy a few months ago when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said there were far more PKK activists inside Turkey than across the border. By persuading Parliament to give the government a blank cheque for an invasion any time in the next year, Erdogan has won himself plenty of time to keep the generals at bay.
Threatening an invasion of Iraq also strikes a blow at the United States, as Turkey tries to prevent Congress from passing a resolution denouncing the genocide of Armenians in 1915. The tactic is working, and Congress is pulling back, fearful of undermining relations with a country that could pull the plug on crucial support for the military presence in Iraq.
Moreover, the hardening of the Turkish position puts pressure on the US and the Kurdistan regional government to rein in or drive out those PKK fighters in the mountains of northern Iraq. For Iraqi Kurdish leaders, this is a tough proposition. No government likes to act against its ethnic brothers, however different their ideology may be, when they are perceived as fellow nationalists fighting for rights.
Partly because of their effort to join the European Union, Turkey’s Islamists have made huge strides in reducing the discrimination that Kurds in Turkey have long suffered. As a result, support for the PKK has fallen significantly, although a new generation of activists has emerged to renew the armed struggle after a lapse of some years. However, Erdogan was right to say that the real battle against the PKK has to be won inside Turkey.
The wider issue in the crisis is the question of cross-border sanctuary for guerrilla groups, and the role of foreign governments in supporting them. Turkey’s action in threatening an invasion of northern Iraq highlights the double standards of other governments. Although Turkey’s preparations for war were denounced by George Bush, how does Ankara’s sabre-rattling differ from Washington’s threats to attack Iran because of Tehran’s alleged military support for anti-American insurgents inside Iraq?
What of the fact that another Kurdish guerrilla outfit, an anti-Tehran group that operates in north-western Iran, uses rear bases inside Iraqi Kurdistan just like the PKK? Some of its leaders have been received by Bush administration officials in Washington, and are believed to get CIA and, perhaps, Israeli support.
The simplistic “war on terror” has been used by too many governments to obscure the fact that in many parts of the world minorities still suffer severe repression. Whether these minorities are justified in saying that all avenues of non-violent protest have been closed, and they must take up arms, requires careful analysis of local conditions. Whether, if they do resort to force, they mainly target unarmed civilians and thereby become terrorists, also needs to be examined before demonising them.
A Turkish invasion of Iraq would be a highly dangerous move, but it would not be a catastrophe. The aims would be limited and no one seriously believes that Turkish troops would be trying to occupy the whole of northern Iraq. The invasion that has dealt the biggest blow to stability remains the American and British attack on Iraq in 2003. – Â