Michael J. Totten: Turkey and the Kurds

July 18, 2006

Turkey and the Kurds

Turkey signals it's prepared to enter Iraq

Turkey risks US anger over plan to attack Kurds

Posted by Callimachus at July 18, 2006 04:35 PM

Comments

That may not be the wisest move the Turks have ever made. The Peshmerga don't seem the kind to back down from a fight and I doubt the US wants trouble in the calmest part of Iraq.

Posted by: Dawnsblood at July 18, 2006 05:02 PM

In related news, the International Crisis Group today released a report on the looming problems in Kurdistan associated with Kirkuk:

As all eyes are turned toward efforts to stabilise Iraq, the conflict that has been percolating in Kirkuk remains dangerous and dangerously neglected. That struggle is equal parts street brawl over oil riches, ethnic competition over identity between Kurdish, Turkoman, Arab and Assyrian-Chaldean communities, and titanic clash between two nations, Arab and Kurd. Given the high stakes, the international community cannot afford to stand by, allowing the situation to slip into chaos by default. It needs to step in and propose a solution that addresses all sides’ core concerns without crossing their existential red lines.

Posted by: double-plus-ungood at July 18, 2006 05:04 PM

Here is an interesting question - the article says:

Turkey is facing increasing domestic pressure to act after 15 soldiers, police and guards were killed fighting the guerrillas in southeastern Turkey in the past week

What caused Israel to go into Lebanon, was the death and abduction of a couple of soldiers, right?

Using the same logic, isn't what is good for Israel, also good for Turkey? Look at the parallel reasons:

a. Hostile neighbor, allowing their territory to be used to attack their country.

b. More Turkish soldiers were killed than Israli soldiers, in an incursion INTO the country.

c. Kurdish attackers of Turkey, are more closely allied with the Pershmerga, than the rest of Lebanon are with Hezbollah.

Based on the above, Turkey has the same moral right - actually greater, by the arguments made - to go into northern Iraq.

Thoughts?

Posted by: anon at July 18, 2006 07:39 PM

Here here! Thanks for cutting through the fog with your clear and succinct comparison.. Turkey has shown more restraint than necessary, for far too long. Of course since the news rports don't ever mention Turkish casualties resulting from PKK attacks over the past couple of decades, it's hard to give credit where it's due.. Eight Israelis died in a train depot and the bureaus are falling over themselves reporting it for the past five days..

Posted by: Amerikan Turk at July 18, 2006 07:51 PM

Turkey began murdering Kurds in 1925, after Kurds helped to fight the war that established the Turkish state.

Turkey murdered 40,000 Kurd at Dersim in 1937-38.

Turkey created an ideology based on Mussolini's fascism which has also always denied the existence of the Kurdish people. To this day, Turkey is a fascist state, displaying all the signs of classic fascist states.

Turks recently murdered another 40,000 Kurds during their dirty war against the Kurdish people. During that time they also ethnically cleansed between 3 and 4 million Kurds by destroying thousands of Kurdish villages.

The ECHR has charged Turkey repeatedly with violations of human rights, the US State Department and numerous human rights organizations have documented Turkish atrocities, which include, but are not limited to extrajudicial murder and assassinations, ethnic cleansing, torture, and impunity of security forces. With the exception of the ECHR rulings, no other organization or state has ever seriously pressed Turkey to end its atrocities.

Israel has never committed a fraction of the human rights violations against Arabs that Turkey commits routinely, every single day, against Kurds.

Israel as also sat down to negotiate with Arabs, something that Turkey has NEVER done with Kurds, no matter how many unilateral ceasefires PKK has called, specifically for the purpose of seeking a peaceful political settlement. Turkey has never sat down with legal Kurdish parties within Turkey. Instead, every Kurdish political party has been shut down by the government.

Turkey has never, and does not to this day, permit a political avenue for the solution to the severe problems it has created among the Kurdish people.

Turkey's brutality, and international silence, created PKK. Now you get to live with it.

Posted by: Mizgin at July 18, 2006 09:43 PM

Amerikan Turk,

From what MJT wrote about the PKK a while back there doesn't seem to be much respect for them from the Iraqi Kurds and the Peshmerga. Add to that the latest statements from the Iraqi Kurd leadership that they do not support attacks on their neighbors (Turkey) from their terrritory. Can you offer any insight from your perspective that the Peshmerga would assist the PKK in any way? I've read lately that it's quite logical in the Arab world to say my brother and me against our cousin, and my cousin and me against anyone else. Does that reasoning apply to Kurds, as well?

Posted by: allan at July 18, 2006 09:54 PM

The EU should press Turkey to hold a referendum on Kurdish independence.

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at July 19, 2006 01:39 AM

"Turkey's brutality, and international silence, created PKK. Now you get to live with it."

Mizgin, Kurds were cheated out of a homeland with the Lausanne Treaty... (and they were betrayed a few more times afterwards by Uncle Sam) Why didn't civil war erupt between Kurds and non-Kurds within Turkey, AT THAT TIME??? The Kurdish resistance began 30 years ago. What were Kurds thinking during the 50 years prior? It's called "being a day late and a dollar short". It's like Mexicans or Native Americans in the Southwest US trying to violently re-claim lands they lostduring wars of the 18th or 19th centuries. Not going to happen, at least- not in Turkey, not on my watch...
You justify the existence of PKK by bird-dogging Turkish brutality. It's regrettably true... but not any more brutal than the lengths that the US has recently gone to in the name of "Homeland Security". Turkey has the irrevocable right to defend against those wish to destroy it. This is something YOU will have to live with, birader.

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