Turkey seeks OK for military move into northern Iraq
Parliament likely to authorize action on rebels
By Molly Moore, Washington Post | October 16, 2007
ISTANBUL – The Turkish government asked parliament yesterday for a
one-year authorization to conduct military operations in northern Iraq
to attack Kurdish separatist guerrillas, but senior government
officials attempted to downplay the prospects of an immediate attack.
"It is impossible to speak for certain on a possible cross-border
operation if the parliament approves it," General Ergin Saygun, deputy
chief of the Turkish General Staff, told reporters, according to the
Anatolian news agency. "We will look at the season and go over our
needs before launching a military operation."
Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said that "our hope is that we will
not have to use this motion."
But he added: "The reality that everyone knows is that this terrorist
organization, which has bases in the north of Iraq, is attacking the
territorial integrity of Turkey and its citizens.
"The motion targets PKK alone and is designed to prevent further
bloodshed," Cicek said after a Council of Ministers meeting yesterday,
using the abbreviation for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
"We have always respected the sovereignty of Iraq, which is a friendly
and brotherly country to us," he said.
The parliament is widely expected to approve the authorization later this week.
Oil prices soared to a new high of just over $86 a barrel yesterday,
largely on fears that Turkish military action could disrupt supplies
as winter nears, industry analysts said.
The Turkish government sought the legislative authorization following
a spate of attacks that have killed 30 soldiers, police officers, and
civilians in the past two weeks.
There is also growing frustration that the United States and Iraq have
done little to curb separatist activities in the Kurdish region of
northern Iraq.
PKK rebels seeking a Kurdish state have waged a guerrilla war against
Turkey for the past 23 years.
During the 1990s, Turkey conducted numerous incursions in northern
Iraq, but since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush
administration has pressured Turkey not to cross the border.
US authorities have urged Turkey to use restraint in military
operations, fearful of igniting one of the few relatively stable
regions in Iraq.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq said he has scheduled an
emergency meeting today with top aides to discuss the border problems
and is prepared to meet with Turkish officials to calm the crisis.
"We are fully confident that our friends in the Turkish government are
committed, just as it is our wish, to bolstering and developing our
bilateral relations on the basis of mutual respect, nonintervention in
the other’s internal affairs, and not allowing the harmful use of each
other’s territory," Maliki said in a statement.
The tension over Turkey-Iraq border issues has been compounded by a US
House committee’s approval last week of a resolution labeling as
genocide the deaths and disappearances of an estimated 1.5 million
Armenians during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.
The measure enraged Turkish officials, who contend that the killings
were the result of a brutal war that also took the lives of many
Ottoman Turks.
(c) Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Source: es/2007/10/16/turkey_seeks_ok_for_military_move_in to_northern_iraq/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
