17.10.2007

Playing for high stakes

Turkey's government is bringing a bill before the grand national assembly allowing the army to cross the border into Iraq for punitive expeditions. Esen Uslu reports

Turkey's government is bringing a bill before the grand national assembly allowing the army to cross the border into Iraq for punitive expeditions. The bill will grant the government blanket authority to deploy expeditionary forces over the border whenever it sees fit for up to a year.

The main opposition parties have already indicated their support for the measure. Indeed they have suggested the measures do not go far enough. Only the Democratic Society Party  (DTP) - Kurdish nationalists who managed to win parliamentary seats by standing as independents - is prepared to raise an objection to such adventurism.

Official version

If you take things at their face value, this extraordinary situation has emerged following a series of attacks by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in recent weeks that left more than 40 people dead. In return Turkish armed forces killed several Kurdish guerrillas in the mountains near the Iraqi border.

In a lull between the fighting, the army allowed relatives of the seven guerrillas to collect bodies from the ravines, but prevented them performing the traditional ceremonial wash and burial at the state hospital. The relatives were forced to wash them in a stream.

Later 12 villagers working on an irrigation project were killed on their way back home. The minibus carrying them was ambushed and all were shot at close range. Nobody acknowledged responsibility, and a parliamentary investigation later concluded that it was a PKK operation since some of the victims were village guards.

In another incident a bomb placed in a bin in Diyarbakir town centre killed 11, including five children, and maimed many more. The same week several soldiers and civilians were killed and injured in south-eastern Turkey. DTP premises were shot at, stoned and set alight in various parts of the country.

Then 13 solders were killed in unexplained circumstances. Some sources suggest they were the rearguard of a larger force returning to their bases after an operation and were ambushed. Others suggest that they fell victim to a mine explosion. However, the army chose to remain silent on this issue.

The next day the media went into full propaganda mode, portraying the innocent soldiers, some of Kurdish origin, as among the poorest of the poor. The official funerals were used to continue stirring up the hysteria.

So the stage was set for revenge to be demanded: 'Take out the terrorist bases in northern Iraq.' And the government was forced to act decisively.

Beneath the surface

However, if you are prepared to poke beneath the surface, then you may remember that the army has been deploying artillery on the Iraqi border since early spring. In April the chief of general staff gave a press briefing openly asking for a blank cheque from the government to carry out cross-border operations. He repeated the request in late June, suggesting that the US had blocked any operation of the Turkish army into Iraqi Kurdistan directed against the PKK, and the chief of staff implied that the government had meekly surrendered, faced with this American diktat.

The AKP (Justice and Development Party) government initially attempted to brush aside the army's tactics, and tried to switch the agenda to the debate over the constitution. A new draft constitution has been prepared on the initiative of the AKP by a small group of liberal and islamist academicians to replace the one drawn up by the junta in 1982. The government's move seemed to be aimed at reducing the military's hold over the political process.

The government was seeking to capitalise on the votes it won in the July elections in the Kurdish regions and present itself as the sole force capable of dealing with the Kurdish insurgency by providing peaceful and legitimate means to defuse the situation, as advised by the European Union and USA.

In a sense the tactics of the government were successful in ensuring the postponement of a referendum to decide the future of Kirkuk city and the oil-rich surrounding areas in Iraqi Kurdistan - areas claimed by Kurdish separatists. It was also able, with the help of the US, to conclude a bilateral anti-terror agreement with the Iraqi government - albeit minus a clause that would have provided for Turkish 'hot pursuit' over the border.

However, the government was unable to stop the armed actions of the PKK guerrillas. It could not contain the demands for drastic action from the main opposition force - the military and top state bureaucrats.

Timing is everything

The government hand was further weakened by the a bill going through US Congress condemning the Armenian genocide of 1915. Despite all its efforts and some assistance from the Bush administration, the AKP government failed to stop the foreign affairs committee of the House of Representatives approving the bill.

This added to the anti-American feeling. Not only had the US advised restraint in response to the spate of killings in Kurdistan, but it was in the process of siding with the Armenians over 1915. Not only are the Americans unsympathetic to Turkey in general, and the Turkish government in particular, but they are supporting 'national enemies' such as the Armenians and Kurds. Why pay any heed to such an 'ally'? From former generals to top judges, everybody was now demanding the panacea of cross-border incursions.

The government is left trying to face both ways. On the one hand, it adopts increasingly hostile rhetoric for home consumption; on the other, it tries to prevent relations with the US from deteriorating further. For example, the Turkish ambassador to the US was "recalled for consultations" - a minor diplomatic reprimand to the Americans. But the agreement allowing the US use of the Incirlik air base and Iskenderun port facilities in southern Turkey - from where the invasion of Iraq was launched - was not ended despite a chorus of demands for the licence to be revoked without delay. It denied the Iraqi Kurdish airline passage through Turkish airspace, to which a blind eye had previously been turned. But it did not stop all cross-border traffic into Iraqi Kurdistan.

By using such tactics, the government is actually trying to hold to its own strategic plans. But, as the saying goes, when you go to war, the first thing undermined is your plans. So the government is getting ready to adopt military measures in line with the agreements reached between the chief of general staff and the prime minister at a secret meeting.

The government's cross-border bill contained four restraining clauses on the military: (1) Any decision to enter Iraqi Kurdistan shall be taken by the government alone. (2) The sole target shall be the PKK, not the Iraqi Kurdish forces of Barzani and Talabani. (3) No land or oilfields shall be seized during any military action. (4) The 'territorial integrity' of Iraq shall be respected.

These clauses seem unlikely to persuade the Americans or Iraqi Kurds to tolerate blanket incursions. However, they may provide sufficient scope for the tacit permission of the US and other major powers for more limited cross-border action. In any case, a major operation over mountainous terrain in rapidly approaching winter conditions could easily produce unfortunate results for Turkish forces.

It is, of course, sheer folly to hope to eradicate an established guerrilla movement through a series of sporadic raids into the Iraqi Kurdistan mountains. But any such adventure could escalate into a major conflict - with lethal consequences for Turkey's limited democracy. So the government is playing for high stakes. All its careful calculations could be upset by some unforeseen turn of events.