Fundamental Interests
For the past several days, Turkey has been conducting air strikes against the PKK in the mountains of northern Iraq, using intelligence provided by the United States. It is worth a look at the sequence of events in U.S.-Turkey and U.S.-Kurdish relations.
For the past several days, Turkey has been conducting air strikes against the PKK in the mountains of northern Iraq, using intelligence provided by the United States. It is worth a look at the sequence of events in U.S.-Turkey and U.S.-Kurdish relations.
Relations between the United States and Turkey have been rocky since the accession to power of the AKP government and its refusal to grant the United States permission to enter Iraq from Turkish soil, complicating the early stages of the war. In addition, Turkey’s decision not to join the coalition minimized its impact on political and military arrangements in the north after Saddam’s fall. On the other hand, Turkey has permitted the United States to resupply the troops, and is today the largest investor in Northern Iraq, wedding itself to the forces of stability and free markets in the mainly-but-not-only Kurdish area. At the same time, Congressional flirtation with a resolution on Armenian history infuriated the Turks, and Iraqi Kurdish failure to deal with remnants of the PKK living in the mountains of the north – and receiving support from Iran, which holds the back end of the mountains -infuriated them more.
The PKK, the Kurds and the government of Iraq all seem to believe that the American commitment to securing Iraq’s borders would ensure that Turkey would absorb cross-border PKK terrorism without response. Not so. Dozens of soldiers and civilians have been killed inside Turkey and Turkey has indeed gone after the perpetrators. The Iraqi government has pronounced itself “outraged.” An adviser to Prime Minister al-Maliki, said, “We deplore the interference in our territory… we want to solve this problem through peaceful negotiations and diplomatic means.”
It may, in a backhanded way, be a good thing that the Baghdad government finds itself defending, at least rhetorically, its northern province and northern citizens – the Shiites and Sunnis have had trouble figuring out where Kurds belong in the new Iraq. But the Iraqi government should first “deplore” terrorism that takes place from its territory, not Turkey’s response.
The PKK is to the Kurdish people what Hamas, the PIJ and the PLO are to Palestinians. They are the terrorist wing of people who have grievances – some of which are legitimate and some of which are not; some of which can be resolved politically and some of which cannot be solved at all. Diplomacy is the art of managing what can be managed, but nothing can be managed as long as people and their representatives protect and support terrorist organizations.
The United States and Turkey have fundamentally compatible interests in the broader region and American intelligence support for Turkey was right and necessary. At the same time, as Israel has learned with its Gaza experience, air strikes alone will not solve the problem. The United States should be ready to step in with multiparty diplomacy, but only when the ground rules are understood – the PKK cannot be party to any talks and the talks will be for the purpose of figuring out how to close off support of the PKK and providing additional stability for the countries of the region.