This is how I foresee the Turkish state falling apart eventually - from within. With Islam gaining popularity within mainstream Turkish society and Kurds gaining in strength its only a matter of time before the Republic of Turkey, as we know it, will cease to exist. Are we Armenians ready to exploit the situation when it occurs?
Turkey keen to attack Kurds in Iraq as Kurdish militant kills 8
Turkish foreign minister Monday defended his country's right to move into neighboring Iraq to destroy separatist bases there as eight soldiers died in the latest suicide bombing involving ethnic Kurds.
The suicide attack, which occurred at a Turkish checkpoint, killing at least eight soldiers and leaving six wounded, is the latest in a series of terrorist attacks allegedly carried out by Kurdish militants. "We respect Iraq's territorial integrity but we cannot tolerate terrorist activities near our borders and on our territory," Abdullah Gul told an Ankara news conference after a meeting with EU officials. The EU apparently has given tacit support for Turkey's plans for a large military operation in the Kurdish-populated northern part of Iraq against armed members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Speaking after their meeting with Gul, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, and Olli Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner, neither condemned nor openly supported the plan. Renh said, however, that the EU was definitely on Turkey's side where counterterrorism was concerned. The Turkish military have said up to 3,500 PKK gunmen based in Iraq were poised to commit terrorist attacks in Turkey, which encouraged the government to draft a petition to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, asking him to exert pressure on Baghdad over the PKK's presence in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Turkish TV network NTV said the petition to be sent Monday would substantiate Ankara's claim that a military operation would be legal, citing Article 51 of the UN Charter on the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense by members. Last week Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to decide whether an operation would take place as soon as the military provided sufficient intelligence. "The ultimate decision on an operation is political. We will give consideration to whatever the military ask us to," he told Turkish media.
Amid the Turkish military buildup near the Iraqi border in past weeks, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, said Sunday the Turks had bombed Iraqi territory in one of several pinpoint raids against PKK gunmen, a claim neither confirmed nor rejected by the Turkish General Staff. Over 40,000 people have been killed in Turkey since 1984 when PKK started its fight for an ethnic Kurdish state in the southeast of the country. Its charismatic leader Abdullah Ocalan has been imprisoned since 1999 on charges of terrorism narrowly escaping the death penalty because the EU, whose membership Turkey is seeking, has long lobbied against capital punishment.
Since the 2003 U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Turkish separatist Kurds have received increasing, if unacknowledged, support from those living in the three neighboring provinces of oil-rich northern Iraq, whose population has sought autonomy from Baghdad and where local Peshmerga militia formally took over security functions from U.S. forces earlier this month. Ethnic Kurds have also been actively driving for autonomy in eastern parts of Syria. The borders between the three countries are still unsecured.
Source:
http://en.rian.ru/world/20070604/66654908.html
US again warns Turkey against move into northern Iraq
Washington has repeatedly said it does not believe a cross border operation into northern Iraq will resolve the issue of PKK bases in the region.
The US has again warned Turkey not to send troops into northern Iraq to strike at bases operated by the terrorist group the PKK. The latest warning came on Sunday, with US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates saying Washington hoped Turkey would not take unilateral military action across the border into Iraq. Speaking in Singapore, where he was attending meetings with senior Asian officials, Gates said he understood and sympathised with Ankara over the attacks being staged by the PKK based in northern Iraq.
“The Turks have a genuine concern with Kurdish terrorism that takes place on Turkish soil,” Gates said. “So one can understand their frustration and unhappiness over this. Several hundred Turks lose their lives each year, and we have been working with the Turks to try to help them get control of this problem on Turkish soil.” The US has said it prefers Turkey to work with Iraq to try and combat the threat posed by the PKK in the region.
Source:
http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/409962.asp
Gates warns Turkey not to invade Iraq
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday cautioned Turkey against sending troops into northern Iraq, as it has threatened, to hunt down Kurdish rebels it accuses of carrying out terrorist raids inside Turkey.
"We hope there would not be a unilateral military action across the border into Iraq," Gates told a news conference after meetings here with Asian government officials. Turkey and Iraq were not represented. Gates said he sympathized with the Turks' concern about cross-border raids by Kurdish rebels. "The Turks have a genuine concern with Kurdish terrorism that takes place on Turkish soil," he said. "So one can understand their frustration and unhappiness over this. Several hundred Turks lose their lives each year, and we have been working with the Turks to try to help them get control of this problem on Turkish soil."
Tensions have heightened in recent weeks in northern Iraq as Turkey has built up its military forces on Iraq's border, a move clearly meant to pressure Iraq to rein in the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, separatists who launch raids into southeast Turkey's Kurdish region from hideouts in Iraq. Turkey's political and military leaders have been debating whether to try to root out those bases, and perhaps set up a buffer zone across the frontier as the Turkish army has done in the past. Turkey's military chief said Thursday the army was ready and only awaiting orders for a cross-border offensive.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday urged Turkey not to stage a new incursion, saying his government will not allow the relatively peaceful area of northern Iraq to be turned into a battleground. Turks accuse Iraqi Kurds, who once fought alongside the Turkish soldiers against the PKK in Iraq, of supporting the separatist rebels and worry that the war in Iraq could lead to the country's disintegration and the creation of a Kurdish state in the north. At the Singapore news conference Gates was asked about a reported U.S. naval bombardment on Friday of terrorist targets in northern Somalia.
"That's possibly an ongoing operation," he said, adding that as a result he would not comment on it. Gates was in Singapore to attend an international security conference known as the Shangri-la Dialogue, where he reassured Asian nations that the United States remains committed to being a Pacific power and is not distracted by the Iraq war. He said he did not ask any Asian government representatives to make new commitments to help in Iraq, but he did discuss with them at length the prospect of providing more assistance in Afghanistan. He said some countries, which he did not name, told him they were open to considering new commitments in Afghanistan.
Source:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007 ... 886004.htm
