Turkey to invade Iraq?

do we defend our allies in Iraq or our allies in Turkey?

Let me make a quick call to Israel and speak to Mr Ehud Olmert to find out what we should do next. I must say, this is indeed very worrying...

ATTACK IRAN THE DAY IRAQ WAR ENDS, DEMANDS ISRAEL From Stephen Farrell, Robert Thomson and Danielle Haas

[The Times of London, UK, 5 November:] ISRAEL'S Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete.

SIRNAK, Turkey - Turkey is shelling suspected Kurdish rebel camps across the border in northern Iraq, a newspaper reported Wednesday, but the government appeared unlikely to move toward sending ground troops until next week.

A member of the governing Justice and Development Party said a request for parliamentary approval for a cross-border ground offensive was unlikely to come to the floor before the end of a four-day religious holiday on Sunday. He asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that preparations for the parliamentary authorization were under way but he did not say when a motion could reach the floor.

A large-scale military incursion would disrupt one of the few relatively peaceful areas of Iraq and jeopardize Turkey's ties with the United States, which has urged Ankara not to take unilateral steps.

The Turkish military launched a major offensive on its side of the border this week in response to more than a week of deadly attacks in southeastern Turkey by the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

Turkish troops targeting the guerrillas' suspected escape routes in mountainous areas in Sirnak province have "squeezed" a group of about 80 rebels on Mt. Gabar, in Sirnak, the Hurriyet newspaper reported. Escape routes were being bombed by helicopter gunships while transport helicopters were airlifting special commando units to strategic points.

Turkish troops were also shelling suspected PKK camps in the regions of Kanimasa, Nazdur and Sinath, in northern Iraq, from positions in Turkey's Hakkari province, just across the border, Hurriyet reported. Tanks were positioned near the town of Silopi, in Sirnak province, the paper said.

The paper said the government would impose an information blackout on its preparations for a possible cross-border offensive.

In the event that parliament gives its approval, the military could choose to immediately launch an operation or wait to see if the United States and its allies, jolted by the Turkish action, decide to crack down on the rebels.

Turkey conducted two dozen large-scale incursions into Iraq between the late 1980s and 1997. The last such operation, in 1997, involved tens of thousands of troops and government-paid village guards.

Other punitive measure at Turkey's disposal including cutting electricity supplies and closing the border with Iraq.

Turkey approves Iraq incursion

* Story Highlights
* Turkey's Parliament approves military action on Kurdish separatists
* Move comes despite international calls for restraint
* Bush: "We don't think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq"
* Turkey says PKK separatists are launching attacks from Iraqi Kurdistan

(CNN) -- The Turkish parliament has voted to allow its military to make an incursion into Iraq and chase down Kurdish rebels staging cross-border attacks.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government had asked parliament in Ankara on Monday to authorize a military incursion, and the lawmakers responded with overwhelming approval, 507 to 19.

Parliamentary approval, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said before the debate, would not necessarily trigger immediate military action and many analysts doubt a full-scale invasion will be launched.

Turkey has already massed 60,000 troops in the region and over the weekend it shelled farms across the border.

But the chances of such military action raises great concerns in the United States, which fears it would undermine the stability of the American-backed government in Baghdad and jeopardize the supply lines that support U.S. troops in Iraq.

And it heightens anxiety in Iraq, where officials have been taking all-out diplomatic efforts to keep Turkey from carrying out cross-border assaults against Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels in northern Iraq.

Speaking as news of the vote was announced, U.S. President George W. Bush -- who said there already are Turkish troops stationed in Iraq -- said "we are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq."

He noted that Iraq considers the issue sensitive. Saying Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi traveled to Ankara to discuss the issue with Turkish officials, he said the diplomatic discussions on the issue are positive.

"There's a better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops into the country," said Bush.

Meanwhile, Barhim Salih, Iraq's deputy prime minister, who is Kurdish, told CNN that Iraqis believe the "prospect of unilateral action will mean irreparable damage to bilateral relations, and will be a bad consequence to Iraq, bad consequence to Turkey, bad consequence to the region."

Salih said before Wednesday's parliamentary vote in Turkey that such a move would also set a grim precedent.

"If Turkey were to give itself the right to interfere in Iraq militarily, what is there to stop other neighbors from doing so?"

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has called for a series of steps to tackle the dispute, including the dispatching of top-level political and security delegation to Turkey.

Al-Maliki phoned Erdogan on Wednesday and reassured him that Iraq has banned PKK terror activities, his office said.

The office said Erdogan expressed his desire for good relations with Iraq and stressed Turkey's determination to cooperate with the government to deal with the PKK and welcomed negotiations and talks on the issue.

Cross-border trade

In an agreement signed in late September, Iraq agreed to crack down on the PKK, which the U.S. and the European Union consider a terrorist organization.

Iraqi army has no plan to deploy its soldiers near the rugged Turkish-Iraqi border to take on the Kurdish rebels targeting Turkey, and Iraqi authorities are satisfied with the efforts by the Iraqi Kurdish regional authorities to deal with the militants there, a top Iraqi military official told CNN Wednesday.

"It's a mountainous area, difficult terrain and our troops are not trained for that," said Lt. Gen. Nasier Abadi, Iraqi Armed Forces deputy chief of staff.

But Abadi said it was in the interest of the Kurdish Regional Government to deal with the Kurdish rebel problem because of its economic relationship with Turkey.

"They can't afford the PKK to spoil it," he said.

Abadi underscored the importance of cross-border trade, saying that the Kurdish region lost $1 million a day in trade when the Iraq-Iran border was closed during the recent Ramadan holiday.

Iran closed border points in the Kurdish region to protest an arrest of a man the U.S. military called a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force, a point disputed by Iran.

Abadi added that the Turkish military in the past has conducted a series of hot-pursuit-style raids over the vast and mountainous border into northern Iraq in recent years and it didn't find a single Kurdish rebel.

He said most PKK rebels are believed to be in southern Turkey, Syria and Iran.

"They are very good at hiding; it's guerrilla warfare up there," Abadi said.

Armenian issue

The United States has been attempting to use its influence to keep Turkey from launching an incursion but a U.S. domestic political dispute involving the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire around 90 years ago has enflamed passions in Turkey and presented challenges for American diplomacy.

Ties between the NATO allies are strained over a symbolic measure making its way through Congress that would declare the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians "genocide."

Bush on Wednesday urged Congress to drop the House resolution. "One thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire. The resolution on the mass killings of Armenians beginning in 1915 is counterproductive," Bush told reporters.

Two senior U.S. military officials told CNN that commanders in Europe have been told to be "prepared to execute" alternatives to using Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey if Turkey follows through on threats to restrict U.S. use of the base in retaliation for the resolution, which a House of Representatives committee approved last week.

Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that Pentagon planners are looking at "a broad range of options" to keep food, fuel and ammunition flowing to U.S. troops in Iraq if Turkey pulls the plug on Incirlik.

"We're confident that we'll find ways to do that," Ham told reporters at the Pentagon. "There's likely to be some increased cost and some other implications for that, and obviously we'd prefer to maintain the access that we have."

The move is a preliminary step to ensure that alternative aircrews, planes, fuel and routes are lined up and that troops in Iraq will see minimal interruption in their supply lines, the senior officials told CNN.

Turkey, the NATO ally of the US, invaded Iraqi Kurdistan with between 3,000 and 10,000 troops and is facing heavy opposition from Kurdistan Peshmerga forces and from the Kurdish Workers Party paramilitaries. The Turkish military said in a statement 24 PKK rebels and five soldiers were killed in clashes in Iraq. It also said at least 20 rebels were killed in separate aerial attacks.'

The PKK has killed scores of Turkish soldiers in the past six months, and the Turks consider them a terrorist organization.

Sunday, February 24, 2008
37 Killed in Turkish-Kurdish Fighting inside Iraq;
Basra Instability Forces British to Postpone Departure

Turkish military land and air operations inside northern Iraq left 35 PKK guerrillas dead on Saturday, and two Turkish soldiers.

The PKK warned that it would blow up people in Turkish cities if the Turkish army did not withdraw. This threat would be more impressive if they hadn't already been blowing up people in Turkish cities.

Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, himself an Iraqi Kurd, said of the operation, "if it goes on, I think it could destabilise the region, because really one mistake could lead to further escalation."

As if to prove Zebari's point, the leader of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, warned the Turks of large-scale resistance if they advanced toward populated areas.