Iraq and Turkey See Tensions Rise After Ambush

[tw]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

The BBC has a story on this now,... It describes quite a lot of activity "inside" Turkey and "on the border", and ... So ... it's been officially denied ....

Of course Turkey will invade. That has been obvious for over a week now. Turks have tens of soldiers kill and captured. What the various parties declare will be the usual public responses only loosely based in reality. What actually happens will be based upon facts.

In the 1990s, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran tacitly cooperated for a previous expunging of the PKK (and other Kurdish parties). Many PKK soldiers were killed. Most survived. Little was accomplished other than to diminish the attacks. It is an insurgency - a guerrilla war. It cannot be eliminated only by military actions. A solution (as usual) must be found in a meeting of the minds - sometimes called a peace treaty. That cannot (yet) exist, in part, because it is not entirely clear what the various parties want and who the various parties even represent.

War would break out even among the three largest Kurdish parties. Saddam profited by using this infighting to bargin with all Kurdish parties including an 'Oil for Food' program. Kurds would even do business routinely with Saddam just to get one up on other Kurdish groups. The fact that Saddam had gassed whole Kurd villages was even secondary. These are not parties negotiate a PKK problem.

Obvious is that neither Turkey, Iraq (the American puppet government), or Iran will surrender land for peace. None have any reason to. None have any reason to believe an independent Kurdistan will create a solution. Problem will remain.

Other Kurds (a majority) are more interested in making themselves an autonomous country inside a more fictitious entity called Iraq. Their attention is more concentrated on Kirkuk and on oil revenues that require open borders and control of Kirkuk. Most Kurds probably don't want distractions created by the PKK.

So where in this morass is the foundation of a negotiated settlement? It does not exist. Why is a Turk invasion of northern Kurdistan irrelevant from a world perspective? Many Kurds may even want the PKK taken down a step. Some regional powers label the PKK as terrorists. Turkey military operations in Iraq are not a serious problem, should be expected now and multiple times in the future, and are mostly condoned (tacitly) by most every significant regional power. A problem that will continue until some major party really defines an achievable objective that rallies Kurdish or regional powers to an agreement.

Turks invade Kurdish Iraq? Call me when something new or significant happens. Turkey has long been executing small scale military operations in northern Iraq anyway. Valley of the Wolves Iraq is based on one such Turk operations in Iraq. The only difference this month is 'scale'.