Turkey’s border security in the south is a top priority for both the military and the government. Turkey’s diplomatic efforts to contain and eliminate the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) contingencies in northern Iraq have concentrated on pressuring Baghdad as well as Washington. The missing link is of course Arbil and Massoud Barzani, but common sense dictates that there is no use talking to Mr. Barzani unless we get the Americans on our side. So far there has been little success. The reasons are manifold, but two come to the forefront. First of all the Americans are unwilling to put pressure on Mr. Barzani to cooperate with Turkey against the PKK. They are concerned about offending or losing their best ally in Iraq. This is widely interpreted as another case of US double standards whereby the Americans don’t care about terrorism unless it is aimed at them.
Secondly, Mr. Barzani is playing a dangerous game of domestic politics and promising his constituency more than he can deliver. His argument that they can’t really do much against the PKK is not convincing at all when they boast a 100,000-strong peshmerga army in the North. No one denies the existence of the PKK in the areas under Mr. Barzani’s rule and no one can ignore the threat posed to Turkey’s national security. Yet the issue continues to be a matter of domestic politics for the Kurdish leaders of northern Iraq.
Mr. Barzani is not the only one mixing regional politics with domestic politics. In Turkey we have flocks of hawks wanting to see the Turkish army invade northern Iraq and eliminate the terrorism problem. They seem fixated upon the idea that the root cause of PKK terrorism is now northern Iraq, and its leader Mr. Barzani for sheltering or supporting it. The problem is not that they don’t care about international law or the possible implications of such a policy for Turkey’s future in the region, the problem is that they deliberately fail to see that none of our soldiers who died over the last month died fighting PKK terrorists entering Turkey from northern Iraq. In fact most of them died stepping on mines in routine patrols rather than during active combat. How do we explain this?
Back in Ankara we’re in the middle of a debate over whether the government (more specifically the Turkish Parliament) should grant an open-ended permission to the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to launch cross-border operations in northern Iraq. The picture that emerges from the debate is a familiar one: the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government is tying the hands of the army to defend Turkey. For some of our hawks this is more proof that the AK Party does not care about national security.
The recent incident with US fighters was a bona fide incident for those who want to see an escalation of tension between the AK Party government and the TSK. The government is accused of not giving carte blanche to the army to secure our southern border. The problem is that both the government and the army seem confused as to what to do with such permission. On several occasions Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt said that such permission would be good in our fight against the PKK. Similarly Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül said that they are ready to grant the permission if the TSK made a request. So the question is, has such a request ever been made officially?
As we head toward the July 22 elections, international politics will become more and more part of domestic politics. Under normal circumstances this is a good thing, as it means the ordinary citizens care about the foreign policy of their country. But Turkish politics is hardly ever normal, especially during election. Let’s hope that politicians will act with a heightened sense of responsibility during these difficult times.
(The TSK provides information on such incidents regularly on their Web site. For a list of recent airspace violations see http://www.tsk.mil.tr/index.htm)
