Though not officially confirmed, President Abdullah Gül is scheduled to visit the Iraqi capital of Baghdad as well as the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, whose status is controversial and which Turkey strongly opposes being handed over to the control of the Iraqi Kurds. Turkey has not officially recognized the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) though it was created under the Iraqi constitution.
This is because Turkey has not yet been able to overcome its old fears that if the KRG ultimately turns into an independent Kurdish state, this will have a spillover effect on Turkey's own Kurdish population, located mainly in the southeastern parts of the country neighboring Iraq.
However, no matter what Turkey's policies are on the Iraqi Kurds control of northern Iraq -- where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is based and which it uses as a staging ground for attacks inside Turkey, as well as on Iraq -- Ankara does not have much control over political developments taking place in its neighbor.
Then it becomes essential that Turkey should develop rational policies instead of continuing its sometimes anachronistic stance on Iraq.
Turkey's initiation of dialogue with the Iraqi Kurds recently and with the Iraqi central authority over a year ago, though in response to a US suggestion, marks a positive shift in Ankara's policy towards this neighbor.
But Ankara still has not taken any sound and courageous steps in resolving its Kurdish problem through non-military means, which are vital in lessening PKK violence and thus bringing peace to the Southeast in particular and to the whole country in general.
The unresolved status of the Kurdish problem has hijacked any Turkish attempt to democratize the country.
Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the head of the KRG, told a group of Turkish deputies from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) visiting northern Iraq this past week that the PKK would lay down their arms through dialogue. He ruled out the possibility of a Turkish-Iraqi Kurdish joint operation being staged against the PKK to destroy its presence in the region.
"No Kurdish blood will be shed with Kurdish hands," he told the DTP deputies.
Barzani's remarks ruling out any joint operation with Turkey against the PKK come at a time when the US has signed a security agreement with Iraq that envisages, among other things, US troop withdrawal from the country by 2011. The same agreement also foresees Iraq taking over control of Iraqi air space from the US as of next month.
It is no secret that Iraq will still need a US troop presence to help build its military forces even after the three-year deadline set for US troop withdrawal from the country passes. Similarly, deprived of military assets to control its own air space, Iraq will still need US military help before it can fully control its air space over the coming four or more years.
Safeen Dizayee, the director of foreign affairs for the KDP, which is influential in KRG policy making, stresses this reality during an interview with me in Ankara.
However, he also recalls that it might be more difficult for Turkey to strike a deal with Iraq to continue its air strikes, which started in December of last year, with a supply of real-time intelligence from the US to accurately pinpoint PKK targets in northern Iraq.
"Under the security agreement, the US would give real-time intelligence information on the PKK to the Iraqi central government, which would decide on whether or not to pass that information on to Turkey," Dizayee states.
But he also adds that Turkish air strikes supported by artillery fire from within Turkey have, contrary to their aims, strengthened the PKK.
"Let me give you an example about us. The KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK], another Iraqi Kurdish party, survived despite an almost 30-year war against the Iraqi central authority. Iraqi Kurds survived attacks during which napalm bombs and chemical weapons were used. This alone shows that Turkey cannot solve its PKK problem through military means," Dizayee points out.
On the recently launched tri-party talks between Turkey, Iraq and the US to address the PKK problem, Dizayee notes that for the first time Iraqi Kurdish representatives were included in those talks, the first of which were held almost two months ago.
Dizayee says if the trilateral talk mechanism is effective then there will be no need for Turkish bombardment in northern Iraq to pursue the PKK.
Professor Seyfettin Gürsel of İstanbul Bahçeşehir University told the Taraf daily in an interview on Dec. 15 that Turkey can survive the effects of the current economic crisis by solving three political problems: the Aegean dispute with Greece, Cyprus and the Kurdish issue.
"If those three problems are solved, military expenditures will be reduced. ... Military expenditures are making us poorer," he added.
Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek recently said Turkey had spent around $1 trillion on the 25-year fight against the PKK.
In the final analysis, non-military solutions to our chronic problems will turn a new and a positive page in Turkish history.
