Instead, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has increased pressure on the United States to act against PKK terrorists based in several camps in neighboring Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq, while the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal stated last Sunday that his party would support a cross-border offensive if necessary.
Asked about past threats of a possible invasion, Erdogan recently said, "When the time comes, Turkey will do whatever is necessary against those threatening our country with terror." Behind these increased calls for an offensive into northern Iraq to eliminate PKK terrorists, to stop them from crossing the border for attacks mainly targeting Turkey's southeast, appears to lie the Turkish state's long-running ineffectiveness and frustration in solving its own Kurdish problem.
PKK attacks, meanwhile, have increased in the past two years following a relatively peaceful atmosphere in the Kurdish southeast since the capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. Ocalan is currently serving a life sentence on an island prison in the Sea of Marmara. Past experience of cross-border operations the Turkish military has staged - almost 24 times between 1983 and 1999 - have been telling us that incursions into northern Iraq have not yielded many results since Turkey has been expending most of its energy on the problem of PKK terrorism. Additionally, Turkey's alienation of the Iraqi Kurds, sometimes resorting to a policy of bullying, has resulted with their refusal to cooperate with Ankara in the fight against the PKK terrorists.
We should also bear in mind that Turkish officials' increased calls for an operation into northern Iraq are also aimed at intimidating the Iraqi Kurds lest they seize the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, according to Western sources. Turkey has been warning that ethnic groups in Kirkuk must share power amid growing fears that Iraq's Kurds will seize control of Kirkuk as part of a plan for an independent Kurdish state on the Turkey-Iraq border.
Now more than ever it has become obvious that Turkish policies on Iraq are mainly based on the fear-related syndrome preventing Ankara from taking decisions where common sense should prevail. But I still believe that Ankara will act responsibly and will not intervene in northern Iraq unilaterally, something that may result in Turkey losing its international credibility. However, a possible Turkish offensive into northern Iraq, provided it is coordinated with US forces - possibly after April - cannot be ruled out.
CORRECTION:
In my column published Jan. 16 and headed "TURKEY'S INTELLIGENCE-GATHERING DILEMMA", fourth paragraph, 1st line, should read: "Despite EU reforms to reduce the Turkish military's political power," instead of "MIT's political power". I apologise for this mistake.
