This enabled Turkish soldiers to accurately pinpoint their targets, outposts of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Kandil Mountains as well as other camps in northern Iraq, preventing collateral damage.
From the political viewpoint, the Turkish military's cross-border incursions have marked the civilian authority's control over the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), though limited to military operations. Despite the TSK's earlier persistent attitude of staging cross-border operations unilaterally, without seeking authorization from Parliament, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) ensured that the operations would be done in a proper manner.
An absence of US consent for the cross-border incursions would have complicated Washington's war efforts in Iraq as a whole, while collateral damage would have become inevitable. Thus, following then-US President George Bush's approval, Washington began supplying Turkey with real-time intelligence in November 2007. A center was established at an Ankara military headquarters to coordinate intelligence gathered from US satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and U2 spy planes.
The center, operated jointly by US and Turkish officers, has helped the latter educate themselves on gathering sensitive intelligence information.
An initiative to solve Turkey's decades-old Kurdish question by broadening Turkish democratic standards in general, has been launched by the government in the meantime.
Then came concerns that extending the mandate for the military to stage cross-border operations would harm the Kurdish reform process. Ideas were voiced in Ankara that the Turkish Parliament should not extend the mandate for cross-border operations for another year.
Those defending this idea state that the continuation of cross-border operations will have a negative impact on the Kurdish reforms, which have already faced serious obstacles even before the details are disclosed. It is understood that there were factions within the ruling party -- which has around 70 deputies of Kurdish origin -- that suggested that Parliament not give its authorization to the TSK for cross-border operations for the sake of the Kurdish reform efforts.
The General Staff, however, said it supports the adoption of the decree by Parliament so that it can continue its operations when necessary. Even if the Turkish military does not launch operations into northern Iraq, the extension of the mandate is important for the TSK. This is partly because if Parliament did not allow the military to undertake these operations, the TSK would go blind, in the sense that the US would take away its intelligence-gathering equipment -- UAVs and satellites -- deployed in northern Iraq to use them, for example, in Afghanistan, where they are needed urgently as critical assets.
In the midst of such debates, Parliament on Tuesday extended for another year the mandate allowing its military to attack PKK insurgents based in northern Iraq.
Rejecting concerns that extending the mandate would harm the Kurdish process, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu told Parliament before the vote that the government was determined to push ahead with the reform process.
“On the contrary, the extension of the decree will support the government's reform efforts, as it will have a role of deterrence,” Davutoğlu argued.
Twenty-one pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) deputies as well as two independent deputies, including Ufuk Uras, voted against the extension of the decree, while over 15 AK Party deputies from Kurdish regions abstained from voting.
But 453 deputies voted for the extension of the decree, a strong message that the implementation of a Kurdish reform project, if it works, will take longer than expected.
The Turkish public has, however, signaled an increase in its support for the Kurdish reform process. Polls show 48 percent of the population approves of the Kurdish reforms, according to an opinion poll conducted for the government by Pollmark. This is quite promising for Kurdish reform in a country where the public has deep misperceptions about Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin.
