A few months ago, I wrote of the many possible outcomes of Americas involvement in Iraq. Not so very long ago, I wrote about the Kurdish independance movement and the fact that the richest Iraqi oil reserves are located in Iranqi Kurdistan. In that piece I wrote of Turkeys stance in this war and how they now were massing on the Iraqi border to possibly invade and seize Kurdistan.
That is what happened today. Turkey is unclear as to how many troops it has sent but there are at least thousands. The reasoning behind Turkeys move is supposedly to stop the PKK insurgents that are infiltrating Turkey to sieze Turkish Kurdistan. The Kurds want their own country and have been threatening to secede from Iraq. The Iraqis have been making a lot of concessions to the Kurds to placate them. So far, Kurdish Iraq is the quietest part of Iraq, though there have been some very bloody terrorist massacres commited against them.
It remains to be seen how many troops Turkey sends, how far they go into Iraq and how long they remain there. Turkey has been making a lot of capitol investments in Kurdish Iraq. Are these investments for the future of an Annexed Turkish/Iraqi Kurdistan? How will America react to their very important NATO Ally invading Iraq?
It must be embarrassing for George Jr. at the G-8 Meeting with all his buddies.
5 comments:
update, thursday morning.
Turkey denies that they have trops in Iraq.
America says that several hundred crossed over in an incident pursuing PKK insurgents.
Gates issuued a statement from Hong Kong saying it would be "regretable" if a member NATO ally invaded Iraq.
In the swirls of denials and cross statements, I say, the probability of this being a factiually correct report are very high and the world waits the next word!
I don't think Turkey would make the move without tacit approval by the United States. It is just too bold a gambit. If it is true, then it is probably part of a larger plan to slice and dice Iraq into ethnic enclaves and the Bush administration has sold out the Kurds.
The Kurds had it coming to them.
Does anybody remember the Armenians? In the first part of the 20th Century the Turks took them on a hike through what is now Iraq and Lebanon. A friend of mine is Armenian and his mother was just a five year old girl when her younger sister died over the night with her head in my friend’s mothers lap. Her father and uncles had already been killed along with her grandparents. She had to leave her sister on the side of the road because they were marched to another place every day. The Armenians’ did not even have oil reserves.
The Armenian Genocide is still a burning issue here in Europe. It is probably the main reason why Turkey is having a hard time being considered for membership in the EU.
This year France declared a celebration of Armenian Culture and passed a resolution condemning Turkey for it's continued denial of the event.
This caused considerable flack between france and Turkey.
One of Turkeys biggest journalists was brutally murdered in Ankara because of his continued focus on Turkeys crime over 80 years ago.
I remember a Turkish Day Parade in New york in the early 90's that turned into a near riot as hundreds of Armenian protestors disrupted the proceedings!
Turkey will never be accepted as a responsible modern state until they
make some real gesture acknowleging this atrocity!
Post a Comment