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Turkey marches boldly into Iraq

By K Gajendra Singh

10/08/03: (Asia Times) As expected, the Turkish parliament voted 358 votes to 183 Tuesday to authorize the dispatch of troops into Iraq. The ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), with Islamic antecedents, passed the motion at the request of its NATO ally the United States.

Parliament did not specify how many Turkish troops would be sent, but in the past it was discussed that up to 10,000 soldiers would be dispatched, which would make it the largest contingent after the US and the British forces.

The US recently granted Turkey, which is undergoing an economic crisis, a loan of US$8.5 billion, but has made it clear that the loan is conditional on cooperation over Iraq. In its motion seeking parliamentary approval, the Turkish government made no mention of persistent US demands for Turkish troops, and stressed its own national interests lie in preventing the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq that could embolden its own Kurds - some 20 percent of the population. US counter-terrorism experts met Turkish officials last week and agreed on joint efforts to tackle the some 5,000 Kurdish rebels believed to be holed up in the mountains in northern Iraq.

In Baghdad, the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council declared its opposition to soldiers from any neighboring country, including Turkey, coming to Iraq. While the US governor of Iraq, L Paul Bremer, has the final say on the policy, the council's position muddies the situation for the US to persuade Iraqis to accept Turkish soldiers.

"The Governing Council's stand is against the presence of troops from neighboring countries without exception, and Turkey is one of these countries," said Nabeil al-Moussawi of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), headed by leading council member Ahmad Chalabi, a Shi'ite Iraqi who was in exile since 1958. Chalabi is a Pentagon favorite and is still wanted in Jordan on Petra Bank embezzlement charges.

A Kurdish member of Iraq's 25-member Governing Council, Mahmoud Othman, said the council "is unanimous in issuing a communique against the sending of Turkish forces to Iraq". Barham Saleh of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) , who is in Ankara to meet Turkish officials to discuss economic aid and other matters, said, "Turkish troops will face some difficulties if they enter Iraq because the majority of Iraqi groups do not want any military participation from any neighboring country," he said. "The presence of foreign military forces in Iraq will not guarantee security for the Iraqi people but will be a factor for the deterioration in the security situation."

Apart from the Kurds in north Iraq, who have made their opposition to the dispatch of Turkish troops clear ever since US planned to invade Iraq, the PUK is even opposed to Turkish troops passing through Kurdish Iraq. Turkey had invited some tribal leaders from Iraq, but their response to the presence of its troops in Iraq was not very positive.

Naturally, the US has welcomed the Turkish decision and it has been working hard for months to get troops from a major country culturally similar to Iraq. Attempts were made to win troops from India and Pakistan, but with elections announced on October 6 in its five states, India has already declined and is unlikely to change its position. Even the position of sending troops from Pakistan remains a confusing enigma, however with India's refusal Pakistan is unlikely to agree as President General Pervez Musharraf has enough problems to deal with in his own backyard.

On October 6, three US soldiers were killed in Iraq and Shi'ites demonstrated against the US troops on October 7. Since President George W Bush declared the end of major hostilities on May 1, more US soldiers have been killed than in the war itself.

With the disputes between the US and NATO allies France and Germany still raw and differences persisting over another UN resolution on Iraq, even with Russia and China, there appears to be little chance of other nations contributing troops.

Even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was opposed to the the most recent draft resolution because the US still wants to retain almost full control in Iraq, without any timetable to hand over power to the Iraqis. By the two-time bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad, as well as the bombing of the embassy of Jordan, police stations and the killing of major pro-US Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim, the emerging Iraqi resistance is making things hot for everyone.

Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek said on October 6, "Turkish soldiers will remain there for one year, that is, the validity of the motion we are sending to parliament has been limited to one year." He added, "We will not remain there permanently. Hopefully, peace and serenity will be restored [in Iraq] as quickly as possible, thus allowing us to leave even earlier."

The US government assured Turkey that it will do more to combat Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels, the Turkish separatist movement that has waged a bloody decades-long struggle in Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has argued that sending troops would improve relations with the US and give Turkey a say in the future of Iraq. Details of the deployment will be decided by Erdogan and his ministers.

March 2003 vote
Even in March, although the circumstances were quite different, a vote in parliament over whether to allow the US to use Turkish soil in the war against Iraq was lost only by three votes, on technical grounds. In fact, the speaker had declared the vote in favor of the motion, it was only the opposition Republican People's Party which pointed out that a majority of the total number of the house, and not just of those present, was mandatory.

At the time, more than 90 percent of the population was opposed to the dispatch of Turkish troops and thousands massed in front of parliament and elsewhere protesting against the vote. The role of the armed forces, which are highly respected by the people, was not clear as it did not indicate its preference, which would have clinched the issue. It eventually did. Matters were made worse by what the Turks felt was American bullying during negotiations over the terms of the proposed deal for aid and loans and its patronizing and sometimes scurrilous coverage in the US media. Washington had offered an aid package of $15 billion, which could have been leveraged into loans worth $26 billion. But the terms and conditions were unclear and the US attitude was brash.

After the surprise vote, Erdogan did not ask for a second vote. Sensing the mood of the country and in his party, he continued to stall on a second vote even while the US continued with its arm-twisting tactics, further annoying Turkish leaders, media and public. On the whole, it was an unappetizing show, with the US and the UK on one side and France and Germany on the other. There was a lot of confusion, acrimony and misunderstanding aired publicly, even after a lesser agreement was passed in parliament for the US to use Turkish air space.

Soon after the sudden collapse of Iraqi resistance at the gates of Baghdad on April 9, neo-conservatives embedded in the Pentagon came down heavily on Turkey for its March refusal. They recalled that US ships waiting to unload military hardware at the Turkish Mediterranean port of Iskendrun had to be re-routed to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, a delay that had then appeared critical. When US land forces became bogged down on the way to Baghdad, neo-conservatives faced the flak back home, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy Paul Wolfowitz getting most of it.

Soon after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Firdaus square in Baghdad in April, Wolfowitz gave Turkey a tongue lashing. Then came the imprisonment of 11 Turkish commandos in Kurdish northern Iraq.

But Secretary of State Colin Powell had phone conversations with Erdogan to bring him around. Expressions of regret from the US over the "wrong" action against the commandos following a joint inquiry by Turkish General Koksal Karabay and General John Silvester of NATO calmed twitchy nerves.

The US's relations with Turkey (and others) had almost become a function of the ground situation in Iraq and the undiplomatic and sometimes abrasive interventions by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. So it was left to the State Department and the Turkish Foreign Ministry to clean up the mess, ease tempers and repair the ruffled alliance.

Historical claims
When Turkey's founder, Kemal Ataturk, in 1919 begun organizing a war of resistance for Turkey's independence, then under the heels of World War I victors led by Great Britain, his map of a sacred new nation included, apart from the present-day boundaries of Turkey, the Kurdish province of Mosul (with Kirkuk), now in Iraq. Much of this area had been occupied by British forces after the ceasefire in 1918, and was later joined with the former Ottoman Arab vilayets (provinces) of Baghdad and Basra to create Iraq. But this divided the Kurdish homelands. From Iraq, too, the sub-province of Kuwait under the Kayakayam of Basra was detached to create a new emirate. Oil was then, as it is now, the main driving force; not the freedom or welfare of the people.

The Turks feel that here is an opportunity to establish their presence and to perhaps take back oil-rich Mosul and Kirkuk. Almost all political leaders, including those from the ruling AKP, media writers and others have openly reiterated Turkey's claims on Kirkuk. Of course, one of the official reasons given was to protect their kinsmen the Turkomen and the latter's rights over the reserves of oil around Kirkuk. This area is now under the control of Sunni Arabs, but it was traditionally claimed by the Kurds, who are in the majority in the region, while Turkey's ethnic cousins, the Turkomen, had a good presence in Kirkuk. The other major reason cited, of course, is Turkish fears of Kurds declaring an independent state, now that the Saddam regime has collapsed. This could spur the separatists' war in Turkey.

Turkey/US NATO alliance
During the Cold War, Turkey, with its well-trained armed forces of nearly 1 million, acted as NATO's aircraft carrier against the USSR-led communist bloc and provided bases for flights and a direct defense line against hostile states such as Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia and Romania.

The Incirlik air base in the south of Turkey, important for the US and NATO war planes throughout the Cold War and after the 1991 Gulf War, provided a platform for US and British planes to patrol the "safe haven" for the Kurds in northern Iraq and save them from the excesses of Saddam's rule.

Even after the fall of the Berlin wall, Turkey remained geostrategically important for the US and Europe. It borders Greece, Bulgaria and Romania in southeastern Europe and is lapped by the Black Sea, the Aegean and the Mediterranean in Asian Anatolia. It is at the crossroads of Europe, Russia, the Caucasus and the Caspian basin, the Arab world and Iran. Although 99 percent Muslim, it is a secular democratic republic and a buffer between Europe and a Middle East in turmoil.

North Iraq and Turkey's Kurdish problem
Turkey has serious problems with its own Kurds, who form 20 percent of the population. A rebellion since 1984 against the Turkish state led by Abdullah Ocalan of the Marxist PKK has cost over 35,000 lives, including 5,000 soldiers. To control and neutralize the rebellion, thousands of Kurdish villages have been bombed, destroyed, abandoned or relocated. Millions of Kurds have been moved to shanty towns in the south and east or migrated westwards.

The economy of the region lies shattered. With a third of the Turkish army tied up in the southeast, the cost of countering the insurgency at its height amounted to between $6 billion and $8 billion a year. The rebellion has died down due to the arrest and trial of Ocalan, in 1999, but has not been eradicated. After a court in Turkey lessened the sentence to life imprisonment rather than the death sentence passed on Ocalan in 2002, and when parliament granted rights for the use of the Kurdish language, some of the root causes of the Kurdish rebellion have been removed.

But clashes still occur, and the PKK - now also called Kadek - has shifted almost 4,000 of its cadres to northern Iraq. They have refused to lay down arms as required by a new "repentance law", now under discussion in the Turkish parliament. They have also ensconced themselves on the border between Iraq and Iran. The US's priority to disarm PKK cadres has not been very high. In fact, the US wants to reward Iraqi Kurds, who have remained peaceful while the rest of the country has not.

Iraqi Kurds have been ambivalent to the PKK, helping them at times. Ankara has entered north Iraq from time to time - despite protests - to attack PKK bases and its cadres, and it keeps between 5,000 and 10,000 troops in the region. Ankara has also said that it would regard an independent Kurdish entity as a cause for war. It is opposed to the Kurds seizing the oil centers of Kirkuk or Mosul, which would give them financial autonomy, and this would also constitute a reason for entry into north Iraq. However, neither has happened so far, and after the quick collapse of Saddam's forces, the Turks have muted their talk of such "red lines", that is, seizure of oil fields or autonomy.

Kurds and the 1991 Gulf War
The 1990-91 Gulf crisis and war proved to be a watershed in the violent explosion of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey. A nebulous and ambiguous situation emerged in north Iraq when, at the end of the war, Bush Sr encouraged the Kurds (and the hapless Shi'ites in the south) to revolt against Saddam's Sunni Arab regime. Turkey was dead against it, as a Kurdish state in the north would give ideas to its own to Kurds.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the Gulf were totally opposed to a Shi'ite state in south Iraq. The Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites paid a heavy price. Thousands were butchered. The international media's coverage of the pitiable conditions, with more than half a million Iraqi Kurds escaping towards the Turkish border from Saddam's forces in March 1991, led to the creation of a protected zone in north Iraq, later patrolled by US and British war planes. The Iraqi Kurds did elect a parliament, but it never functioned properly. Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani run almost autonomous administrations in their areas. They make forced handshakes under US pressure. This state of affairs has allowed the PKK a free run in north Iraq.

After 1991, Turkey lost out instead of gaining. The closure of Iraqi pipelines, economic sanctions and the loss of trade with Iraq, which used to pump billions of US dollars into the economy and provide employment to hundreds of thousands, with thousands of trucks roaring up and down to Iraq, further exacerbated the economic and social problems in the Kurdish heartland and the center of the rebellion. The 1980s war between Iraq and resurgent Shi'ites in Iran helped the PKK to establish itself in the lawless north Kurdish Iraq territory. The PKK also helped itself with arms freely available in the region during the eight-year long war.

It has been a difficult decision for the Turkish government, given particularly the Islamic roots of the ruling party, to send troops into a Muslim nation occupied by the US, and they will be the first significant force from a Muslim nation.

And as said, Kurd leaders in northern Iraq have made it clear that they will not welcome Turkish troops. The Turkish government has sent in a number of teams to assess the kind of reception Turkish troops can expect. It is seeking to pave the way by taking in health workers, contractors to rebuild damaged mosques, and even pop singers to sweeten the local population.

Whether this is enough to win hearts and minds in Iraq is open to question, but what cannot be disputed is that Ankara has taken a bold decision that paves the way for Turkey becoming a major player in the region. After all, it now has the US on its side.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. 

Copyright 2003 Asia Times