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A looming threat

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under pressure from several quarters to remove the restraints on his country’s military and allow it to raid the bases of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, obtained far less than he hoped for when he met United States President George Bush on November 5. The regime in Baghdad and its backers in Washington have so far done little to mollify the Turks even though a cross-border raid could destabilise the only quiescent part of a country that is rocked by the resistance against foreign occupation. At a meeting convened by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on November 3, Mr. Erdogan was given verbal assurances of cooperation by his Iraqi counterpart Nouri al Maliki but the action that followed was farcical. The roadblocks ostensibly set up to prevent cadres of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) from infiltrating into Turkey served no purpose since the guerrillas could still use unguarded mountain trails. Ankara has called for the PKK to be disarmed and its leaders detained. These demands are not likely to be met since the Maliki government exercises no authority in the north and the Kurd parties that control the territory have no interest in acting against their ethnic brethren. The U.S., which theoretically can play an effective role, claims with some credibility that its forces cannot be spared for action against the PKK. Mr. Bush did not give Mr. Erdogan anything more than a promise that the U.S. would provide Turkey with actionable intelligence about rebel movements.

Ankara is unlikely to be satisfied with these offers especially since it suspects that there is degree of collusion between Washington and the PKK. Some analysts are of the view that the U.S. and Israel are working with the Kurd group to use it as a foil against Iran. Until a few years ago, there was justification for the Kurd rebellion against Turkey’s central government. This ethnic group’s economic conditions were bad, their culture was suppressed, and their movement for regional autonomy brutally put down. Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK) was the first mainstream political organisation to speak up for Kurd rights. On coming to power in March 2003, it lifted the ban on speaking the Kurdish language in public and enabled its free use in schools and the media. Regional autonomy is not likely to be granted at any time soon but the Kurds in southern Turkey have begun to benefit from Ankara’s reversal of its policy of neglect.

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