Dozens dead in Turkey/Iraq border fighting.

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2007-10-21 01:50pm

Dozens die in Turkey border clash
At least 12 Turkish soldiers have been killed following an ambush by Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border - with 32 rebels also killed, officials say.

The PKK guerrilla group claimed it had also taken "several" soldiers hostage, but this was denied by the government.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called a crisis meeting in Ankara, which is likely to consider whether to attack PKK bases in Iraq.

But the defence minister said such action would not take place "urgently".

"There are plans to cross border" but "not urgently", Vecdi Gonul said after meeting US Defence Secretary Robert Gates in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, MPs voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion to allow the military to launch offensives across the border, against rebels based in the remote, mountainous north of Iraq.

It followed an escalation of raids by the PKK - the Kurdistan Workers' Party - as part of its armed campaign for Kurdish autonomy.

Recent attacks blamed on the group have left more than 40 Turkish soldiers and civilians dead.

Iraq has urged Turkey not to strike across the border.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, called on the PKK rebels to lay down their arms.

"But if they insist on continuing to fight, they should leave Iraqi Kurdistan and not create problems here," he said.

Iraq's parliament passed a motion condemning Turkey's threat of force, but also called for the PKK to leave Iraq.

Passengers wounded

In the latest attack shortly after midnight, a large group of PKK rebels crossed the border from Iraq and staged their assault near the village of Daglica in Hakkari province, the Turkish military said.

The army said it sent reinforcements and helicopters to the area, fired artillery and launched retaliatory attacks in which 32 guerrillas were killed.

PKK sources confirmed the fighting, and claimed more troops were killed than the official figure of 12.

"There were clashes with the Turkish troops late last night in which we have killed at least 16 soldiers and wounded 20. We also captured several," Reuters quoted an unnamed rebel source as saying.

Turkey's defence minister denied that, saying: "There are no hostages."

Not far from the scene of the fighting, a minibus was later caught in a landmine explosion, also blamed on the PKK, that injured 10 civilians, the state news agency Anatolia said.

Thousands of Turks joined protests in several cities denouncing the attacks and calling for action against the PKK.

The prime minister said: "We are very angry."

But he said he was "resolved to deal with these matters in a cool-headed manner".

Increased pressure

About 3,000 PKK fighters are believed to be based in northern Iraq near the Turkish border, says the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul.

here have been regular clashes in the area since earlier in the year, but the latest attack was one of the deadliest for some time.

The clashes will increase pressure on the government from the public and the military for a tough response, our correspondent says.

The United States, Turkey's Nato ally, has called for restraint, fearing that any incursions would destabilise Iraq's most peaceful area - the autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

The regional government there says any intervention would be "illegal". It has denied providing the PKK with any help.

More than 30,000 people have been killed since the PKK began fighting for greater autonomy for the largely-Kurdish south-eastern Turkey since 1984.
Story from BBC NEWS:

Well, this could get very nasty, very quickly.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2007-10-21 02:00pm

The older I get the more convinced I am that a certain percentage of the population does not want peace, they want war.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-10-21 02:09pm

Broomstick wrote:The older I get the more convinced I am that a certain percentage of the population does not want peace, they want war.

You're like 18, right? Because that's fucking obvious.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-10-21 02:13pm

Ah. So, soon a new war starts.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-10-21 02:18pm

Stas Bush wrote:Ah. So, soon a new war starts.

Yeap. And irony of ironies it's against the only people in Iraq not trying to kill as many US troops as possible.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-10-21 02:19pm

This is going to push oil past $90 and beyond inflation adjusted all time highs. The markets are jittery enough with Iran. Turkey making sure a Kurdish state remains a myth is going to cause all kinds of chaos.

Darksider · Post by **Darksider** » 2007-10-21 02:20pm

I'm not to caught up on this issue.

Did the Kurds launch raids accross the border like this before the U.S. came in and removed any semblance of stability?

Or is this yet another problem we can blame shrubby and his pack of morons for?

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-10-21 02:23pm

Apparently, the rebels can't wait to get started.

I wonder how the Turkish military will fair against the rebels though.

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2007-10-21 02:23pm

Darksider wrote:I'm not to caught up on this issue.

Did the Kurds launch raids accross the border like this before the U.S. came in and removed any semblance of stability?

Or is this yet another problem we can blame shrubby and his pack of morons for?

Theres been quite alot of cross-border shenanigans in the last 30 odd years or so. Its just gone up, uh..slightly in recent years.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-10-21 02:24pm

Darksider wrote:I'm not to caught up on this issue.

Did the Kurds launch raids accross the border like this before the U.S. came in and removed any semblance of stability?

Or is this yet another problem we can blame shrubby and his pack of morons for?

IIRC this is one of those situations where the border is arbitrary as fuck and cuts right through Kurdish populations. So you have Kurds on both the Turk and Iraqi side of the border who want thie own state.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2007-10-21 02:31pm

Flagg wrote:
Broomstick wrote:The older I get the more convinced I am that a certain percentage of the population does not want peace, they want war.
You're like 18, right? Because that's fucking obvious.

Um... no... I'm actually past 40. Why the fuck do you care? I'm not allowed an expression of despair? We all know this is going down the shitter.

[R_H] · Post by **[R_H]** » 2007-10-21 02:32pm

Why is Turkey opposed to permitting the creation of a Kurdish state? Are there any particular reasons why (resources, other ethnicities wanting their own countries etc) that bit couldn't be turned over to the Kurds? It probably hasn't been worth all the trouble throughout the years. Or if they don't want to make it a Kurdish state, what about making it an autonomous region?

Post by **Broomstick** » 2007-10-21 02:33pm

Darksider wrote:I'm not to caught up on this issue.

Did the Kurds launch raids accross the border like this before the U.S. came in and removed any semblance of stability?

No, the Turk/Kurd problem is decades old. However, the destabilization brought by the US-Iraq war has lead to a situation where old enemies are sorely tempted to take advantage if they think they can get away with it.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2007-10-21 02:34pm

Broomstick wrote:The older I get the more convinced I am that a certain percentage of the population does not want peace, they want war.

And one of the murderous bloodthirsty criminals is our President.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-10-21 02:38pm

Broomstick wrote:
Flagg wrote:
Broomstick wrote:The older I get the more convinced I am that a certain percentage of the population does not want peace, they want war.
You're like 18, right? Because that's fucking obvious.
Um... no... I'm actually past 40. Why the fuck do you care? I'm not allowed an expression of despair? We all know this is going down the shitter.

Because it seems like something that is so obvious a teenager could figure it out. You must be a more optomistic person that I am.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2007-10-21 02:38pm

[R_H] wrote:Why is Turkey opposed to permitting the creation of a Kurdish state? Are there any particular reasons why (resources, other ethnicities wanting their own countries etc) that bit couldn't be turned over to the Kurds? It probably hasn't been worth all the trouble throughout the years. Or if they don't want to make it a Kurdish state, what about making it an autonomous region?

Turkey has a huge number of minority groups clustered in their own separate regions. If they let the Kurds go, other groups might start clamoring for independence (or try to join other states). The Turks have done the same sorts of things in Cyprus for analogous reasons.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2007-10-21 02:40pm

[R_H] wrote:Why is Turkey opposed to permitting the creation of a Kurdish state? Are there any particular reasons why (resources, other ethnicities wanting their own countries etc) that bit couldn't be turned over to the Kurds? It probably hasn't been worth all the trouble throughout the years. Or if they don't want to make it a Kurdish state, what about making it an autonomous region?

Governments do not willingly surrender territory, resources, or people.

Turkey does not want to lop off that chunk of land, because that means losing all three of the above.

If they just made the Kurdish part of Iraq a Kurdish state it wouldn't help, because the Kurds in Turkey would want to secede and join their fellow Kurds. Since Kurdish Iraq has oil, it would be able to help finance a secession movement/rebellion/terrorists in Turkey.

Am I leaving anything out here? It's just not going to happen, any more than Spain will give up Basque country.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-10-21 02:56pm

I'd sympathise, except the Turks invaded half of Cyprus, so fuck them. In fact, fuck the whole area. It's a lovely powder keg of intolerance and fanaticism now, nothing like the more enlightened Middle-east of past (and it feels strange typing that).

We only care because they have a very valuable resource. Saudi Arabia is our Fort Knox, the US military the security force.

Battlehymn Republic · Post by **Battlehymn Republic** » 2007-10-21 03:35pm

I was about to disagree about your intolerance and fanaticism point, but I just realized that Turkey is a perfect example of that- though they're the Muslim/Middle Eastern equivalent of Sweden in terms of secularism and support for Kemalist democracy, they're incredible zealots over it. The irony is so thick everywhere.

Am I the only one who thinks that this will do as little to either help or hurt the stability to Iraq as the Chadian Sudanese War did to stop the Darfur genocide? My guess is that all Cassandra forecasts are overestimating it- there will be deaths on both sides, Kurdistan gets a taste of instability, the PKK gets annihilated, and then both sides withdraw in a huff. Then the news will switch back to the same old news of Sunni insurgents attacking U.S. convoys in the center again.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2007-10-21 04:42pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
[R_H] wrote:Why is Turkey opposed to permitting the creation of a Kurdish state? Are there any particular reasons why (resources, other ethnicities wanting their own countries etc) that bit couldn't be turned over to the Kurds? It probably hasn't been worth all the trouble throughout the years. Or if they don't want to make it a Kurdish state, what about making it an autonomous region?
Turkey has a huge number of minority groups clustered in their own separate regions. If they let the Kurds go, other groups might start clamoring for independence (or try to join other states). The Turks have done the same sorts of things in Cyprus for analogous reasons.

Actually, they don't have any other minorities of significance, unless you count the Circassians, but their homeland was in Russia, where they were effectively exterminated in the 18th and 19th centuries, and their survivor populations are simply located in Turkey.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2007-10-21 04:45pm

Battlehymn Republic wrote:I was about to disagree about your intolerance and fanaticism point, but I just realized that Turkey is a perfect example of that- though they're the Muslim/Middle Eastern equivalent of Sweden in terms of secularism and support for Kemalist democracy, they're incredible zealots over it. The irony is so thick everywhere.

Am I the only one who thinks that this will do as little to either help or hurt the stability to Iraq as the Chadian Sudanese War did to stop the Darfur genocide? My guess is that all Cassandra forecasts are overestimating it- there will be deaths on both sides, Kurdistan gets a taste of instability, the PKK gets annihilated, and then both sides withdraw in a huff. Then the news will switch back to the same old news of Sunni insurgents attacking U.S. convoys in the center again.

Maybe. Maybe not. Unlike in Africa, if Iraq has no government, actual mobilized armies by the hundreds of thousands will be moving into the country and clashing. The stakes are immeasurably higher there than in Darfur or Somalia: And even Somalia brought down the Ethiopians eventually. If we had left Iraq already, Turkish troops would be in Mosul. The Iranians and Sauds/Kuwaitis would be fighting over the rest of the country in a war probably comparable to the Iran-Iraq War.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-21 05:45pm

Flagg wrote:Yeap. And irony of ironies it's against the only people in Iraq not trying to kill as many US troops as possible.

Turns out they worked out that the US doesn't mind what you do, so long as you don't kill their guys? The US has now been rattling it's sabre at the Kurds from what I read in the papers here, but I doubt the PKK leadership is prepared to step back at this point.

I can't really get on the 'oh no bad Turkey for defending it's borders and killing terrorists' thing, either. The Kurds are trying to take advantage of US myopia and regional chaos, and I doubt it'll end well for them.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-10-21 06:27pm

Stark wrote:
Flagg wrote:Yeap. And irony of ironies it's against the only people in Iraq not trying to kill as many US troops as possible.
Turns out they worked out that the US doesn't mind what you do, so long as you don't kill their guys? The US has now been rattling it's sabre at the Kurds from what I read in the papers here, but I doubt the PKK leadership is prepared to step back at this point.

I can't really get on the 'oh no bad Turkey for defending it's borders and killing terrorists' thing, either. The Kurds are trying to take advantage of US myopia and regional chaos, and I doubt it'll end well for them.

Yeah, the US is trying not to piss the Turks off. That's why the Armenian genocide recognition bill was such fucking bad timing.

But I really have to hand it to the Kurds, they sure know how to bite the hand that feeds them. Fuckers are the only ones (that aren't a corporation) that seem to have really benefitted from the US invasion.

DrMckay · Post by **DrMckay** » 2007-10-21 07:48pm

Not to mention that many Kurds are armed with AMERICAN weapons, M16s, mortars, etc, and will rely on the US Govt for resupply.

Some of these arms probably went into the hands of the "rebels" (Hey, they;re only 'terrerists' if they're shootin' at American boys and gals, riiight?)

Turkey's gonna be really happy with us. Especially if we decide to use the "Kurds using American weapons" for some "plausibly deniable" operations on Turkish soil.

fun fun.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-21 07:59pm

Flagg wrote:Yeah, the US is trying not to piss the Turks off. That's why the Armenian genocide recognition bill was such fucking bad timing.

But I really have to hand it to the Kurds, they sure know how to bite the hand that feeds them. Fuckers are the only ones (that aren't a corporation) that seem to have really benefitted from the US invasion.

Yeah, what I was saying was that the Kurds appear to be under the impression they can do what they want (ie, violate Turkey's borders, be terrorists, etc) so long as they don't attack the American forces in Iraq. Now that the US has made it known that they won't get away with it, I doubt the Kurd leaders are prepared to pull back from their crazy bullshit.