Since it became an independent republic in the 1920s, Turkey has had to deal with Kurdish unrest with calls for independence growing stronger since the 1980s. A similar situation across the border, in northern Iraq, has added to Turkey‘s concerns, especially after the 1991 Gulf War, which had weakened Iraq‘s grip on the Kurdish mountainous north.
The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 gave the de facto autonomy of the Iraqi-Kurdish region a further boost. The new Iraqi constitution acknowledged the creation of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The last few days have seen yet another milestone in the history of Iraq‘s Kurdish region, when the U.S. handed over security in the region to the Kurdish Peshmarga forces.
"Turkey has two concerns," explains Cameron Brown, deputy director of the GLORIA Center at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
"Its first fear is that PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan or Kurdish Worker’s Party) terrorists will use Northern Iraq as a safe haven, from which they will conduct attacks on Turkey itself. This fear is entirely justified, as this is what has actually happened in the past few years, since the PKK ended its cease-fire and reignited its attacks on Turkish military and civilian targets.
"Turkey‘s second concern is that should the Kurds in Iraq eventually become independent, it will embolden Kurdish separatism in southeast Turkey."
Last Tuesday’s terror attack in the Turkish capital Ankara in which six people were killed and more than 100 were wounded was met with much fury in the Turkish street as well as in the cabinet.
Turkey‘s immediate response to the latest of a long series of Kurdish attacks was to increase its military build-up close to its border with Iraq. Twenty more tanks were sent to the border region, where the army is already engaged in an offensive against PKK rebels – still within Turkey‘s territory. Turkey has threatened a number of times in the past few months that it would invade Iraq if the latter did not put an end to PKK infiltrations.
"The PKK must be eliminated as a problem between Iraq and Turkey," Turkey‘s special envoy to Iraq, Oguz Celikkol, told CNN-Turk television station on Wednesday.
"The [Iraqi] Kurds are fairly powerful, with about 70,000 Peshmarga fighters, probably the largest single most unified paramilitary force inside Iraq," says Brown.
This paramilitary force is, however, no match for the Turkish army that could easily field 100,000 solders with the most advanced equipment, Brown adds.
The U.S. position regarding a Turkish invasion
Before the U.S. invaded Iraq four years ago, it held preliminary discussions with its allies in the region, including Turkey, which asked to send 50,000 soldiers into Iraq to ensure the Kurds did not declare independence.
The U.S., according to Brown, has strongly resisted the Turkish request. Such a move was likely to make the already impossible situation in Iraq even harder for the U.S., as its two best allies – the Kurds and the Turks – are in conflict with each other.
In the event that Turkey decides to invade Iraq, "the U.S. might have to take sides, and that would be awful for relations with the other side," says Brown.
But this might well be the case if the KRG decides to take one more step and declare independence, or if the PKK launches more deadly attacks at the heart of Turkey.
Turkey does not wish to anger its ally, the U.S. It also has no desire to implicate itself in a protracted war in an inhospitable mountainous region, unless it absolutely has to. That is why Turkey‘s Prime Minister Recep Teyyip Erdogan urged the U.S. and Iraq on Tuesday to deal with the PKK bases in northern Iraq and to destroy them. Aware of the public’s – as well the army’s – unrest following the terror attack in Ankara, Erdogan did not rule out a unilateral cross-border Turkish operation.
Meanwhile, adding fuel to the fire, a group of PKK gunmen attempted to cross the border into Turkey on Wednesday night. The Turkish security forces spotted them and opened fire in their direction. Two Turkish F-16 aircrafts were seen patrolling the region later on, as the border becomes increasingly agitated.