Turkish-Kurdish Rift Muddies War Plans
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq — The history of hatred between Turks and Kurds may turn bloody again if the Bush administration proceeds with plans to permit tens of thousands of Turkish troops to sweep into northern Iraq and come face to face with Kurdish militias in a regional standoff that would complicate a larger war against Saddam Hussein.
The Turkish-Kurdish equation has been one of the most troubling aspects of planning for an invasion of Iraq. It has placed U.S. foreign policy in a precarious position between two friends: the Turks, who are America's North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, and the 3.5 million Iraqi Kurds, whose pro-Western ambitions are crucial to building a democratic Iraq.
A misstep in this battleground of overlapping interests and security concerns could trigger a regional conflict that might draw in Iran, strain the mission of an expected 35,000 U.S. troops and threaten the existence of a unified Iraq.
On Monday, the Turkish Cabinet approved a proposal to allow U.S. forces to use Turkey as a launching point for an invasion in exchange for a $15-billion aid package and a presence by Turkish troops in northern Iraq. Turkey's parliament is expected to vote on the measure today.
The Kurds are worried that Washington will abandon them for wider geopolitical interests, as it did after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Turkey says it wants to deploy troops in northern Iraq to create a buffer zone to care for refugees and stop them from crossing the border into southeast Turkey. But it also fears that Iraqi Kurds would push for independence during a U.S. invasion and trigger similar aspirations among the 12 million Kurds in Turkey. And Turks want a share of oil reserves in the northern Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, prizes Kurds want for themselves as part of a new federation government in Iraq.
In a Feb. 13 letter to President Bush, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, the two main Iraqi Kurd leaders urged Washington to stop a slide toward regional hostilities.
The Kurds, according to the three-page letter from Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, "are concerned that Turkey's real agenda is to crush our experiment in democratic self-government in Iraqi Kurdistan. Should Turkish military forces come into contact with Kurdish populations, there is a real risk of clashes."
