Talking Turkey

13 October 2003


Turkey Agrees to Help Occupy Iraq

Eager to help America, its NATO ally, the Turkish cabinet agreed to send around 10,000 Turkish troops to Iraq. The country's parliament ratified this decision, several months after rejecting the very same idea when there was a chance Turkish troops might be shot at by Iraqis. What has changed is not the danger to Turkish troops so much as America's agreement to let the Turks pound away at a Kurdish political group.

While America fussed over Governor Terminator and the appointment of Condi Rice as pro-consul for occupied Iraq, the US administration and the Turkish government agreed to go after the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK in the local language), which has 5,000 or so paramilitary people in Iraq. The US also has offered Turkey a loan of $8.5 billion (a bit more than California's budget deficit) to help it recover from the costs of the war in which it did not fight. It is an ugly deal that will upset the Arabs and the Kurds.

Arab distaste for the Turks stems from being on the losing end of a long history. They are neighbors with different languages and cultures who share a religion, not unlike the historic troubles between the Spanish and the French until recently. The fact that the Turks are the most modern and secular of the Islamic nations (with honorable mentions to Malaysia and Indonesia) does not help in creating a common understanding. This explains the Iraqi position in part.

The rest is explained by the fact that there has been a de facto Kurdistan in the "no-fly" zone of northern Iraq for years. The possible arrival of the Turks is perceived as a threat to this nascent country's stability. Its determination to take on the PKK makes this even worse in the eyes of the occupied people.

One might have felt better about the whole thing if the Turks had actually helped topple the Baghdad baddies. Their participation in rooting out the terrorists (read PKK) would be part of Washington's war on terror. As it is, it looks like a desperate measure by a superpower unfamiliar with the corner of the world in which it has become deeply engaged coupled with a realpolitik land grab by a minor power. Such ingredients do not usually yield a happy outcome.

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