Turkey Expects U.S. To Act Against Kurdish Rebels
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ISTANBUL — Turkey expects America to act against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq but will take its own measures if it sees no results in the fight, the prime minister said.
In northern Iraq Saturday, thousands of Kurds packed the streets of a border city to protest a threatened Turkish incursion and to warn they would defend their territory.
Turkey has threatened to cross the Iraqi border to try to wipe out Kurdish rebel bases, arguing it has the right to fight terrorism. America and Iraq oppose such unilateral action, fearing it could destabilize northern Iraq, the most stable part of the country.
“We have expectations mainly from the U.S. more than Iraq. We want the coalition forces — mainly the U.S.— to take a step here,” Prime Minister Erdogan said in an interview with the private Kanal 24 TV channel late Friday.
“Our demands from them are known and we will see what happens in time,” Mr. Erdogan said. “We will put into action our own road map if we do not get the results we want.”
Rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, operate from bases in the mountains of northern Iraq and periodically cross the border to stage attacks in their war for autonomy for Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast. More than 30,000 people have died in the conflict that began in 1984.
The Turkish government secured an authorization from parliament Wednesday to launch a military campaign into Iraq to stamp out the rebels. Turkish leaders have said publicly that they would prefer a solution to the guerrilla problem that avoids a cross-border offensive, but Mr. Erdogan has warned that Turkey will take whatever steps it must to defeat the PKK.
Public anger is high in Turkey over a recent spate of guerrilla attacks in the southeast as well as a perception that America has failed to back Turkey in its fight with the PKK, even though Washington lists the movement as a terrorist group.
Mr. Erdogan said he hoped to reach a consensus with Washington regarding a possible military campaign into northern Iraq during his trip to America next month.
“We want to get a result especially about this during my meetings on November 5,” Mr. Erdogan said. During the visit, Mr. Erdogan is to meet American officials including President Bush.
Protesters in the northern Iraqi city of Zakho accused Turkey of trying to foment unrest in the relatively peaceful autonomous region in northern Iraq.
The demonstrators waved the flag of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region — a yellow sun against red, white and green stripes. They held up banners reading: “No, no to the Turkish military incursion. Yes, yes to peace and security,” and “We will be a shield to defend our cities.”
The mayor of Zakho, Hussein Khalid, some 300 miles northwest of Baghdad, estimated the crowd at about 15,000 people.
“This demonstration represents the anger of the Kurdish community toward the green light that was given to Turkish government by the parliament to invade Kurdistan,” Mr. Khalid said in a telephone interview from another Kurdish city, Sulaimaniyah.
The protesters called on Turkey not to launch cross-border attacks.
“Our peaceful life here is threatened … as war will bring us only problems and humanitarian crisis,” a 28-year-old government employee among the demonstrators, Jelveen Rikani, said. “Turkey wants to turn the Kurdistan region into an unsecured and restive area just like the other parts of Iraq that are mired in chaos and blood.”
There were similar protests in Irbil and another border city Dahuk earlier this week, but Saturday appeared to be the largest demonstration since the Turkish parliament’s vote on Wednesday.
Turkish leaders have repeatedly said a military operation — if it is ever launched — would target only the PKK camps in scattered in northern Iraq.