تركيا تبحث عن دعم أمريكي حول المشكلة الكردية (إنكليزي)

صحيفة الجارديان - 6/2/2007

Turkey seeks US support on Kurdish problem

Ankara expects more cooperation from Washington in dealing with militants on both sides of the Iraqi border, writes Mark Tran

Tuesday February 6, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

It is a safe bet that the Kurdish question will receive an airing when the Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, meets the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, in Washington today.

Mr Gul is likely to discuss with US officials renewed activity by Kurdish rebels using northern Iraq as a springboard for attacks on Turkish territory.

Turkey , a Nato member, has been dissatisfied with the level of cooperation in dealing with militants from the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK). It expects a current ceasefire to end in the spring and is bracing itself for further attacks.

Retired General Joseph Ralston, a former Nato supreme allied commander, has been coordinating US efforts for countering the PKK and the state department yesterday said Gen Ralston was working to decrease tensions on both sides of the border.

Such reassurances will cut no ice with Turkey as US troops in the region have done little to prevent cross-border raids.

But the PKK is only part of Turkey 's worries. Ankara 's nightmare is an independent Kurdish state bringing together some 15-20 million Kurds who live in a region that straddles Turkey , Iraq , Iran and Syria .

That scenario could move a step closer this year if Iraq goes ahead with a referendum in the northern city of Kirkuk . Article 140 in the Iraqi constitution called for a census and a referendum in oil-rich Kirkuk to reverse Saddam Hussein's "Arabisation" policy that drove out Kurds and replaced them with Arabs.

The referendum will determine whether Kirkuk will become part of Iraq 's semi-autonomous Kurdish region. For the Kurds, the answer is a no-brainer as they want the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to become the capital of their region.

Because the Kirkuk referendum has all the makings of a flashpoint, the Iraqi Study Group recommended postponing such a vote. A postponement, however, risks inflaming Kurdish sentiment.

For the Kurds, such a move would be seen as the latest in a series of betrayals. In 1975, the former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger brokered the Algiers agreement that ended Iranian support for the Kurds, leaving them at the mercy of Saddam. Encouraged to rise up by the George Bush Snr in 1991, they were left again to face Saddam. Thousands fled to Turkey when the rebellion failed.

Various Kurdish leaders such as Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish president, have warned that the region would plunge into war should the referendum be postponed. Yet any move towards secession would increase the chances of Turkish military intervention, not only to prevent its own Kurdish population from seceding, but also to "protect" northern Iraq 's Turkmen population, who are ethnic Turks.

Tension in Kirkuk is already rising, although it has been spared the bloodletting that has engulfed the rest of Iraq . At the weekend, two people were killed in car bombings in the city. Last month, a UN report voiced concerns at reports of mistreatment of ethnic Turkmen and Arabs by the Kurdish majority and warned that the deteriorating human rights situation in Kirkuk could be a prelude to a looming crisis in the Kurdish region.

Some analysts believe that the Kurdish issue could push Iran and Turkey closer together, hardly something Washington would welcome. Omer Taspinar, a fellow at the Washington thinktank the Brookings Institution, said the meetings between Turkish and US officials should put an end to the Bush administration's "happy talk" about the stability of Iraqi Kurdistan.

"This is an election year in Turkey ," he wrote in Newsweek, "and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has every incentive to demonstrate his nationalist credentials against political rivals, many favouring military intervention. All this will inevitably push Turkey toward Iran - and may even end up creating an unprecedented Sunni-Shia axis of frustration against America ."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,,2007117,00.html

ـ

ـ

من حق الزائر الكريم أن ينقل وأن ينشر كل ما يعجبه من موقعنا . معزواً إلينا ، أو غير معزو .ـ