August 05, 2007
Hawkish Turks prepare for Iraq invasion
A strike on Iraqi Kurds could be the price the PM pays for peace at home, says Simon Hooper
As American and British generals draw up plans to extract their demoralised troops from Iraq, another army sits impatiently at its northern border awaiting orders to launch an invasion of its own.
Faced with a resurgent PKK terror campaign, Turkey's hawkish generals have long argued the case for a strike against Kurdish militant bases inside northern Iraq.
With some 140,000 troops poised, and Turkish commandos rumoured to be deep in Iraqi territory, all that has been lacking has been the political will.
"What is the point of an army if it can't defend the country?" one campaigner for the ultra-nationalist MHP told me in Ankara before yesterday's general election, handing out flyers bearing the party's vaguely fascistic logo. "This government is betraying Turkey."
The success of the MHP, campaigning on a pledge to hang the captive PKK leader
The nationalist MHP campaigned on a pledge to hang the captive PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan
Abdullah Ocalan, has been a nasty shock for Prime Minister Erdogan's AK party, souring an otherwise emphatic election victory.
Erdogan has so far refused to be drawn into what is called here 'noose politics'. But with the MHP set to form a parliamentary bloc of around 70 seats, and with the AK party seeking cross-party consent for its constitutional reform plans, sanctioning the army's military adventure could be the price he pays for an uneasy truce on the domestic front.
Already Erdogan has taken a tougher stance over the prospect of Turkish intervention, warning: "Whatever is necessary could be done immediately. If this has to be done, it will be done."
Ibrahim Kalin, an Ankara-based analyst, tells me it is only a matter of time before Turkey's generals get their way: "Now the elections are over, the army will say, 'You have a responsibility to give us the orders to protect the country.' The government cannot withstand that pressure for long. They will have to say yes."
FIRST POSTED JULY 23, 2007
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk?storyID=7889
