Turkey set to defy US and hunt Kurdish rebels

telegraph ^ | 29/07/2007 | By Gethin Chamberlain, Sunday Telegraph

[Flavius]

Turkey's newly elected government is prepared to turn its back on its long-standing alliance with the United States to counter the threat of Kurdish terrorism, one of the closest allies of the prime minister has warned.

Egemen Bagis: Turkey set to defy US and hunt Kurdish rebels Egemen Bagis said the US must appreciate that Turkey was prepared to go into Iraq

Egemen Bagis, foreign policy advisor to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Turkish forces were prepared to mount operations against Kurdish PKK fighters who had taken refuge in Iraq, because the US had failed to intervene.

"We are hoping we will not have to do it. We are hoping that our allies will start doing something, but if they don't we don't have many options," he said.

"Our allies should help us with the threat, which is clear and present. If an ally is not helping you, you either question their integrity or their ability."

[AlaskaErik]

The days of a secular Turkey are ending. Demographics will see to that. Then Turkey can join the rest of the oil-less muslim countries and become a third world hellhole.

[Brilliant]

The Kurds should move to their new homeland in Iraq.

[Brilliant]

Don’t they know that attacking terrorists just creates more of them?

[SlowBoat407]

If we’re against terrorists raiding in one country and hiding in another, then we have to be consistent. The Kurds have a problem and they need to clean it up.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

This is more likely the Turkish Army is behind this action. They have been against any ethnic group challenging the Turkishness of the country. They were behind the genocide of the Armenians.

[tarheelswamprat]

"Our allies should help us with the threat, which is clear and present. If an ally is not helping you, you either question their integrity or their ability."

You know, our troops in the 4TH Infantry Division were thinking the same thing in April 2003 while they were waiting in their troopships off the Turkish coast...

[SolidWood]

We are hoping that our allies will start doing something, but if they don't we don't have many options," he said. "Our allies should help us with the threat, which is clear and present.

"Allies"? LOL! The Turks sure are funny! Stuff it Recep... you stabbed us in the back in Iraq 2002/3. We had to cancel the drive into Iraq from the North because of you, which let thousands of Baathists and Jihadists off the hook and blend away into the population.

[pacelvi]

i’m waiting for all the complacent people to tell us how impossible it is for Turkey to scumb to the Islamists.

[bill1952]

The Kurds have a problem and they need to clean it up.

Yeah. Its called the Turkish army in that part of the world, and the Kurds are doing their part to clean it up.

Frankly, I am quite sure that this is for domestic consumption.

The idea of the Turk military being so appallingly stupid as to move into Iraq while we are there is on a par with Saddam thinking that the American army on his border would not invade.
Most people thereabouts remember the young turks and the Armenian genocide, but I do see your point in that if the Kurds are hiding behind our skirts while stirring up the pot, then they had best have more of a plan than that.

[taxesareforever]

Gee, a country which plans on pursuing militants (terrorists) across the border. Now that’s unique. You would think that the U.S. would utilize this strategy. But no, we must stay on our side of the line. It’s spelled out in the “Book of Dumbing Down Our Military”.

[onedoug]

Bump

[Syncro]

That was the first thing I thought of when I read this article.

How presumptuous of them to call us “allies” when they caused our entrance into Iraq to be much more dangerous just because they think the Kurds would have gotten in their Whey.

Heck, all they (and Iran) have to do is is give the Kurdistanic areas back to the Kurds and it will all be peaceful.

Oh that’s right, there’s oil in Kurdistan...

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Do you have reliable sources that the army of the modern Republic of Turkey founded in 1923 was “behind the genocide of the Armenians?”

[WilliamofCarmichael]

I'm one of those complacent people. As long a millions back the Army and the Army expels Islamists and continues to warn the AKP then there ain't no way the modern constitutional republic of Turkey will become Islamist. The Army's done it four times already.

I will be watching the parliament's election of a president, however. Hundreds of thousands of Turks demonstrated against the AKP's attempt to elect their man a couple of months before the parliamentary elections.

[WannabeTurk]

You people are ingrates. Turkey has troops in Afghanistan. It is a NATO country. We are required to assist a fellow NATO country under attack. Quit your whiny sobbing about our differences over Iraq.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: "Kurds are hiding behind our skirts while stirring up the pot"

The Kurds are not hiding and stirring . . .

"US special envoy for countering the PKK, retired Gen. Joseph Ralston, said: '[The PKK] should be treated as murderers by everyone, including the United States.'

It's the Marxist PKK.

The Bush Administration appointed Gen. Ralston to work with Turkey and the Kurdish government to solve the Marxist PKK problem.

[WannabeTurk]

You people are ingrates. Turkey has troops in Afghanistan. It is a NATO country. We are required to assist a fellow NATO country under attack. Quit your whiny sobbing about our differences over Iraq.

[txhurl]

ping/bump