U.S. Now Trying To Keep Turkish Army Out of Iraq

The Washington Post ^ | Saturday, March 15, 2003 | Philip P. Pan with Thomas E. Ricks

[SlickWillard]

 
<EXCERPT>

As a result, the U.S. diplomatic effort in Ankara has shifted to ensuring that Turkey keeps its troops out of Iraq. A diplomatic team led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy to northern Iraq, warned Turkey that any incursion would have a "very negative effect" on relations with the United States and pose dangers of fighting between Turkish troops and Kurdish and U.S. forces, the senior U.S. official said.

Over the vocal objections of Iraqi Kurds, the administration had agreed to let Turkish troops follow U.S. forces into northern Iraq and take up positions about 121/2 miles past the border to help prevent a flow of refugees and maintain security and stability. But Khalilzad told the Turkish government that the agreement was void because Turkey had not approved the U.S. deployment.

"The situation now is that it's all off," the official said. "We don't have an agreement, and we don't want them to go in unilaterally. The mission now is to discourage and deter them from going in, and to reach an understanding with them on legitimate issues of concern."

</EXCERPT>

[prairiebreeze]

This jives with another thread posted saying the US doesn't want the Turks more than 20km inside northern Iraq.

Prairie

[tomahawk]

Turkey f***ed up. The price will be very heavy.

[observer5]

The French will send their troops in...

[scooby321]

The Turks better stay out of Iraq

The Turks can never met EU demands to get in

the French and Germans screwed the Turks or they screwed themselves

[TheConservator]

The price will be an independent Kurdistan.

[ez]

Turkey wants the Northern oil fields and to route the PKK. They did not only decide to deny us passage, they also decided they had a better chance at the oil fields WITHOUT us than with us.

They must plan on sweeping in and securing the North while we are fighting in the South.

[Trust but Verify]

I saw someone on Greta's show last night talking about this issue. (He was a former NATO official) He guessed the Turks would set up a security zone inside Iraq to keep any refugees from getting into Turkey. He did seem somewhat concerned that the Turks would make a play for the northern oil fields. He didn't think it will happen, but he clearly thinks it is a possibility. He also indicated Turkey could be a major headache for us.

[Trust but Verify]

THAT is the main concern of Turkey.

[dep]

possibly. more likely, we'll be fighting the turks to keep 'em from seizing northern iraq. this is a very troubling situation.

dep

[UncleSamUSA]

Looks like the worm has turned on the Turks.... the Turkish Parliament will still have their fingers up their rectums when this war is well underway, and they had better not jeopardize US and Kurdish operations in the north.

[varon]

He did seem somewhat concerned that the Turks would make a play for the northern oil fields....

Perhaps that was a contributing factor in Turkey's decision not to allow 62,000 of our troops to be based in their country for a strike from the north. Now they (Turkey) have a free hand, more or less, in northern Iraq with only the lightly armed Kurds to contend with.

[Clean_Sweep]

I suspect we will bomb any military equipment on the ground that is not ours. You're with us or against us.

[Milwaukee_Guy]

We have always had to choose between Turkey and the Kurds. A huge diplomatic problem that doesn't really have a solution.

A large justification of our Iraqi invasion is to relieve the oppresion of the Kurdish minority. The Kurds have been bombed, gassed and murdered by Saddam before, during and after Clinton's tenure. Right now Kurds are being "ethnically cleansed" from the oil fields in Northern Iraq by Saddam.

Help the Kurds right? Not according to our NATO ally Turkey. When Saddam is gone, Turkey wants their turn to deal with the "Kurdish problem".

Given all of this how did we possibly expect to align ourselves with -both- the Kurds and Turkey?

IMHO it was a doomed policy which we are seeing played out right now. At a very critical point in the pre-invasion buildup we got tossed out of Turkey. This could add one or two -months- to our timetable putting us smack in the middle of an Iraqi summer.

Pretty soon we are going to have to be honest about this and admit some of our foreign policy people screwed up -Big Time-.

[Consort]

I think that the possibility of massive bloodshed between the Turks and the Kurds is what has been holding up this operation. The Turks want to eliminate the Kurds and take and keep Iraqi land and oil.

[steve in DC]

First the UN is demonstrated to be an ineffectual aglamoration of US haters.

Next we will see the NATO alliance crumble to bits over the "what's in it for me" attitude of the Turks, French, Germans, and others.

[dep]

i just sent this to a friend at the state department, with whom i converse over such things:

i'm growing increasingly worried over what turkey is up to. i think that before this thing is over, we may end up shooting at the turkish army. (well, at least greece would then join the "coalition of the willing," no?)

it's looking more and more to me that turkey intends to annex a great big piece of iraq, off the kurds, and pump oil. and whatever turkey has in mind, there's gonna be a whole lot of shooting on the turkey-iraq border.

because of syria's involvement, tacit or otherwise, with the pkk, we're going to need to do some tricky navigating -- the old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" routine will not suffice for us, even as it does pretty much everywhere else in that part of the world. we do not especially want turkey to do what it looks as if turkey plans to do, but we also cannot end up fighting on the same side as syria. (it will, at least, give the u.n. security council something to gum for awhile.)

this leads me to think that going it alone is probably the best alternative here. i don't think the brits will be at all troublesome, so by "going it alone" i include them. but it seems to me that as great a requirement as putting down saddam very quickly will be maybe even more quickly securing the turkey-iraq border and letting nobody cross, either way. which is a pretty tall order.

dep

[arete]

The only thing the coalition of the "willing" can agree on is that they all want to loot Iraq's oil. Saddam must be laughing his ass off at how well GW has handled this. Turkey will grab the northern oil and they already know that there isn't a single thing the US can do about it. What a circus lead by the clown patrol.

Richard W.

[singsong]

We don't have to chose between Turkey and Kurds. This is what Turks want us to do. Of course we have to accomodate both sides. We are NOT people with tribal thinking. Turkey is toast because Islamic radikalism have grown high in Turkey. AGAIN. It's not the first time when we lose an ally because of that. I guess it was somewhat expected.

[First_Salute]

No "warning."

Just "please don't."

The, as usual, deceptive, "liberal media" are always misrepresenting the U.S.; they cannot seem to print a page without its blaring that "the U.S. threatened . . . " or "the U.S. warned . . . "