AZERBAIJAN MAY BE INVOLVED IN TURKISH OPERATIONS IN IRAQ - PAPER
10/18/07
A EurasiaNet Partner Post from BBC Monitoring

Excerpt from report by Elgun Araz in Azerbaijani newspaper Gun Sahar on 17 October headlined “Baku’s support for Turkey in the fight against the PKK”

The Turkish government has asked the parliament to sanction its military operations against the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] terrorist organization in northern Iraq.

[Passage omitted: the Turkish parliament will presumably support the appeal]

Meanwhile, reports are being circulated that Azerbaijan will also support Turkey’s antiterrorist operation. According to reports we have received from an informed source in Turkey, Baku and Ankara are now considering the participation in military operations of a special mountain-infantry regiment located in Naxcivan.

We should recall that this military regiment has high combat readiness and is able to carry out military operations in very difficult circumstances.

The source did not clarify which side had come up with this initiative. However, it added that this would be an important incentive for the two fraternal countries’ current and future relations. The source added that Azerbaijani servicemen are already participating in military operations in areas where it is difficult to conduct them - like Kosovo and Afghanistan. Support for Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, should not come as a surprise.

We think that this kind of support for Turkey from Baku may have a positive influence on the further rapprochement between the two fraternal countries and on opportunities to get military support from Turkey, especially in the resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

Source: Gun, Baku, in Azeri 17 Oct 07 p 2

In any case, although Turkey is still wavering on engaging military action it will choose to do so with or without an Armenian genocide resolution on the House floor, so I don’t understand the logic in relating the two by the media and politicians. The resolution is not to be voted on at least until December, and if the Turks decide to make their move into Iraq they would have already done so by then.

Furthermore, I really believe that Turkey cannot stop the US from using its military base in Incirlik. I don’t understand why the US goverment is taking these threats seriously. The US has been calling the shots in that region for years, and the US’ bailing-out of Turkey every time their economy tanks cannot be ignored. Turkey owes the US lots of favors. Passing a symbolic Armenian genocide recognition resolution will not be a deterrent to the US’s resolve in further destabilizing Iraq with Turkey’s continued assistance.

Turkey to approve troop move in Iraq

By Gareth Jones

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey’s parliament was poised on Wednesday to grant its army permission to enter northern Iraq to crush Kurdish separatist rebels based there, but Iraqi leaders stepped up a diplomatic offensive to avert any attack.

The United States, Turkey’s NATO ally, is also strongly opposed to military action, fearing it will destabilize the most peaceful part of Iraq and possibly the wider region by encouraging other neighbors such as arch-foe Iran to intervene.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has played down expectations of an imminent attack, but the parliamentary vote will effectively give NATO’s second biggest army a free rein to cross the mountainous border as and when it sees fit.

Ankara’s stance has helped drive global oil prices to $88 a barrel, a new record, and has hit its lira currency as investors weigh the economic risks of any major military operation.

Fearing possible rebel attacks, Turkey has beefed up security for a major oil pipeline carrying Caspian crude from the Azeri capital Baku via Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, a senior energy ministry source told Reuters.

[…]

Turkey conducted large military operations in northern Iraq against the PKK in the 1990s but failed to wipe out the rebels.

Some analysts say that despite its tough rhetoric Turkey may limit itself to aerial bombardment of rebel targets and small forays across the border while avoiding a major incursion.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1354608620071017?sp=true

U.S. genocide move reopens old wounds in Turkey

By Gareth Jones - Analysis

ANKARA (Reuters) - A symbolic declaration about events 92 years ago might seem of little but academic interest, but to Turks a text now before the U.S. Congress is so sensitive that they are ready to risk ties with their main strategic ally.

The non-binding resolution, approved by Congress’s Foreign Relations Committee last week and expected to be endorsed in November by the House of Representatives, brands as genocide the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

[…]

William Hale of Istanbul’s Sabanci University, said part of the explanation for Turkey’s behavior lies in its unhappy experiences at foreign hands in the late Ottoman period before Kemal Ataturk founded the modern republic in 1923.

“The fundamental problem is the ‘Sevres’ syndrome,” he said, referring to a failed attempt by major Western powers to carve up Turkey after World War One. That treaty, among other things, envisaged creating a large Armenian state in eastern Turkey.

“The Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire, including the Armenians, were long used by rapacious foreign powers as a tool to advance their territorial ambitions in Turkey,” he said.

[…]

Asserting that there was an Armenian genocide is still a crime in Turkey, despite increased freedom of expression due to European Union-inspired reforms.

Nobel Literature Laureate Orhan Pamuk narrowly escaped a jail sentence for his comments on the Armenian issue.

Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink, who had urged Turkey to face up to its history, was shot dead in January outside his Istanbul office by an ultra-nationalist youth.

[…]

“My fear is that the U.S. Congress vote will now just encourage the hardliners on both sides, just as the veil (on old taboos) was starting to lift,” said Idiz.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1621143820071016?sp=true