Note on Turkey Kurdistan Trigger
By Walid Phares
The Turkish army is mobilizing to move inside Iraqi Kurdistan, and Turkish experts say the invasion may go as deep as 60 KM inside Iraqi Kurdish lands. The objective is to uproot the fighters of the PKK, but the Turks may also find themselves clashing with the Peshmergas. Hence intense diplomatic efforts are needed to avoid this Turkish-Kurdish war inside Iraq. Washington — along with the Kurdish leadership in Iraq — must dismantle the PKK positions and networks, or at the very least declare an intention to do so. This is the only way to convince Ankara not to engage in such an operation.
However, there could be more to this problem than Turkey's frustration with PKK cross-border activities. According to well-informed sources in the region, an intelligence campaign sponsored by the Iranian and Syrian regimes has so-far been successful in dragging Turkey into their present position. In fact, the PKK has been penetrated by the intelligence services since the 1990's when they were based inside Syria and the Bekaa valley of Lebanon. Tehran and Damascus have perhaps manipulated their previous influences to trigger this brewing conflict. (A more comprehensive analysis will follow soon)
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