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 Kurds in Iraq Fear Turkish Incursion |
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作者：Anonymous 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
Kurds in Iraq Fear Turkish Incursion
Pact With U.S. Would Allow Ankara to Deploy Big Force in Region Where Rivals Hold Power
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 25, 2003; Page A16
BARMANI, Iraq, Feb. 24 -- With Turkey finally ready to sign an accord to host U.S. troops, Kurdish officials in northern Iraq have begun to warn of turmoil and armed conflict if, as part of the deal, thousands of Turkish troops enter the hills and towns where Kurds have enjoyed self-government for a decade under cover of U.S. and British air patrols.
For the United States, a deal with the Turks makes sense, easing the way for a northern front against the forces of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and providing help for securing this volatile region. For the Kurds, however, any deal that includes an extensive Turkish military presence in northern Iraq is unwelcome, even if it is allowed on grounds of preventing a refugee flow into Turkey.
In the Kurdish view, Turkey's arrival would undermine the de facto independence, in effect since 1991, of 3.5 million Kurds and their armed militias. The Kurds fear that once Turkish soldiers are in, they will never leave, and that two other neighbors, Iran and Syria, might also invade to protect their Kurd-inhabited border regions.
"No one should think we are bluffing. There will be conflict," said Hoshyar Zubari, a top official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of two armed factions that rule the north. "We oppose any unilateral intervention."
There is a long history of hatred between Kurds and Turks. Turkey has fought a long and bitter conflict with nationalist-minded Kurds within its territory. Bloodshed and decades of efforts to suppress the Kurdish language and traditions embittered Kurds on both sides of the border. Turkish claims on parts of northern Iraq as a traditional homeland for Turkmen, an ethnic Turkish population in Iraq, have also fed fears of a land grab.
This multi-layered enmity now threatens to become a subplot to an American invasion of Iraq. In effect, two important U.S. allies are devoted enemies. Any conflict between NATO-armed Turks and Kurdish militias could make a U.S. entry into Iraq a messy affair.
Against that background, Turkish officials have demanded that any U.S. weapons given to Kurdish militias in Iraq be rounded up soon after an invasion, to prevent their transfer to Kurds living in Turkey. This is among the final details being negotiated in Ankara between U.S. and Turkish officials. Even as the talks continue, however, the Turkish government announced today that the deal is basically done and will be submitted to parliament Tuesday for a constitutionally required vote.
Turkey has long intervened in northern Iraq to pursue nationalist rebels from its large Kurdish minority. In the past few years, Iraqi Kurds have cooperated with the Turkish army in pursuing the rebels into mountainous refuges. Here in Barmani, a mountain town about 15 miles south of the Turkish border, Turkish troops have occupied a small airfield for six years.
About a dozen tanks look out over a deep valley between snow-covered mountains. The armored unit is part of a force of several hundred Turkish troops stationed at four frontier bases with the agreement of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the other governing faction. Northern Iraq is off-limits to Iraqi forces, so Baghdad has little say in the matter.
Kurds complain that even these small Turkish contingents have overstayed their welcome. Turkey has all but crushed Kurdish rebellion within its borders. "This has gone on too long. It has negative impact on us," said Nichervan Ahmed, governor of the northern Dahuk region, of which Barmani is a part.
Villagers said they are forbidden to gather wood on a steep mountainside above the airfield. "Even a few Turks are here, and we are not masters of our own land," said Mohammed Salmand, a grocery store owner who lives in Barmani.
Turkey has defended its desire to intervene on the grounds of blocking refugee flows into its territory in the event of war. But Turkish officials also have offered other rationales that alarm the Kurds. They have threatened to invade deeply if, during the expected conflict, the Kurds try to establish an independent state or send in militias to occupy Kirkuk, an Iraqi city the Turks regard as historically Turkish. Kirkuk, whose population includes Turkmen, Arabs and Kurds, is the hub of an oil-rich region still under Iraqi central government control.
The Kurds have repeatedly said they want to remain part of a united Iraq and will not try to take over Kirkuk. The two leading Kurdish parties belong to a U.S.-backed opposition coalition designed to create conditions for democracy in post-Hussein Iraq. Officials have expressed exasperation that nonetheless the Turks are coming.
"They want to box us in. They say they want a united sovereign Iraq, but they insist they have the right to interfere," said Ahmed, the regional governor.
Kurds scoffed at the notion that should war break out, Kurds will flee into Turkey as they did in 1991, when Hussein put down a Kurdish revolt after Iraq's defeat in the Persian Gulf War. The Kurdish administration has been ruling northern Iraq since then and can control the flow in cooperation with the United Nations and other relief agencies, officials insisted.
"The Turks are trying to force their help on us. No thank you," said Zubari, the Kurdistan Democratic Party official.
Kurdish officials said they have been kept in the dark about Turkish plans and whether the United States would command Turkish troops in Iraq. Kurds and Turkish generals met last week inside Turkey to discuss possible scenarios. The Kurds, led by Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, tried to convince the Turks that any refugee flow would be small and remain inside northern Iraq. The Kurdish delegation asked for detailed plans about Turkey's proposed intervention. They received nothing, Kurdish officials said. The two sides are scheduled to meet again Tuesday.
"The Turks say they are not going to fight Iraqis, so why are they coming?" Zubari said. "It's a mystery to us."
?2003 The Washington Post Company
作者：Anonymous 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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