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The Turks will be welcomed with flowers and treated as liberators.
Ankara claims Kurdish rebels preparing attacks
· Operations could wreck American peace strategy
Simon Tisdall in Ankara
Thursday March 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
GuardianThe US is scrambling to head off a "disastrous" Turkish military intervention in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq that threatens to derail the Baghdad security surge and open up a third front in the battle to save Iraq from disintegration.
Senior Bush administration officials have assured Turkey in recent days that US forces will increase efforts to root out Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) guerrillas enjoying safe haven in the Qandil mountains, on the Iraq-Iran-Turkey border.
But Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, MPs, military chiefs and diplomats say up to 3,800 PKK fighters are preparing for attacks in south-east Turkey — and Turkey is ready to hit back if the Americans fail to act. "We will do what we have to do, we will do what is necessary. Nothing is ruled out," Mr Gul said. "I have said to the Americans many times: suppose there is a terrorist organisation in Mexico attacking America. What would you do?... We are hopeful. We have high expectations. But we cannot just wait forever."
Turkish sources said "hot pursuit" special forces operations in Khaftanin and Qanimasi, northern Iraq, were already under way. Murat Karayilan, a PKK leader, said this week that a "mad war" was in prospect unless Ankara backed off.
So much for any Iraq peace-haven. not to mention how this treathens Dubya's surge.
The Turks will be welcomed with flowers and treated as liberators.
More of that "good news" the conbots promised. Stay the course.
"We are winning, absolutely"
Hey, Turks threatening to invade Kurdish-Iraq? What a better time for the Democratic Congress to provoke the Turks, right?
NY TimesISTANBUL, March 29 — A planned vote in Congress that would classify the widespread killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish government early in the 20th century as genocide is threatening to make bilateral relations unusually tense.
The speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, backs the resolution and at first wanted a vote in April. But under Turkish pressure, Bush administration figures have lobbied for the Democrats in charge of Congress to drop the measure.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sent strong letters of protest to her and to Representative Tom Lantos, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has not set a date for the vote. “That has had an impact,” said Lynne Weil, a Lantos spokeswoman, referring to the letters. Copies were also sent to Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader.
Turkey vehemently denies the genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians died during a period of several years, beginning in 1915. It contends that the deaths occurred in the chaos of war, as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and that many Turks were also killed when Armenians sided with Russian forces in the hope of claiming territory in eastern Turkey.
I'm all for recognizing Genocide, like the one going on now in Danfur, but there is a time and place for everything, bad move Pelosi.
I'm not a big believer in coincidences; especially as it relates to governmental actions. If she wants Iraq to become a bigger mess; it's not a bad move at all. And again, why are WE extreme for claiming that there are factions in this country and its leadership who are desirous that we "lose" this war?
^fixed to more accurately descibe what we are doing in Iraq. We "misson accomplished" the "war" almost 4 years ago.
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