Increasingly problems in Iraq are being sourced back to Iran by the US, who seem to be searching for any wrongdoing from this Iraqi neighbour.
However, Iran is not the only problem regarding Iraq. Turkey is now threatening to invade Iraq if Turkish Kurds do not stop their incursions into Turkey from Iraqi Kurdistan. This will put the US in an awkward position, as they rely on both Turkey and the Kurds to support their ongoing presence in Iraq.
Turkish PM threatens to invade Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
The Independent
Turkish artillery has been firing increasingly heavy barrages at villages in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan. After three Turkish soldiers were killed and five wounded by a mine laid by PKK guerrillas last week, some 100 shells exploded around the border town of Zakho, forcing residents to flee.
The Prime Minister, Recep Tayyib Erdogan, said the PKK fighters had been using northern Iraq as a base to make attacks.
He said there would be a tripartite meeting with the US and Iraq after the election but if Turkish demands were not satisfied, an invasion was on the agenda. "Whatever is necessary could be done immediately," he said. "We are capable enough to do it." Mr Erdogan's hard line is geared to the Turkish election tomorrow in which his Justice and Development Party (AKP is fearful of losing votes because it is being portrayed as not acting firmly enough against PKK guerrillas. It wants to stop the far-right Nationalist Party, which is demanding an incursion in Iraq, getting the 10 per cent of the vote that it needs to win seats in parliament.
To see the full article please click on the link
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2788616.ece
Turkey steps back from Iraq invasion after poll
Nicholas Birch
The Independent
As Turkey's government savoured an overwhelming electoral victory yesterday, regional analysts agreed that the immediate impetus for an invasion of northern Iraq had receded.
Sunday's clear mandate for the Islamic-rooted AKP of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been received as a snub to his secularist and nationalist opponents, who put the fight against Kurdish separatist guerrillas across the border at the centre of their failed campaign.
Orhan Miroglu, one of the Kurdish politicians elected to parliament, said the veiled threat of military intervention and a massive military build-up in Turkey's south-east had failed to attract votes.
"Sunday's results are a victory for common sense and civilian democracy over a politics of nationalism and foreign intervention," he said in a telephone interview from the southern port city of Mersin.
To see the full article please click on the link
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2795638.ece
1 comment:
Interesting that common sense seems to have prevailed. People forget how huge the Turkish military presence is already in Kurdish Iraq. Huge divisions of tanks have been in place for years in illegal Turkish bases in kurdistan proper. The Turks interfere throughout Iraq, fermenting trouble on behalf of the Turkoman minority, indiscriminately bombing villages near the border etc.
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