U.S. clashes with PKK/Kadek in north?

Eye­brows should be raised, but the Turk­ish for­eign min­is­ter Abdul­lah Gul is claim­ing that Amer­i­can forces have clashed with PKK/KADEK forces in north­ern Iraq. The BBC reports that U.S. forces exchanged fire with “unknown forces” in the area.

A spokesman for the US 101^st Air­borne Divi­sion, based in Mosul, said the inci­dent took place near Dahuk, about 10 miles (15 kilo­me­ters) from the Turkey-Iraq bor­der. One mem­ber of the Iraqi bor­der patrol was killed, he said.
The “unknown forces” were dis­bursed with the assis­tance of Apache attack heli­copters and a quick reac­tion force team, he added.

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p>”It is true that clashes took place yes­ter­day,” Gul has said. “Not only U.S. forces but also Kur­dish ‘pesh­merga’ fight­ers were involved in engag­ing the PKK. Some U.S. heli­copters were also deployed.” [UPDATE 1:40 PM EST: Agence France Press is report­ing ambi­gu­ity in the par­ties involved, just as BBC did ear­lier, say­ing Iraqi bor­der guards came under attack by “unknown forces.” The Kur­dis­tan Demo­c­ra­tic Party office in Wash­ing­ton has no com­ment.]
The PKK/KADEK fought a bru­tal war with Turkey from 1984 – 1998, in which upwards of 30,000 civil­ians in south­east Turkey were killed and entire vil­lages destroyed. In an effort to per­suade Turkey to con­tribute 10,000 troops to Iraq, Wash­ing­ton promised to help crack­down on the Kur­dish group, which ended its 5-year cease fire against Turkey in Sep­tem­ber.
At the time, Qubad Jalal Tal­a­bani, the deputy rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Patri­otic Union of Kur­dis­tan in Wash­ing­ton — which has had some­times warmer, some­times cooler rela­tions with the PKK – told me via email:

There is much talk about US-Turkey action towards the PKK, but in real­ity, the US are already fight­ing a war on a few fronts (Al-Qaeda, Ansar, Sad­dam loy­al­ists etc). The last thing would want to do is open another front. Sec­ondly, the US and the Kurds (Iraqi), are on a very new and dif­fer­ent play­ing field, in terms of the respect that each shows the other. The US would never do such actions with first con­sult­ing, and sec­ond receiv­ing per­mis­sion, from us.
Our advice to the US and to Turkey has always been, the PKK are tired, regard­less of what some idiots from within them think, the major­ity of them are ready to lay down their arms and go back to their homes. If the US can pres­sure Turkey into pro­vid­ing them with an amnesty (a real one!) then this prob­lem will be resolved.

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p>Turkey appar­ently with­drew its offer of troops Nov. 7 and said, “The gov­ern­ment has decided not to imple­ment the (par­lia­men­tary) motion to send troops to Iraq,” an unnamed gov­ern­ment offi­cial was quoted as say­ing. The next day, Gul warned the U.S. “not to show bias towards Iraqi Kurds.” Tellingly, Gul also

told NTV that the US had reaf­firmed its deter­mi­na­tion to elim­i­nate the PKK threat, but insisted that that Ankara reserved the right of inter­ven­tion in case of a “threat or attack” com­ing out of its neighbour’s territory.

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p>The next day, Sun­day, we see the U.S. [pos­si­bly] attack­ing PKK/KADEK forces. Gul’s com­ments can only be seen as a maneu­ver to get the U.S. to act, [and thus should be looked at skep­ti­cally.] But why? Run­ning through all this is the Amer­i­can desire to have some kind of help — any kind — to help with increas­ingly suc­cess­ful insur­gents in Iraq. Strat­for says a Turk­ish force is still not out of the ques­tion, espe­cially if Wash­ing­ton fields a Shia anti-guerilla force with the help of Iran — Turkey’s old neme­sis in Iraq. Is it so out of the ques­tion that the action in the north, which runs the risk of alien­at­ing a sub­stan­tial por­tion of the Kur­dish pop­u­la­tion in Iraq, which is anti-Turk, is a show of good faith by the U.S. in an effort to get Turkey’s civil­ian gov­ern­ment to change its mind? (By all accounts, the Turk­ish mil­i­tary, unlike Ankara’s civil­ian gov­ern­ment, sees send­ing troops as a chance to deal with the “Kur­dish Prob­lem” once and for all and estab­lish con­trol over north­ern Iraq.) If, in the future, fight­ing between PKK/KADEK and U.S. forces is seen, I wouldn’t be sur­prised to see Turk­ish troops close behind.

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