Turkey’s Game of Chicken

My lat­est col­umn for Spot-on is up, and it’s avail­able here. A sample:

So. The Turks voted on Wednes­day to invade north­ern Iraq in pur­suit of Kur­dish Work­ers Party (PKK) mil­i­tants. What now? Prob­a­bly noth­ing more than more bor­der skir­mishes, a bit of diplo­matic pos­tur­ing and more con­fu­sion – as if there could be more – over Iraq.

But it would be unwise to dis­miss the Turks’ saber-rattling as noth­ing more than a school-yard test of nerves. This is a very seri­ous prob­lem for the U.S. since 70 per­cent of all Amer­i­can air cargo bound for Iraq passes through Turkey, mainly through the Incir­lik Air Base, a cru­cial logis­ti­cal hub for U.S. forces.

And the Turks clearly know who their friends are. Or at least they’re say­ing they do. Ankara has said that just because Wednesday’s vote in par­lia­ment autho­rizes cross-border incur­sions, they’re not immi­nent. All the big play­ers involved – Iraq, Turkey and the United States went to great pains to play down an imme­di­ate inva­sion. “I sin­cerely wish that this motion will never be applied,” said Turk­ish Prime Min­is­ter Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan. “Pas­sage of this motion does not mean an imme­di­ate incur­sion will fol­low, but we will act at the right time and under the right con­di­tions. This is about self-defense.”

Still, there’s lit­tle doubt that Turkey is roy­ally pissed off and resent­ful of the United States and have decided to warn the Amer­i­cans with what they see as a legit­i­mate secu­rity mea­sure to pro­tect their bor­ders. More than two dozen Turk­ish sol­diers have been killed by PKK rebels in the last two weeks. “Those who crit­i­cize us in regards with the motion, should explain what they’re look­ing for in Afghanistan,” said Mehmet Ali Sahin, the Turk­ish jus­tice minister.

“Turkey applies the same inter­na­tional law that granted the right and author­ity to those who entered in Afghanistan in con­nec­tion with some orga­ni­za­tions with which they had linked the attacks on twin tow­ers. There­fore, nobody has the right to say anything.”

Please check out the whole thing.

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