Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

Turkey shells Iraq border areas amid incursion talk

Turkish troops have begun shelling areas across the Iraqi border in the autonomous Kurdish region, an Iraqi officer said on Sunday, as Ankara prepared to seek MPs' approval for a ground incursion.

"The shelling began on Saturday night around 10 pm (1900 GMT)," the officer told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"It carried on sporadically," he said, adding that the shells had struck vacant areas without causing any casualties.

A witness said the shells hit around villages in the Al-Amadiyah area about 15 kilometres (9.5 miles) from the frontier and 50 kilometres (30 miles) northeast of the town of Dohuk.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he was ready to brave international censure should his country decide to deal ruthlessly with Kurdish rebel bases in Iraq.

A government bill seeking the go-ahead to launch an incursion any time in the next year is expected to be submitted to parliament after a cabinet meeting on Monday.

Wahid Kista, 42, who lives in the village of Kista near the Iraq-Turkey frontier, said by telephone the shelling was targeting villages in the Metin mountain area "where the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) has bases."

A spokesman for the PKK in Iraq, Abdul Rahman al-Jadershi, confirmed the shelling but said that reports the rebel group is crossing into Turkey to launch attacks "are not correct."

"We have not left Kurdistan nor are we hitting Turkish targets from Kurdistan ... The other operations are being carried out by our members in Turkey," he told AFP by telephone.

"Turkey is deploying forces near the border but we are ready to respond and have taken positions."

The Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq has warned Turkey against making good its threat to mount a cross-border incursion.
Iraqi and Turkish officials met in Baghdad on Friday in an attempt to reduce tensions.

A terse statement from the Iraqi government gave few details of what Iraqi Defence Minister Abdel Qader Mohammed Jassim and ambassador Derya Kanbay discussed, but the meeting came after both the European Union and the United States urged dialogue.

The two men discussed "means of developing relations between the two friendly countries in the field of combating terror and exchange of information," the statement said.

Considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK unleashed an independence struggle in Turkey in 1984 that has killed more than 37,000 people.

Turkey and Iraq signed an accord last month to combat the PKK, but failed to agree on a clause allowing Turkish troops to engage in "hot pursuit" against rebels fleeing into Iraqi territory, as they did regularly in the 1990s.

Ankara charges the PKK has used bases in northern Iraq to launch a renewed offensive inside Turkey that saw 15 soldiers killed last week.
Turkey also claims Iraqi Kurds support the PKK with arms and explosives, which the regional government strongly denies.

Turkey shells Iraq border areas amid incursion talk - Yahoo! News UK

Favorable trends in Iraq

Greg Richards

We are seeing favorable trends in a variety of figures of importance from Iraq:

1. USAID puts out weekly progress reports on Iraq. If you click on the most recent report and scroll down several pages to Section 4 - Electricity Overview - you see something very interesting. Which is that electricity is finally on an upward trend and is now at a record post-war level. The trend is modest and the level is still much too low -- note the 7.1 hours of electricity from the grid in Baghdad, for instance -- but the year to year numbers are now positive. It appears that this may be a dividend from the harmony that we are starting to see in the Sunni provinces around Baghdad.
2. If you scroll on further to Section 5 - Crude Oil Production - you see that production at about 2.3 million barrels per day is modestly above the goal of 2.1 million barrels. I.e., the insurgency is not able to shut off oil production, even if oil growth is modest.
3. If you clock on the website for the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), go to Key Statistics and scroll down to the bottom of the spreadsheet you see the table for inflation. At the beginning of this year, inflation was 66%. In the last three months - June, July, August - inflation declined: 46%, 30%, 20%
4. With the high interest rate policy of the CBI, the value of the Iraqi dinar continues to improve. It has increased 11% this year against the dollar and 20% since last fall.
5. The Iraq Stock Exchange is up 50% year-to-date and is holding its 30% surge of mid-summer.

We don't want to forget the estimated 2 million internal and 2 million external refugees in Iraq, nor the estimated 50% unemployment rate. However, in his interview on Charlie Rose, David Kilcullen observed that political progress in Iraq will be "alchemy" not "engineering" meaning that progress cannot be laid out in a mechanical fashion. To use a different image, progress in Iraq will very likely be a "jelling" of different components into a whole. I think this will be true of economic life in Iraq as well. To determine if this is happening, we need to monitor as many figures of merit as we can, such as the five points above.

American Thinker Blog: Favorable trends in Iraq

Iraqi Kurds urge end to Turkey border row

The government of Iraqi Kurdistan said it was committed to stopping cross border attacks by Kurdish separatists against Turkey but called for a political solution amid Turkish threats to invade its neighbour.

Nechirvan Barzani, Prime Minister of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government, told Al Jazeera Television the problem of attacks by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose rebels use northern Iraq as a base, could not be resolved militarily.

"We, as the government of the province of Kurdistan, will not allow our land or the land of Iraq to be used for assaults on any neighbouring state," he said in comments aired on Sunday.

"The PKK is not just a problem for Turkey but has caused us problems in the past .... It is not true that we are benefiting from the problem of the PKK, but our view is that since this issue cannot be solved through war we should seek a political solution," he added in comments dubbed into Arabic.

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Ankara was prepared to face any international criticism if his country launched an attack on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

Washington fears such an offensive against Turkish Kurds, who are fighting for an independent homeland in southeastern Turkey, could destabilise Iraq's most stable area and potentially the wider region.

But faced with a sharp escalation of attacks by Kurdish militants on Turkish troops, Erdogan's government has decided to seek approval from parliament next week for a major military operation against the PKK rebels.

Barzani said only a political deal would end the violence.

"We are very sorry about the recent killing of 13 Turkish soldiers. We condemn this incident, which did not help to solve the problem. The more blood is spilled the more complex this problem becomes. We must put an end to this violence," he said.

"Turkish politicians must change their thinking on this and find a new solution to the issue of the PKK... The PKK has said it is ready for a political solution and we must try, along with Turkey and all parties ... to find a peaceful solution."

Barzani also criticised the central government in Baghdad for failing to consult the regional Kurdish government before signing an anti-terrorism deal with Turkey in September, which targeted Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.

Iraq and Turkey failed to agree on a plan that would have let Turkish troops chase militants across the border, as Ankara says it has the right to do under international law.

An estimated 3,000 PKK guerrillas use northern Iraq as a springboard from which to attack security and civilian targets inside Turkish territory. Turkey blames the PKK for the deaths of over 30,000 people since it began its armed struggle in 1984.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14110842.htm

Powerful Shiite and Sunni leaders meet in Iraq

Influential Shiite cleric Ammar Hakim held talks in Ramadi on Sunday with a powerful Sunni tribal sheikh, which observers said were highly symbolic for reconciliation in war-torn Iraq.

The meeting between Hakim, a leading figure of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), and Sheikh Ahmed Abu Reesha, leader of a Sunni coalition in western Anbar province formed to fight Al-Qaeda, was tightly guarded by Iraqi troops and police and the US military.

Sheikh Ahmed took over as head of the Anbar Awakening Council when his brother Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha was killed by a bomb near his home in Ramadi, capital of Anbar, on September 13.

Sunday's visit was the first by a leader of the SIIC to the Sunni stronghold in volatile Anbar province, long a bastion of resistance to the US-led invasion and opposition to the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.
Hakim was accompanied to Ramadi by Hadi al-Amri, the head of the Badr Brigade, SIIC's powerful militia which is accused of violence against the country's Sunni Arabs.

Tribal chiefs at the meeting hailed the visit, calling it important for reconciliation in a country riven with bitter sectarian divides that have led to the killings of thousands of Iraqis.

Sheikh Ahmed asked Hakim to help quell sectarian violence and vowed to continue the work against Al-Qaeda started by his brother.

Hakim hailed Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha as a "real national hero."
"Iraqi soil is for everybody, the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis," said Hakim, son and heir-apparent of ailing SIIC leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim.

On Saturday, Ammar Hakim called for the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq and rejected the possibility of permanent foreign military bases there.

He also broached the issue of federalism, calling the division of the country "an Iraqi interest, wish and decision.

"I call on this holy day for the people of my country to form (self-governing) regions, starting with the region south of Baghdad," Hakim said in an Eid al-Fitr sermon from the SIIC headquarters in Baghdad.

The principle of federalism is enshrined in Iraq's constitution. But Sunni Arabs, who form around 20 percent of the population and are largely located in central, resource-poor parts of the country, have been less enthusiastic about such a plan, fearing it would deprive them of oil wealth.

Powerful Shiite and Sunni leaders meet in Iraq - Yahoo! News UK

Washington Post correspondent killed in Iraq

A Washington Post correspondent in Iraq was shot and killed on Sunday while on assignment in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Sadiyah, the newspaper said on its Web site.

Salih Saif Aldin, 32, joined the paper in his hometown of Tikrit in early 2004. He later moved to Baghdad, where he played a key role in the Post's coverage of Iraq.

Details of the incident were still unclear, the Post said. Saif Aldin was the first Post reporter to be killed during the Iraq war, the newspaper said.

"Salih's death reminds us once again of the central role that Iraqi journalists and others have played in our coverage of the war and the immense sacrifices they have made to help us understand it," said David Hoffman, the Post's assistant managing editor for foreign news.

At least 118 journalists have been killed in Iraq while on duty, including nearly 100 Iraqis, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Washington Post correspondent killed in Iraq - Yahoo! News UK

PKK threatens bitter fight as Turks shell northern Iraq

Turkish troops Sunday sent shells crashing across the Iraqi border into several villages in the autonomous Kurdish region, officials said, as a Kurdish fighter vowed that Turkey would find itself fighting a "Vietnam war" if strikes continued. Residents of a village near the northern Iraq border town of Zakhu fled after shells slammed into their homes and farms during a day-long bombardment that caused major damage but no casualties, Kurdistan regional government spokesman Jamal Abdullah told AFP.

"From this morning until early evening there was a Turkish attack on villagers near Zakhu," he said. "There were no casualties but lots of damage and many families fled to safer areas."

An army officer had earlier told AFP on condition of anonymity that cross-border shelling in a number of areas began Saturday around 10 p.m. and carried on sporadically into Sunday. Most of the shells landed in open land, he added.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that he was ready to brave international censure should his country decide to deal ruthlessly with Kurdish rebel bases in Iraq.

A government bill seeking the go-ahead to launch an incursion any time in the next year is expected to be submitted to Parliament after a Cabinet meeting on Monday.

A Kurdish rebel commander warned Turkey that it would encounter tough resistance and a dragged-out, Vietnam-style conflict, if it launched a large-scale offensive against the Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

An aggressive Turkish incursion into Iraq would prompt the rebels to retaliate with protracted and bloody attacks, Murat Karayilan, head of the Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) armed wing said over the weekend.

Speaking to The Associated Press deep in the Qandil Mountains straddling the Iraq-Turkish border, 150 kilometers from the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Suleimaniyya, Karayilan said an incursion would "make Turkey experience a Vietnam war."

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Turkey says the rebels use Iraqi Kurdish territory as a safe haven, but Iraqi and Kurdish authorities reject the claim.

"Iraq's Kurds will not support the Turkish Army," he said. "If Turkey starts its attack, we will swing the Turkish public opinion by political, civil and military struggle."
US officials have urged Turkey against sending troops and appealed for a diplomatic solution with Iraq. The Kurdish self-rule region in northern Iraq is one of the country's few relatively stable areas and the Kurds here are also a longtime US ally.

For months, Turkey has called on Iraq and the US to crack down on the PKK, which Ankara accuses of launching attacks in Turkey from bases in northern Iraq.

In Turkey, Kurdish rebels killed over 15 Turkish troops in the past week and are blamed for an ambush that killed 12 people the week before. The Turkish government responded to the deaths by announcing tougher measures against the rebels.

Karayilan said the PKK was only defending itself against attacks by the Turks.

"This was not the first time. It happened many times before and no one talked about it, so why this time?" he asked, adding that the clashes took place at least 100 kilometers from the border, within Turkey, not Iraq. He said he believes the Turkish attacks are meant to destabilize Iraq, not remove the rebels.

"Turkey is only making pretexts to enter the Kurdistan region in Iraq," he said.

The Daily Star - Politics - PKK threatens bitter fight as Turks shell northern Iraq

Turkey ready to face criticism over Iraq Kurds
Erdogan to seek Turkish parliament's approval in preparation for cross-border operation against PKK.

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Ankara was prepared to face up to any international criticism if his country launched an attack on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

Washington fears an offensive against Turkish Kurds fighting in southeastern Turkey could destabilize Iraq's northern region.
Asked about world reaction to such an incursion, Erdogan told reporters: "After going down this route, its cost has already been calculated. Whatever the cost is, it will be met."

Faced with a sharp escalation of attacks by Kurdish militants on Turkish troops, Erdogan's government has decided to seek approval from parliament next week for a major military operation to target Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels who use northern Iraq as a base to attack Turkish targets.

Erdogan, speaking outside a mosque in Istanbul after Friday prayers, said he wanted to secure parliament's approval now to avoid spending time later with the procedure if, and when a cross-border operation was warranted.

Some analysts say an operation is more likely after a vote on Wednesday in which a US congressional committee branded killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One as genocide -- a charge Turkey firmly denies.

Over the past few days Washington has sought to calm tensions with Turkey, and urged it not to take unilateral action. The European Union, which Turkey wants to join, have also cautioned against such moves.
Erdogan said Turkey respected Iraq's unity but if it did nothing to stop the separatist PKK then Ankara had to act.

"As regards Iraq's political integrity, unity, territorial unity and the central government, we have nothing against it and there's no question of thoughts of sanctions ... (But) if they aren't doing anything to stop it (the attacks), then of course we need to do something," he said.

Ankara says 3,000 PKK rebels are based in northern Iraq from where they stage frequent deadly attacks into Turkey.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since the group launched its armed struggle for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

On Friday a soldier was killed and two wounded in Sirnak province, near the border with Iraq, by a mine laid by PKK militants, the army said.
Army sources said an operation in the area, backed up from the air, was intensified on Friday after the mine blast.

Turkey ready to face criticism over Iraq Kurds | Iraq Updates

Kurdish MP urges government to adopt official position on Turkish shelling

Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman on Monday urged the Iraqi central government to adopt an official position regarding the continued Turkish shelling of Iraq's Kurdistan region, calling on the government to defend northern Iraq in case of any possible Turkish attack.

"The Iraqi government has to adopt an official position regarding the Turkish shelling," Othman told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

The northern Iraqi borders have been a scene of tension and repeated Turkish artillery shelling under the pretext of fighting members of imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Kurdish sources said the shelling caused damage in property and fires in Kurdish forests.

Kurdistan borders forces said on Sunday Turkish troops fired over 250 artillery shells into areas inside Iraqi northern territories, inflicting material losses.

Turkey claims 3,000 fighters from the Turkish banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are using the mountainous areas of northern Iraq as base to launch attacks on Turkish targets.

A total of 13 Turkish soldiers were killed last week in a raid by gunmen, believed to be members of the PKK on a military site near Shernak city, southeast of Turkey. The Turkish army responded by launching wide scale crackdown operation to hunt down the perpetrators.

"The Kurdistan Coalition is waiting for final decision of the Turkish government and parliament, concerning giving the Turkish army the green light to plunge into northern Iraq territories," Othman explained.

"If the Turkish parliament approved the decision, it will be its biggest mistake as it made another mistake, four years ago, when it rejected U.S. forces' demand to use its territories in the war to topple Saddam's regime," he said.

Mahmoud Othman on Saturday also criticized the recent threats by the Turkish government to send troops into northern Iraq, urging Baghdad to cancel the security agreement signed last month with Ankara.

"The security agreement has encouraged Turkey to increase threats of incursion into northern Iraq," MP Mahmoud Othman told the VOI over the phone.

The Turkish cabinet held a session on Monday led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The session is to tackle the memorandum to be presented by the government to the Parliament on striking sites of the banned Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.

The government is to present its memo to the Parliament Monday for voting Tuesday.

MP Othman also called upon the U.S. side to bear responsibility by preventing Turkey form sending troops into northern Iraq, criticizing, meanwhile, the Iraqi government's stand as to "consider PKK as a terrorist party."

"Considering the PKK as a terrorist party will give Ankara an excuse to crush the Party inside Iraq," Othman noted.

The Iraqi parliament member also called upon Turkey to listen to the international community and honor its obligations under the recently signed security agreement.

For its part, the U.S. warned Turkey against making an incursion into northern Iraq.

Kurdish MP urges government to adopt official position on Turkish shelling | Iraq Updates

No connection between al-Hakim's statements, Congress's dividing plan - SIIC

The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) on Monday denied any link between statements made by Head of al-Mihrab Martyr's Foundation for Islamic Call Ammar al-Hakim and the U.S. Senate non-binding resolution to divide Iraq into three entities.

"Federalism and establishing regions are considered a constitutional and natural right for the Iraqi people," the SIIC said in a statement received by the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

"The federalism is a clear reality on the Iraqi territory, represented by Iraq's Kurdistan region, based on the Iraqi desire and interest," it added.
Al-Hakim on Saturday had called for a rapid move towards establishing several regions in Iraq under a federal government, saying it is an effective way to preserve Iraq's unity.

"We have to go ahead with the formation of regions and the adoption of a federal system in the country," said al-Hakim, the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and the leader of the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC).

"A federal system is a way to achieve unity," al-Hakim indicated, addressing masses of worshippers who converged on his office in Baghdad to perform Eid al-Fitr's (Lesser Bairam) prayers.

Al-Hakim also called for fostering regional and Arab relations, which he said will help Iraq restore security, and stressed his rejection of a permanent presence of foreign troops in Iraq.

The SIIC's statement described the call for a rapid move towards establishing several regions in Iraq as old.

"We have urged to take this move before and emphasized on its necessity during earlier meetings," the statement affirmed.

Iraqi politicians and parliamentarians from different blocs said that there is a link and harmony between al-Hakim's calls and the U.S. Senate non-binding resolution.

The statement expressed regret over these statements, urging all Iraqis to be unified and preserve the country's high national interests.
Calls for establishing federal regions in Iraq have sparked heated controversy in Iraqi political circles following a U.S. Senate resolution envisaging the division of Iraq into three Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite entities.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki criticized the U.S. project, saying it aims to divide the country along sectarian lines and runs contrary to the Iraqi constitution which adopts a federal system, while presidency of Iraq’s Kurdistan region welcomed it, saying this means re-establishing Iraq on voluntary unity basis.

The Senate, last month, approved, with 75 votes for and 23 against, a "non-binding" draft resolution envisaging the division of Iraq into three Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities, with a federal government in Baghdad undertaking border security and oil proceed management.

No connection between al-Hakim's statements, Congress's dividing plan - SIIC | Iraq Updates

Head of KRG Foreign Relations Meets Bill Clinton

Mr. Falah Mustafa, Head of KRG foreign relations, upon an invitation from Mr. Bill Clinton, former US president, participated in the party which was held on occasion of publishing the latest book of US famous author, Eyen Cloud which focuses on the experienced Kurdistan region in all aspects.

At the begging of the party Clinton talked about the book and the traditions of Kurdish people of ho****ality, appreciating KRG for their support to the author.

Head of KRG foreign relations thanked Mr. Clinton for expressing his support for protecting Kurdistani region, asking that his support for Kurdistan region to be continued.

PUKmedia :: English - Head of KRG Foreign Relations Meets Bill Clinton