What are the implications of Turkey's involvement in Iraq?

[Anubis10012007]

I was wondering what is going to happen with this. Turkey seems to be doing what Iran probably is doing, sneaking across the border into Iraq. Thats like technically an invasion.


Iraq has warned Turkey (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7066441.stm) and I hope that this will not lead to further conflict in the region. You got Saddam and the Taliban out of power so I don't know what else the Bush administration wants to accomplish by still staying in Iraq.

[PharmaCan]

That's a very complicated situation.

The Kurds in Turkey have long been fighting for independence or autonomy.

The Kurds in Northern Iraq have been protected by the U.S. since the first Gulf War. They have established a fairly civilized and peaceful society and aren't really part of the cluster fuck in the rest of Iraq. They have really only stayed as part of Iraq, as opposed to declaring themselves an independent state, out of a combination of loyalty to the U.S. for protecting them from Saddam for many years and immense pressure from the US. Kurds aren't Arabs and the Kurds would just as soon have nothing to do with the Arab Iraqis.

The Turkish and Iraqi borders have nothing to do with how that territory would be divided if it were done in an ethnic/nationalistic way. The borders were established at the end of the Ottoman empire and didn't give any consideration to the indigenous Kurdish population. The Kurds in Iraq are sympathetic to the Kurds in Turkey and they have recently been allowing Kurdish rebels from Turkey to carry on support activities in Kurdish Iraq.

...meanwhile, back at the Bush fiasco, many of the supplies for our troops go through Turkey and we really do need to keep those supply routes open.

Turkey has made some kind of application, or filed some kind of formal notice of intent - something along those lines. I don't remember exactly what right now. - to be able to get the US or the UN's permission to attack Turkish Kurdish rebels in Iraq.

To further complicate things, Turkey wants to get into the EU and that ain't gonna happen unless they tow the line in the political correctness arena.

It's really hard to know what might be going on over there. There's a lot of reasons for all parties involved to do stuff covertly.

PC :smokin:

[killerweed420]

Turkey has been a very good ally of ours for many years.But they have always been a tough country. In Nam they made Bosnia look like nuns.If they get tire3d of the Kurds they'll do em dirty.