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Al-Ahram Weekly 5 - 11 August 1999 Issue No. 441 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 5 - 11 August 1999 Issue No. 441
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Focus Interview Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Domestic troubles, cross-border alibis
By Gareth JenkinsTurkish and Iranian officials met in the Iranian town of Urumiye last week in an attempt to defuse tensions after both sides had accused each other of fomenting domestic unrest in the other's country. Tehran claimed that Ankara was one of the instigators of last month's violent student protests while Ankara alleged that the Islamic republic was providing moral and material support to militants of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The crisis began on 18 July, when Tehran claimed that Turkish F-16 fighter bombers had bombed a nomad camp on Iranian territory, near Iran's shared border with Iraq and Turkey, killing five and wounding ten others. On 19 July a battered-looking Iranian student leader, Manushehr Mohamadi, appeared on Iranian television and apparently confessed that, prior to the student demonstrations, he had been in contact with foreign groups and banned political parties in Turkey. On 23 July Tehran claimed that Iranian troops had beaten back an armed incursion by Turkish forces and captured two soldiers.
Historically, Turkey and Iran have long been regional rivals but relations deteriorated following the Islamic Revolution in Iran when tens of thousands of the deposed Shah's supporters fled to Turkey, particularly Istanbul. The exiles formed opposition groups, which, despite numerous diplomatic protests by Tehran and the occasional assassination of their leaders by Iranian intelligence, have been allowed to operate relatively freely. In return, Ankara has claimed that Tehran has been providing financial and logistical support to Turkish Islamist militants, several of whom have allegedly confessed to receiving weapons training in camps in Iran and even named their case officers as Iranian intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover in Istanbul and Ankara.
But, while the Iranian regime remains anathema to Turkey's staunchly secularist establishment, in recent years Ankara has focused increasingly on alleged Iranian support for the PKK. The Turkish military claims that Tehran not only allows the PKK to establish camps in the mountains on the Iranian side of the two countries' 500 kilometre-long border but also provides militants with logistical support and medical care. Iran has consistently denied the charges.
"The Iranians can say what they like," said a high-ranking Turkish military official, "but I've been to the border and I've seen the PKK camps on the other side with my own eyes. They know they are there. And we know they are there. The Iranians are lying."
Tehran's allegations of an armed Turkish incursion into Iranian territory drew a furious reply from the Turkish authorities. "Do they really think we would invade their country with two soldiers?" asked Turkish Chief of Staff General Huseyin Kivrikoglu. "The area where the soldiers were captured is very mountainous and there is no clear border. If the soldiers entered Iranian territory then they did so by mistake."
Turkish Air Force Commander Air Marshall Ilhan Kilic dismissed Iranian claims that Turkish planes had bombed the wrong target. "F-16s are sophisticated planes," he said. "They don't miss their targets. The camp that we hit belonged to the PKK and was 1.5 kilometres inside Iraqi territory. There were Iranian soldiers in the camp and they were killed. In any case, we have been receiving intelligence that Iranian officers have been training the PKK."
By Monday, as Iranian and Turkish officials continued their investigations into the bombing, Tehran appeared prepared to soften its rhetoric. The official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) quoted Deputy Interior Minister Gholamhussein Bolandian as accepting that Turkish planes may simply have made a mistake. He called for security officials from the two countries to hold more frequent meetings to avoid misunderstandings. But he also insisted that the captured Turkish soldiers would have to be tried by an Iranian court before Tehran could consider releasing them.
But the pro-government Tehran Times remained less conciliatory, bluntly accusing the Turkish military of attempting to fuel hatred between the peoples of Turkey and Iran in order to justify the imposition of secularism in Turkey.
"The Iranian government is just trying to deflect attention away from its own internal problems," said General Kivrikoglu. "It always does this."
Ankara has also angrily dismissed an IRNA report that Turkey was prepared to pay compensation to the relatives of the slain Iranians, and continues to insist that the two captured Turkish soldiers should be released immediately.
But even if the current crisis is resolved, it is unlikely to be the last. Claims that foreign powers are instigating unrest can only strengthen the Iranian government as it faces its worst internal crisis in 20 years. Buoyed by the success of last year's threat to go to war with Syria unless Damascus withdrew its support for the PKK, the Turkish authorities are unlikely to allow the PKK to regroup elsewhere; and associating the explicitly Islamic regime in Tehran with the PKK will also strengthen the secular Turkish establishment in its campaign against Turkey's own, increasingly fragmented, Islamist movement.
Last week, when asked whether Turkey would now apply the same pressure to Iran as it had last October to Syria, Turkish President Suleiman Demirel simply replied: "No. At least, not yet."
