Fighting fire with fire

Turkey launched its first major cross-border military operation in nearly a decade, reports Gareth Jenkins

---

On Saturday Turkey struck at a PKK camp 20 kilometres inside Iraq. The operation followed intelligence on the location of a temporary camp established by a group of around 100 PKK militants. The attack took place early in the morning of 1 December and was led by four Super Cobra attack helicopters backed by supporting fire from artillery inside Turkey. There were also unconfirmed reports that around 100 members of the Turkish Special Forces were then helicoptered in to continue the attack and engage the PKK before being airlifted out again.

Although it has not been officially confirmed, the assumption in the Turkish media has been that the intelligence on the location of the PKK camp was supplied by the US. On 5 November, during a visit by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to the White House, the US agreed to provide Turkey with actionable intelligence on PKK deployments inside northern Iraq, where the organisation has its main bases and training camps. The intelligence was expected to consist primarily of imaging.

In a statement posted on its website later on Saturday evening, the Turkish General Staff (TGS) vowed that military operations against PKK targets inside northern Iraq would continue and assured the local population that they would not be targeted unless they engaged in action hostile to the Turkish military.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said that the operations would continue as long as necessary. "If the goal is attained in one operation, then only one operation is enough," said Cicek. "But if ten operations are needed, then ten operations will be launched."

Cicek defended Turkey's right to stage cross-border operations against the PKK in northern Iraq. "It is very clear that they are based there," he said. "They are trained there, they receive their supplies of ammunition there and then they cross the border and stage attacks."

Saturday's military operation came the day after Erdogan announced that on 28 November the Turkish Cabinet had formally authorised the country's military to conduct cross-border military operations as it saw fit. "It is now up to them," Erdogan had said. "They know what to do."

The Firat News Agency, which has traditionally enjoyed close links with the PKK, reported that Turkish artillery shelled the Dola Mir and Dola Merge area of northern Iraq for two hours. However, it quoted unnamed Iraqi Kurdish officials as saying that they had seen no evidence of any helicopters.

The US promise to provide the Turkish military with actionable intelligence is widely believed to have been in exchange for an agreement by Turkey not to launch a full-scale invasion of northern Iraq; which many in Washington fear could undermine the authority of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and destabilise what to date has been the most secure region of the country.

However, there is a general acknowledgment even amongst the Turkish military that, by themselves, cross-border military operations such as the one launched on Saturday will not eradicate the PKK. However, although they insist that the Iraqi Kurds should attempt to isolate the PKK its mountain hideouts and restrict its access to food and supplies, the Turkish authorities remain reluctant to engage directly with the KRG for fear that any implicit recognition of its political authority in northern Iraq could encourage the establishment of an independent Kurdish state.

There are also concerns that, after a series of PKK attacks in September and October killed nearly 40 members of the Turkish security forces, public pressure on the Turkish government to exact revenge might distract it from tackling the social and economic problems that produced -- and to a large extent still sustain -- the PKK.

"A policy of blood for blood is not the solution," said Sedat Laciner, the head of the Turkish International Studies Research Institute (USAK). "To date Turkey has killed more than 24,000 members of the PKK. When you include those who have surrendered or been wounded, then Turkey has destroyed around five times as many militants as the organisation's current strength of 5,000-7,000," he said. "But for every terrorist we kill, another appears to take his place. What we do in the future should not be based on repeating the mistakes of the past. The goal should not be to destroy the PKK for a sixth time but to eradicate the conditions which terrorism is able to exploit.