Turkey: Troops to respond to attacks

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Turkey: Troops to respond to attacks
SUZAN FRASER
Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's military said Monday that if Turkish peacekeepers are sent to Iraq, they would be deployed in the center of the country, in areas dominated by Sunni Muslims.

The military also warned that its soldiers would respond if their supply convoys came under attack from Iraqi Kurdish groups.

Those groups have not threatened any attacks against Turks, but there are deep tensions between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey. Turkey battled Turkish Kurdish separatist guerrillas in its southeast for some 15 years and has said it won't tolerate Kurdish independence in northern Iraq.

Iraqi Kurds have strongly opposed a possible Turkish peacekeeper deployment and control the sector of northern Iraq that Turkish convoys would have to cross before reaching central Iraq.
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Ok so the Turks as they go may just kill a few Kurds along the way

:bounce:

n/t

:eyes:

Just today the U.S. made further concessions to pass a new resolution in the U.N.

Turks in Iraq is out of the question unless they want to turn a possible civil war into a likely regional war.

, , , Ummmmmm

That's 'ZACTLY what the BFEE wants!

Let them use up their weapons on each other while the WH gets some more of the healthiest young Americans to go over there to die.

Is there any OTHER neghbouring country that Iraq wouold be so mervous about other than Turkey ?

The Turks are the PERFECT way to destabilize the region, and Bu$hco will help them rebuild while slowly gettin control of their oil!

letsee - the BFEE has approx 130,000 troops in there to control a little over 20 Million.

New York City has around 40,000 police for 9 Million - and most peeps WANT them there !

Can't tell me for a minute that this was NOT in the "plan".

What's 3-400 Soldiers - long way to go to beat Vietnam's 58,000 !
And I bet we will NOT get the REAL numbers either.

(right, I have no elusions about the morals of the BFEE)



(sigh)

this is one country that I dont think should be "helping"...not with their history with the Kurds!

that should be "history with Kurdish terrorists". I accept the fact that there has been/are human rights abuses against the Kurds here in Turkey, but normal Turkish citizens get that treatment from authorities as well. Kurds living in Turkey are and has always been better off than Muslims in America right now.

We need more democracy here, and we are trying to get more everyday. But in a Muslim country that has been ruled by a Sultan for more than 500 years, installing a democratic and secular administration is harder than you may think. I'm still hopeful about my country's future.

(Oh and we don't have the death penalty and abortion is legal here btw :))


Getting back to the topic; Turkey soldiers will be installed in southern/western regions of Iraq, our media reports. And it looks like they won't be going through Northern Iraq at all. That region has mostly Sunni Muslim population and controlled by tribes who are known to have sympathy for Turkey. It all looks good and fair but, that does not mean Turkish troops won't be attacked, I think. Kurdish terrorist groups are actually looking forward to begin fighting Turkey again. They will most likely be there wherever our soldiers will go.

I don't think Turkey's motives are as sinister as some of you believe it is. 'Grabbing some land' is out of the question. Even if US allowed it, EU and UN won't let it happen. As a historic note Turkey had Northern Iraq as its own land back in 1920s, then got paid some million dollars and had to withdraw its forces, thanks to the European intervention.

Turkey is not even looking forward to fight Kurds in Northern Iraq. We did that for more than a decade, when Americans didn't even know who Saddam Hussein was. Our economy and our society suffered heavily because of that war. We just want the Kurds do whatever they want to do and stop asking for our land to be handed to them.

What Turkey does want to get out of Iraq's current situation is:

a. What I said above about the Kurds
b. Economic opportunities (which we had before George Bush, Sr. decided to bomb Iraq to pieces and we had to close our borders)
c. A Muslim neighbor that won't harbor Kurdish or fundamental Islamist terrorists and will accept secular Turkey as a friend.

And btw, Turkey is even lonelier than Israel in the region. Arabs don't like us much and we don't exactly love them. Just to give you an idea; we ruled them for hundreds of years, and they sided with Europeans against us in our independence war. And We have all the water, which they sorely need.

This is getting too long I guess. At the bottom line, I don't want our troops go to Iraq, I'm convinced that the Iraqis -and not just the Kurds- don't want anyone other than UN in there at the moment. It should be up to them to decide, but sadly, it is not. Since US military is making the decisions, Turkish troops will go to Iraq.