Iraqis try to head off Turkish invasion
Iraq’s vice president arrived in Ankara today in a last-minute attempt to persuade Turkey to scrap plans for for a cross border attack.
Tareq al-Hashemi was due to meet Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other senior officials for discussions on the operation against separatist Kurdish rebels.
However the Turkish Parliament is still expected to approve the offensive tomorrow, allowing the government to stage the attack into northern Iraq at any time over the next year.
Meanwhile the head of the UN’s high commissioner for refugees warned any attack could exacerbate what is already the Middle East’s worst refugee crisis since the 1940s.
Antonio Guterres said violence in Iraq had forced four million Iraqis to flee their homes. The UN fears a Turkish cross-border offensive against Kurdish rebels could force thousands more to flee from northern Iraq.
America has also urged Turkey not to enter Iraq, fearing that Turkish military action could destabilise the autonomous Kurdish region which is one of the country’s few relatively stable areas.
An offensive could also undermine Turkey’s relations with the EU, which has pushed Turkey to treat its minority Kurds better.
Mr Erdogan tried to play down fears saying: “The passage of the motion in Parliament does not mean that an operation will be carried out at once.,
“Turkey would act with common sense and determination when necessary and when the time is ripe.”
He called on Iraq and Iraqi Kurds to crack down on separatist rebels.
The Turkish government’s frustration with the perceived lack of American support in the fight against the Kurdish PKK has intensified because of another sensitive issue: the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
An American congressional panel approved a resolution last week labelling the killings as genocide, an affront to Turks who deny there was any systematic campaign to eliminate Armenians.
