Beltway Area Indymedia

The government of Turkey has launched a major military operation against the Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK, in southeast Turkey, and the Turkish military officially requested permission from the government to cross the border into northern Iraq. Turkish General Yasar Buyukanit stated, "An operation into Iraq is necessary."

Turkey has threatened an invasion several times since the US overthrew Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq. Turkey accuses the US of ignoring Iraqi Kurdish support for the PKK, because the Kurds have been important allies to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The prospect of a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq would be a severe shock to the US, since there is a very real possibility that Turkish forces might become engaged in fighting with US forces. The US and Turkey are both members of NATO, and Turkey has been a key US ally in the region.

Iraqi Kurds say that any Turkish military action against northern Iraq would be met with retaliation. The PKK reportedly has more fighters based in Iraq than in Turkey. In addition, if fighting broke out in northern Iraq, PKK military actions in southeastern Turkey would almost surely increase as well, and there is also the possibility that Iranian Kurds would be drawn more directly into the conflict.

Iran, like Turkey, has on several occasions massed troops at the border with Iraq since the US invasion, and has engaged in frequent battles with Iranian Kurds. Should the conflict engulf northern Iraq and engage Kurds in Iran as well, an Iranian response might also be threatened.

The differing political alliances and opposition involved -- with the US allied with both Turkey and Iraqi Kurds while hostile to Iran, and Turkey and Iran both sharing an interest in weakening Kurdish resistance and opposing an independent Kurdish state -- could create havoc in the region and increase instability at an already volatile time. There is the chance (and certainly the apparent intention) that any Turkish invasion would be limited and narrowly targeted, leading to a bloody but ultimately brief series of battles weakening the PKK and allowing Turkey to quickly withdraw.

Unfortunately, events in the last several years seem to indicate a tendency for such situations to escalate and spiral out of control, with consequences increasingly deadly for everyone involved, and especially for the civilians living in the midst of the battlefield that the entire nation of Iraq has become.