Things are coming unglued for Washington in Middle East

Saturday » November 3 » 2007
Since this has been posted there has been further ungluing with Musharaff declaring a state of emergency. This perhaps explains why Bhutto decided to visit her family in Dubai at this particular time!
The hypocrisy of the US over the PJAK is transparent. There are bad (Al Qaeda), neutral (PKK) and good (PJAK) terrorists. The distinction is based not upon their terrorist actions but on their relationship to US policy.


Things are coming unglued for Washington in Middle East

Jonathan Manthorpe
Vancouver Sun


Friday, November 02, 2007


The signs are everywhere that a new, unpredictable and dangerous phase is beginning in Washington's "war on terror" and the fallout from the invasion of Iraq.

In the Middle East, much of the carefully balanced structure of alliances and loyalties has been thrown into confusion by NATO member Turkey's political imperative to confront Kurdish separatist terrorists operating out of northern Iraq.

The outcome, which could see an alliance between U.S. ally Turkey and Washington's "axis of evil" enemy Iran to battle their common irritant, the Kurds, will depend on a meeting between President George W. Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Monday.

If Bush cannot give Erdogan an absolute commitment that American troops in northern Iraq will hand over the 150 or so key leaders of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who have been sending terror teams over the border in recent weeks, the Turkish leader has a mandate from parliament to go after them himself, and he has the troops to do it.

Washington has tried this week to dilute its refusal to hand over PKK leaders -- despite labelling them "terrorists" -- by giving Ankara intelligence information about the disposition of the PKK camps.

But Washington is in a fix because the Kurdish region of northern Iraq is the only part of the country that is relatively secure.

Yet hypocrisy blossoms even here. At the same time as Washington considers the PKK "terrorists" it is arming and supporting another Kurdish separatist group, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).

In Washington's eyes the PJAK are freedom fighters, not terrorists, because they are seeking autonomy for the Kurdish regions in northern Iran, America's enemy.

So it is hardly surprising the Turkish foreign minister flew to Tehran this week to lay the groundwork for an alliance with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad is at the top of his game of sowing dissent and confusion, even as the Bush administration makes increasingly feeble-sounding threats of war to prevent Tehran developing the capacity to make nuclear weapons.

Russia and China have criticized as unhelpful a new raft of unilateral sanctions by the Bush administration against the Iranian leadership. And the director of the International Atomic Energy Authority, Mohamed ElBaradei, has told the White House to cool its rhetoric about an impending "World War III" because Iran is nowhere near being able to make a bomb.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, whose return from exile two weeks ago was meant to herald a new era of stable democracy, has fled back to her family in Dubai.

Her hasty departure on Thursday follows the opening up of a new front by the Taliban.

About 700 people have died in suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan's cities since July when, at Washington's urging, government forces began concerted attacks on Taliban bases in the vast and inhospitable tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

The Taliban, like their supporters in Pakistan and Afghanistan where Canadian forces are battling them around Kandahar, are largely ethnic Pashtun, though they continue to attract hundreds of would-be jihadists from Muslim countries elsewhere.

One result of the Pakistani government military operations has been to solidify Pashtun ethnic loyalties and provoke the Taliban into taking the suicide bomb war into the heartland of the country.

At least 123 people were killed at a rally marking Bhutto's return on Oct. 19. On Wednesday seven people died in an attack at the military headquarters city of Rawalpindi and Thursday eight people were killed when a bomber rammed an air force bus in Punjab province.

Pakistan is on a knife edge awaiting the ruling of the Supreme Court on the legality of Gen. Pervez Musharraf's selection as president last month. Musharraf seized power and established a military dictatorship in 1999, but is attempting to become a civilian president as part of the U.S.-brokered deal with Bhutto, who would be prime minister.

But with the strong possibility that the court will rule against him, and in the face of the Taliban's nationwide insurrection, Musharraf is known to be contemplating a declaration of martial law and ditching the Bhutto deal.

Bhutto may well view family life in Dubai with renewed fondness.

jmanthorpe@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2007








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Iraq vows to hunt down Kurdish rebel leaders

One group of rebel leaders they will be sure not to arrest are those from the PJAK who are fighting against Iran. They are apparently being aided by US arms. The US distinguishes them from the PKK for obvious reasons even though they carry out terrorist operations against military units in Iran. Unlike the PKK they do not seem to consider civilians as legitimate targets.
It remains to be seen how much will really get done as the central Iraqi government is certainly not going to be able to send troops to northern Iraq as the Kurd authorities would blow a fuse.


Iraq vows to hunt down Kurdish rebel leaders
Sat Nov 3, 2007 2:50 PM EDT



By Sue Pleming and Mussab Al-Khairalla

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Iraq said on Saturday it was ready to hunt down and arrest Kurdish guerrilla leaders responsible for cross-border raids into Turkey in an effort to avert a major incursion by the Turkish military.

Major powers and countries in the region, meeting in Istanbul to discuss Iraqi security, are seeking to ease tensions on the Turkish-Iraqi border that could escalate into a bigger regional crisis.

Turkey wants leaders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) arrested and seeks the closure of camps in northern Iraq which they use as bases for cross-border attacks in their 23-year-old campaign for a homeland in southeast Turkey.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul as diplomatic efforts between Turkey, Iraq and the United States intensified.

"The prime minister renewed the willingness of the Iraqi government to take steps to isolate the terrorist PKK, prevent any help reaching its members, chase and arrest them, and put them in front of the Iraqi judiciary because of their terrorist activities," Maliki's office said in a statement.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told a news conference his country did not rule out carrying out military action jointly with Turkey against the PKK.

Erdogan is to meet U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday and the Turkish premier was upbeat about the outcome of talks.

"I believe this visit will give positive results on the United States taking concrete steps at a time when northern Iraq-based terrorist attacks are testing our nation's patience," Erdogan told reporters before leaving for Washington.

Turkey is impatient at what it regards as U.S. and Iraqi foot-dragging over the threat from the PKK and has massed 100,000 troops on the border for a possible offensive against about 3,000 rebels using Iraq as a base.

But the government in Baghdad has little influence over the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north and the success of any measures against PKK militants would depend on the cooperation of Kurdish authorities. Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has so far refused to arrest PKK members.

"Soon you will see a number of visible measures implemented on the ground to show our seriousness," Zebari said.

In northern Iraq, a Kurdish official said the regional government had shut down the offices of a political party which sympathizes with the PKK, the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, following calls by the Baghdad government.

GUERRILLA ATTACKS

The so-called "neighbors' conference," hosted by Turkey, was meant to focus on improving security in Iraq but has been overshadowed by the fall-out from the PKK guerrilla attacks.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised more action from the United States but provided scant details on how far Washington was prepared to go except to offer improved intelligence-sharing on the PKK.

No major announcements were made during Rice's two-day visit, or at the conference, partly because she did not want to upstage Monday's meeting in Washington between Erdogan and Bush.

Erdogan has come under pressure to act after dozens of Turkish soldiers were killed in PKK attacks in recent weeks.

The United States supports limited strikes by Turkey on PKK training sites but opposes any large-scale invasion.

"All options are on the table. How, when and whether or not to use these instruments is a matter of strategy for us," Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told a news conference.

Several thousand people protested in the capital Ankara on Saturday, the latest in a series of demonstrations.

"It is clearly unacceptable that Iraq's territory is used to mount cross-border attacks," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Istanbul meeting of dozens of foreign ministers, held in an Ottoman palace on the banks of the Bosphorus.

A declaration after Saturday's meeting of ministers from major Western powers and the region included condemnation of all terrorism in Iraq, applauded bilateral arrangements between Iraq and its neighbors and supported the country's full sovereignty.

"It would blow up the whole region, both inside Turkey and inside Iraq. It is risky to have 100,000 soldiers on the border," said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

(Additional reporting by Evren Mesci, Gareth Jones, Emma Ross-Thomas and Daren Butler in Istanbul, Selcuk Gokoluk in Ankara, Sherko Raouf in Arbil and Ross Colvin in Baghdad)



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