Turkish-Kurdish Rift Muddies War Plans

The history of hatred between Turks and Kurds may turn bloody again if the Bush administration proceeds with plans to permit tens of thousands of Turkish troops to sweep into northern Iraq and come face to face with Kurdish militias in a regional standoff that would complicate a larger war against Saddam Hussein.

The Turkish-Kurdish equation has been one of the most troubling aspects of planning for an invasion of Iraq. It has placed U.S. foreign policy in a precarious position between two friends: the Turks, who are America’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, and the 3.5 million Iraqi Kurds, whose pro-Western ambitions are crucial to building a democratic Iraq.

A misstep in this battleground of overlapping interests and security concerns could trigger a regional conflict that might draw in Iran, strain the mission of an expected 35,000 U.S. troops and threaten the existence of a unified Iraq.

On Monday, the Turkish Cabinet approved a proposal to allow U.S. forces to use Turkey as a launching point for an invasion in exchange for a $15-billion aid package and a presence by Turkish troops in northern Iraq. Turkey’s parliament is expected to vote on the measure today.

The Kurds are worried that Washington will abandon them for wider geopolitical interests, as it did after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Turkey says it wants to deploy troops in northern Iraq to create a buffer zone to care for refugees and stop them from crossing the border into southeast Turkey. But it also fears that Iraqi Kurds would push for independence during a U.S. invasion and trigger similar aspirations among the 12 million Kurds in Turkey. And Turks want a share of oil reserves in the northern Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, prizes Kurds want for themselves as part of a new federation government in Iraq.

In a Feb. 13 letter to President Bush, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, the two main Iraqi Kurd leaders urged Washington to stop a slide toward regional hostilities.

The Kurds, according to the three-page letter from Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, “are concerned that Turkey’s real agenda is to crush our experiment in democratic self-government in Iraqi Kurdistan. Should Turkish military forces come into contact with Kurdish populations, there is a real risk of clashes.”

Tensions between Turks and Kurds have escalated in recent days. Many Kurds believe their biggest enemy in the future might not be Hussein but the Turks, who they fear have designs on northern Iraq. Even the circumspect prime minister of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Barham Salih, was outraged at a suggestion Turkey made over the weekend that Kurdish militias be disarmed.

“The Kurds will not give up their arms until we have a federal democratic government in Iraq,” Salih said. “Saddam Hussein failed to disarm us. We are freedom fighters....The Kurds will defend their hard-won gains.”

For American forces, northern Iraq is a tricky landscape steeped in centuries of conflict.

Kurds attempted to form a state after World War I, but those aspirations were denied by Turkey and Iran, which feared inciting their own Kurdish minorities. The Kurds have been protected from Hussein’s forces since 1991 by a “no-fly” zone patrolled by British and American warplanes. Washington was concerned that the Kurds might use a war on Hussein to make a play for independence. But in recent months, Kurdish leaders have signaled they would join an Iraqi federation.

Turkey remains suspicious. A Turkish military official speaking on condition of anonymity said: “The Iraqi Kurds’ latest comments only serve to reinforce our conviction that they have a hidden agenda of wanting to establish an independent state, and clearly they see the Turkish armed forces as the chief obstacle to their undeclared goal.... The Iraqi Kurds are no match for us.”

For decades, the Turkish government has faced accusations that it violates the human rights of its Kurdish minority. The atmosphere has improved in recent years, but the charges, including some leveled by the U.S. State Department, have helped keep Turkey from membership in the European Union.

“Had Turkey solved its problems with its own Kurds,” said Dogu Ergil, a professor of international relations at Ankara University in the Turkish capital, “it would certainly have had far less to fear about a small landlocked Kurdish statelet in northern Iraq.”

Any action by Turkey, according to intelligence officials, could rouse other regional powers -- including Iran, which might dispatch troops into the area to balance the Turks.

The ground is further complicated by the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a guerrilla group that battled for independence from Turkey during the 1990s. The organization of 5,000 fighters has left most of its bases in southeastern Turkey and regrouped in northern Iraq. The PKK claims to have given up its armed struggle, but Turkey fears that there might be renewed attacks during a war in Iraq. Turkey holds the Iraqi Kurds responsible for arming and assisting the PKK.

Another threat could come from northern Iraq’s ethnic Turkoman minority. Its members claim Turkish heritage and complain of persecution by Kurds. Turkey contends there are 3 million members of the ethnic group in the region; the Kurdish government puts the figure at 450,000.

Some Western and Kurdish officials say Turkey is exploiting Turkoman fears as justification for military pressure on the Kurds.

“The Turks don’t want to see a Kurdish government here because of their own Kurdish problems,” said Khasro Goran, general director of the Kurdish National Assembly. “If we were Swedes, it’d be different. But the Turks don’t want to see the Kurds get ahead. Turkey is using the Turkomans to have their hand inside northern Iraq.”

Sayah Kurachi, vice president of a fringe political group known as the Turkoman Front, accuses Kurdish officials in northern Iraq of being undemocratic.

“The Kurdish government wants to rule by itself with no other voices, just like Saddam Hussein,” he said.

U.S. forces moving through northern Iraq would encounter tribes and clans with small arsenals and shifting alliances. Kurdish officials say that the ground would become more dangerous if Turkey and other regional powers infiltrated the mountains and pursued their own agendas.

“It’s a Pandora’s box,” said Prime Minister Salih. “Don’t let the neighbors in.”

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Special correspondent Amberin Zaman in Ankara contributed to this report.