Turkish-PKK dialogue crucial

With Turkish-US relations plumbing new lows over a Congressional committee's decision to recognize the Armenian genocide and Turkey threatening a military incursion into Iraq, a diplomatic initiative is urgently requied.

Oil prices hit record highs on Monday amid growing concerns that the Turkish military could launch a major incursion into areas of northern Iraq controlled by Kurdish guerillas, disrupting oil supplies from northern Iraqi fields.
The Turkish government is expected to convene on Wednesday to vote on a measure allowing the army to enter northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) militants. The legislation is expected to pass despite growing concerns that the bill endangers relations with primary ally the US.
Two similar parliamentary measures in 2003 did not lead to the Turkish military entering Iraqi territory, though small-scale incursions have occurred repeatedly in recent years.
The Turkish military is reportedly handing out weapons to local village defense units in the southeast as it seeks to respond to a series of PKK attacks, which came after the Turkish government refused to respond to repeated unilateral PKK ceasefire announcements.
The latest military build-up comes after the deaths of 13 Turkish soldiers in a PKK ambush near the town of Sirnak on 4 October. Iraqi border forces reported the Turkish shelling of two Iraqi villages on Sunday.
Ankara holds that ceasefires are agreed between nations and not with terrorist groups and has sought to further isolate the PKK - which is considered a terrorist organization by the US and EU - through forming a strategic alliance with the Iraqi government. The agreement, signed in August, ostensibly presents a united front against the PKK while ruling out Turkish military activities in Iraq's far north.
The tiny PKK-dominated autonomy in northern Iraq has served as a bastion of Kurdish resistance to alleged Iranian and Turkish discrimination, in the wake of the turn to constitutional politics of the KRG's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) - which retain a muted discursive commitment to greater Kurdistan.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called an emergency meeting of his cabinet on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, asking Ankara to allow a joint committee made up of Turkish, Iraqi and US representatives time to reach a resolution to ease tensions, the Associated Press reports.
The chances of an incursion have grown amid ongoing tensions between the Turkish armed forces and government in the wake of the July landslide election victory of the moderate Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) over secular and nationalist parties with close ties to the military.
These tensions were further exacerbated by the subsequent election of the AKP's Abdullah Gul as president in the face of strong military and secularist opposition.
The forerunner of Justice and Development, the Welfare Party, was forced from power under military pressure in 1997, and Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has taken care not to repeat the mistakes of his political predecessors in threatening the military's close ties with the US and Israel.
Nevertheless, these ties are again under stress, with the military choosing to build pressure over Iraq in conjunction with a US Congressional committee resolution recognizing the 1915 Armenian genocide.
The resolution, which Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to bring before the legislature, has raised significant public opprobrium in Turkey. Much play was made in the Turkish press on Monday of the disavowal of the resolution by Turkish Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II.
Interestingly, significant voices are now being heard from within the Turkish media and academia calling for a more open discussion on Turkey's role in the genocide.
Still, foreign criticism of Turkey's role in the genocide is taken extremely seriously, with the Erdogan government seeking to bolster its nationalist credentials through the temporary withdrawal of the country's ambassador to the US on Saturday.
It is unlikely that the current US-Turkish imbroglio signals a fundamental rupture in relations given the ongoing US interest in continuing to foster Turkey as a regional military partner and key player in maintaining backdoor channels with Iran and Syria.
On Monday, the US reiterated its ongoing opposition to any Turkish incursion into Iraq, which Washington fears could threaten the stability of the Kurdish region and undermine expected future US predominance in the KRG oil industry.
The US may seek to maintain the PKK in the hope that it can be utilized in the same manner as the allied Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), which launches regular cross-border strikes into Iran from its northern Iraqi bases. The KRG reports that retaliatory Iranian shelling of border areas has led to the displacement of thousands of Kurdish Iraqi villagers in recent weeks.
The PKK's fighting units are increasingly dominated by Kurdish-Iranian women, and the movement has moved away from its Marxist roots. There have been unconfirmed reports of US agents coordinating with both the PJAK and PKK in recent years.
Despite its diminished military capacity, the PKK retains the ability to fight a prolonged guerilla war in the rugged mountains of northern Iraq. With the Turkish southeast threatened by a renewed outbreak of violence, time is running out to prevent a dangerous escalation that could raise the specter of a revived Kurdish separatist struggle.
Ultimately, an agreement allowing the extension of Kurdish cultural and administrative autonomy in southeastern Turkey and the integration of the PKK into the Ankara and Irbil power structures, in return for an end to the Kurdish armed struggle, is in the interests of all sides.
Turkey has significant economic interests in the KRG - particularly in the booming construction industry - that would be jeopardized by the effective disavowal of its recently signed security agreement with Iraq.
The EU and US must play a greater role in cajoling Turkey to enter a dialogue with the PKK, reversing their own opposition to open contacts with the militant movement.
Turkey is unlikely to play along unless any agreement includes significant inducements such as a major boost in US military aid or significant progress on EU integration. Such moves appear extremely improbable in the current diplomatic and domestic political environments.

Commentary by Dominic Moran in Tel Aviv for ISN Security Watch (16/10/07)