U.S. Helps Turkey Hit Rebel Kurds In Iraq

2007-12-21

Richard Moore

Original source URL:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/17/AR2007121702150.html

U.S. Helps Turkey Hit Rebel Kurds In Iraq
Intelligence Role Could Complicate Diplomacy
By Ann Scott Tyson and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 18, 2007; A01

The United States is providing Turkey with real-time intelligence that has 
helped the Turkish military target a series of attacks this month against 
Kurdish separatists holed up in northern Iraq, including a large airstrike on 
Sunday, according to Pentagon officials.

U.S. military personnel have set up a center for sharing intelligence in Ankara,
the Turkish capital, providing imagery and other immediate information gathered 
from U.S. aircraft and unmanned drones flying over the separatists' mountain 
redoubts, the officials said. A senior administration official said the goal of 
the U.S. program is to identify the movements and activities of the Kurdish 
Workers' Party (PKK), which is fighting to create an autonomous enclave in 
Turkey.

The United States is "essentially handing them their targets," one U.S. military
official said. The Turkish military then decides whether to act on the 
information and notifies the United States, the official said.

"They said, 'We want to do something.' We said, 'Okay, it's your decision,' " 
the official said yesterday, although he denied that the United States had 
explicitly approved the strikes.

Sunday's airstrikes provoked outrage in Baghdad, particularly among Kurdish 
members of the country's leadership. Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish 
regional government, which administers three northern Iraqi provinces, called 
the attack "a violation of Iraq's sovereignty." He blamed the U.S. military, 
which controls Iraqi airspace, for allowing Turkish warplanes to cross the 
border. The Iraqi parliament also condemned the attacks yesterday.

The American role in aiding Turkey, a NATO ally, could complicate U.S. 
diplomatic initiatives in Iraq, particularly efforts to push Iraqi political 
leaders to enact legislation aimed at promoting political reconciliation.

The cooperation with Turkey also places the United States in the position of 
aiding a country that refused to allow U.S. forces to use its territory to open 
a northern front against the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003. It also 
alienates Iraq's Kurdish minority, whose leaders strongly support the U.S. troop
presence in Iraq.

But persistent attacks in Turkey by PKK rebels operating from bases in the 
Qandil mountains have presented a thorny dilemma for U.S. policymakers. Turkey 
has threatened to mount a full-scale, cross-border incursion to clear out PKK 
camps in northern Iraq. That could effectively open a new front in the Iraq war 
and disrupt the flow of supplies to the U.S. military in Iraq, which receives 70
percent of its air cargo and a third of its fuel through Turkey.

The intelligence cooperation comes as senior U.S. military and Pentagon 
officials have engaged in talks with their Turkish counterparts to produce a 
more comprehensive strategy for combating the PKK, according to a senior 
military official familiar with the discussions. In addition to providing 
targets, U.S. military officials said they have encouraged the Turks to employ 
nonmilitary measures against the PKK and to hold a dialogue with the Iraqi 
government.

U.S. intelligence allowed the Turkish military to inflict what it called 
"significant" losses on a group of scores of Kurdish rebels in Iraq in an 
operation on Dec. 1. It was also decisive in another Turkish strike on Sunday, 
when Iraqi officials said Turkish warplanes pounded Kurdish villages deep in 
northern Iraq, killing one woman and forcing hundreds of villagers to flee their
homes in the largest aerial assault from Turkey this year.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates earlier stated that a dearth of "actionable 
intelligence" was preventing more aggressive actions against the separatists. 
Senior military officials acknowledged that the PKK, labeled a terrorist 
organization by the United States, had not been not a priority for the U.S. 
military in Iraq as it grappled with a persistent insurgency and sectarian 
fighting.

"We want to help the Turks with the PKK," Gates said in October. "If we were to 
come up with specific information, that we and the Iraqis would be prepared to 
do the appropriate thing and . . . provide that information," he said. Until 
now, however, officials had not provided details of the intelligence provided or
how it was gathered. The officials, citing the sensitivity of the subject, spoke
only on the condition of anonymity.

Turkey, according to U.S. officials, was eager to have the information. "They 
wanted to go after them," a U.S. military official said. The intelligence center
was set up in Ankara with the help of U.S. military personnel. In addition, 
scarce U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles were 
diverted from other parts of Iraq to search for PKK locations in the mountainous
area along Iraq's border with Turkey.

Senior Pentagon officials, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. 
commander in Iraq; Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
of Staff; and Gen. John Craddock, head of the U.S. European Command, began talks
last month with the Turkish military on joint counterinsurgency efforts against 
the PKK that would incorporate diplomatic, political and financial measures.

The United States is also trying to establish a regional dialogue among Turkey, 
Iraq and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government.

U.S. officials said Kurdish regional forces in northern Iraq recently closed PKK
offices and set up roadblocks in an attempt to cut off supplies to rebel camps.

The high-level talks are a response to a pledge made by President Bush to 
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Nov. 5 to address a rash of 
cross-border incursions into Turkey. Ankara deployed up to 100,000 troops along 
Turkey's border with Iraq after more than 40 soldiers and civilians were killed 
in PKK attacks this fall.

Erdogan told reporters before a trip to the United States last month that Turkey
has "run out of patience with the terrorist attacks being staged from northern 
Iraq" and said relations between the United States and Turkey were "undergoing a
serious test."

But a senior U.S. administration official said the "deal on intelligence" and 
military visits had created "a sense that we're in a different phase of this 
relationship. The Turks want to see how this works."

Special correspondent Zaid Sabah in Baghdad contributed to this report.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company
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