BERLIN, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- While the European Union has criticized Turkey's ground incursion into northern Iraq, Washington seems to silently approve. That strategy is not without risk, however, especially if the military move would take civilian lives and longer than it should.
Last week, after weeks of air raids targeting hideouts of the Kurdish separatist terror group PKK in the mountainous border region to Iraq, Turkey unleashed its ground forces into northern Iraq to hand the PKK a final blow in its own territory.
The move had been discussed with Washington beforehand, and the U.S. government, while noting that the mission should end as soon as possible, did not call on Ankara to call back its troops. Washington sees Ankara as a key ally in its fight against terrorism and as a potential helpful hand if the situation in Iraq gets more catastrophic -- after the United States, Turkey has the second-largest NATO army in the region.
Iraq's government on Sunday nevertheless urged Turkey to withdraw its ground forces from the country.
"The Iraqi government considers the unilateral Turkish military action ... a threat to the stability of the region and a violation of Iraq's sovereignty and calls on Turkey to pull its troops from Iraq as soon as possible," a government statement said.
Brussels has also carefully criticized the operation, with Javier Solana, the EU's top foreign policy official, saying it "isn't the best answer" to the violence originating from the PKK. EU officials said also, however, that the operation wouldn't influence Turkey's accession talks with the 27-member body.
Washington hopes Turkey successfully gets rid of the PKK problem in Iraq, and the Americans are sharing with the Turks intelligence about PKK hideouts.
Even the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, based in Erbil, has been less critical of the operation than some months before, when Massoud Barzani, head of the Iraqi Kurdish region, speculated that the Peshmerga, the Kurdish army, may attack Turkish troops if they march into Iraq.
Those threats seem to be a thing of the past, at least as long as Turkish troops confine their actions solely to fighting PKK forces. And there are other reasons for which Erbil stays silent so far, experts say.
"The Kurdish leaders around Barzani have no interest that the PKK establishes itself as an independent power in northern Iraq," Heinz Kramer, Turkey expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Monday told United Press International in a telephone interview. He added that the United States has increased the pressure on Barzani to deal with the PKK issue in his back yard -- a controversial task for Barzani because of his traditional allegiance to the Kurdish issue in Turkey. The Turkish offensive thus may come as an unlikely present: Barzani may now simply sit back and let Turkey handle that problem. The Kurds in northern Iraq are vying for their own state, and they know that with a strong PKK in their territory, independence won't be possible.
Turkey has even extended a hand to Baghdad, with Turkish President Abdullah Gul officially inviting his Iraqi counterpart and the country's second powerful Kurdish leader, President Jalal Talabani, to visit Ankara. This is the first indication that direct talks between Ankara and Baghdad over the Kurdish issue in both countries may be possible.
Yet the entire operation may backfire if Turkey's army ends up killing civilians or stays in the country longer than absolutely necessary.
"Then, the EU's tolerance and the U.S. backing will disappear," Kramer told UPI.
Most experts agree that the Turkish army won't be able to completely destroy the PKK, noting the current harsh winter and the difficult territory in the mountainous region.
"But while it will be hard to destroy the PKK, it is possible to seriously weaken them," Kramer said.
"The success of this military operation depends on the next ten days," he said, adding that civilian casualties and longer than necessary duration of the mission will seriously undermine Turkey's chances of getting out of Iraq untarnished.
