Turkey says that the U.S. is assisting in Turkish raids on northern Iraq

well, well, well... let's see if THIS grows any legs...

Turkey's air strikes against Kurdish rebels in Iraq on Sunday were approved by the United States in advance, the Turkish military has said.

The country's top general, Yasar Buyukanit, said the US opened northern Iraqi airspace for the operation.

Jets targeted the Kurdish rebel PKK in areas near the border. The Turkish media said up to 50 planes were used.

Iraqi officials said the bombs hit 10 villages, leaving one woman dead, while the PKK reported seven deaths.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told the BBC that his government had told the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad that the air strikes were "unacceptable".

can't you just hear gates squawking, "we TOLD 'em to keep their damn mouths SHUT..."

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Bush hypocrisy: Kurds in American Iraq have done much worse things to Turkey than Hizbullah did to Israel

juan cole...

The hypocrisy of the Bush case is obvious when it complains about Iran supporting Hizbullah and Hamas. The Kurds based in American Iraq have done much worse things to Turkey in the past month than Hizbullah did to Israel in June of 2006. Yet when Israel launched a brutal and wideranging war on all of Lebanon, destroying precious infrastructure and dumping enormous amounts of oil into the Mediterranean, damaging Beirut airport, destroying essential bridges in Christian areas, and then releasing a million cluster bomblets on civilian areas in the last 3 days of the war-- when Israel did all that, Bush and Cheney applauded and argued against a 'premature' cease-fire! Yet they are trying to convince Turkey just to put up stoically with the PKK terrorists who have killed dozens of Turkish troops recently and kidnapped 8 (again, more than the number of Iraeli troops that were kidnapped). Bush's coddling of the PKK in Iraq is not different from Iran's support for Hizbullah, except that the PKK is a more dangerous and brutal organization than Hizbullah.

Among the more fantastic charges that Bush made against Iran was that its government was actively arming and helping the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. In fact, the Taliban are extremist Sunnis who hate, and have killed large numbers of Shiites. Shiite Iran is unlikely to support them. [...] The neo-Taliban are being supported by Pakistan...

hypocrisy and lies in the bush administration are so rampant as to hardly be worthy of notice, were it not for the fact that they're deliberate attempts to justify the continual death and destruction perpetrated by the largest state sponsor of global terrorism...

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Turkey, Iraq, Kurdistan, the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and the U.S.

gee, why wait for a war with iran...? if you're looking for a tinderbox to ignite, here's one handed to you on a silver platter...

juan cole...

The Bush administration made a diplomatic 'full court press' with Turkish leaders to dissuade them from attacking the Kurdish Workers Party [PKK] guerrillas hiding out in Iraq after the killing of 17 Turkish troops and the capture of 8 others by the PKK on Sunday. Turkish Prime Minister Rejeb Tayyip Erdogan is alleged to have told US Secretary of State Condi Rice that the only way for the US to forestall a Turkish invasion is for its military to arrest the PKK leaders in Iraq themselves and to turn them over to Ankara.

Under all this American pressure, The PKK is said to be offering a conditional ceasefire with Ankara. The 'conditional' part doesn't seem very promising to me.

the "conditional" part evidently didn't seem very promising to turkey either...

BAGHDAD, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on Tuesday rejected the ceasefire offered by the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), saying there's no "ceasefire" with terror.

Babacan made the remarks at a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari after their talks over the crisis on the two countries' borders caused by the PKK rebels.

Babacan said a ceasefire should be reached between two countries or two armies but not with a terror group, which apparently indicates the PKK.

But the Turkish top diplomat pledged Turkey's respect to Iraq's integrity, saying the diplomatic means are still the emphasis of the solutions for the crisis.

On his part, Zebari pledged his Turkish counterpart again that Iraqi government will actively help Turkey to remove the threat posed by the PKK.

anybody got a match...?

[UPDATE]

so, now it's not only explosive, it's explosive²...

[O]ut of the public eye, a chillingly similar battle has been under way on the Iraqi border with Iran. Kurdish guerrillas ambush and kill Iranian forces and retreat to their hide-outs in Iraq. The Americans offer Iran little sympathy. Tehran even says Washington aids the Iranian guerrillas, a charge the United States denies. True or not, that conflict, like the Turkish one, has explosive potential.

hey, i bet darth's got a match...

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More Iraq thoughts (and one on Iran too)

[BUMPED]

the only way anything is going to change in iraq is getting bush and his criminal compadres OUT of office... bush has dug us in so far, has served up so much kool-aid to the faithful, and painted himself into such a tight corner, there's just no way he will let us leave... any draw-down will be purely cosmetic political salve...

i also don't believe that it's bush's intention to "hand it over to his successor" to "clean up the mess..." i think it's his intention to make SURE the next president - assuming there IS a next president and bush doesn't remain in office after suspending the elections and declaring martial law in the face of a "national emergency" - will find it impossible to extricate the u.s. without creating an even bigger mess, something that igniting a conflagration with iran could certainly do... actually, a full-blown conflict with iran could serve a dual purpose... besides making an incredible mess exponentially bigger, it could also serve as the basis for declaring that national emergency...

[UPDATE]

but, hey...! it doesn't HAVE to be iran that serves as the flashpoint...

from juan cole...

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (a Kurd) warned Monday that 140,000 Turkish troops were massed at the border with Iraq. Ankara accuses Iraqi Kurdistan of giving safe harbor to PKK terrorists who are blowing up soldiers and others in Turkey's eastern Anatolia. The Turkish government and military have threatened to engage in hot pursuit and to make border incursions if necessary to deal with the PKK threat. Last Sunday, thousands of Turks demonstrated in Ankara against the PKK, Iraqi Kurdistan and the United States, which they blame for allowing Iraq to become a terrorist base against Turkey.

[UPDATE II]

i finally found the article i was looking for earlier that backs up my comment above about iran possibly being the flashpoint...

The U.S. navy has sent a third aircraft carrier to its Fifth Fleet area of operations, which includes Gulf waters close to Iran, the navy said on Tuesday.

"Enterprise (aircraft carrier) provides navy power to counter the assertive, disruptive and coercive behaviour of some countries, as well as support our soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan," a U.S. Navy statement said.

[UPDATE III]

the pentagon 'splains it all for us...

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has decided to up the number of carriers to three, and said the deployment of the Enterprise was part of a "routine swap."

"Has the department made a decision for 3.0 carriers in the Gulf? No. They haven't," Whitman said. "What Secretary Gates has said is still the current guidance with respect to the level of effort in the Centcom area of responsibility."

yeah... ok... whatever...

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