Word: ankara
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Another reason exists for the Kurds' sufferings: the Turks adamantly refuse to let many of them cross the frontier. The Turks fear that the refugees will join Kurdish Turks in forming a political bloc demanding more autonomy than Ankara is willing to grant...
Turkey's problem is that it already has 7 million to 14.5 million Kurds on its territory. For a decade, Turkey has been trying to suppress Kurdish agitation for autonomy in its eastern provinces. Ankara believes even an autonomous Kurdish region in the area would seduce Turkish Kurds into sedition and secession. Many Turkish military men argue that Saddam is using the refugees to take revenge on Turkey for standing with the coalition. "If Saddam wanted to annihilate these people, he could have done it easily," a Turkish officer allegedly said. "He has not done it. He is pushing them...
Caught between a furious army and a closed border, the Kurds are forced to cling to their cold, granite friends. Supplies must traverse precipitous land routes to reach them, hampered in part by the dilapidation of the two bridges in the area of the Turkish border. Ankara, however, does not appear to be in any hurry to come in with repairs...
Washington will also confer about relief efforts with Ankara, which Secretary of State James Baker visited last weekend. But if the U.S. expects Turkey to take in thousands of refugees, it must deliver enough aid to enable the Turks to care for them. So far, the U.S. has not shown the generosity in adversity on which it prides itself -- nothing, for example, like the massive relief dispatched to Armenia when a 1988 earthquake decimated the region...
Turkey has put the Kurds on notice that it may use force to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq. Ankara has a historic , claim on Iraq's Mosul province which it might use as a pretext for such a move. That might in turn prompt Iran and Syria to seize their own pieces of Iraq. Two weeks ago, Turkish officials met with Iraqi Kurdish leaders for the first time. In exchange for that rare acknowledgment of their legitimacy, the Kurds apparently promised Ankara that they would not foment rebellion among their brethren in Turkey...