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Even on a normal day, Ibrahim Khalil, the complex straddling Turkey and Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, is a rather unusual international border crossing. Although it is an entry point into Iraq, there are no Iraqi soldiers, no Iraqi flags, and seemingly no Iraqi federal officials. Instead, the Iraqi side is controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government, which enforces its own customs and immigration policies, enforced at checkpoints manned by Kurdish peshmerga fighters under the flag of Kurdistan - a red, white, and green tricolor with a golden...
...Viewed from Turkey, these trappings of autonomy are a worrying prelude to an independent Kurdish state, a prospect to which Turkey - with its own restive Kurdish minority - is implacably hostile. Turkish soldiers often harass Kurds crossing at Ibrahim Khalil, according to Iraqi Kurdish border security officials. They confiscate books or documents that use the word "Kurdistan", deny passage to women called Kurdistan - a common female first name - and to Kurds of foreign nationality whose passports list "Kurdistan" as a place of birth...
...that Turkey itself has failed to defeat in over 20 years of war - Turkey rejects these claims of helplessness, pointing out that the Iraqi Kurdish authorities have not even acted to cut off supply lines to the guerrilla movement's camps.) Amid rising tension, the Turks have threatened cross-border military action against the PKK, and also to close their side of the Ibrahim Kalil border crossing as punishment...
...recent road trip through the mountains of northern Iraq along the Turkish border, it was easier to find Turkish soldiers than Kurdish rebels. The Turkish army maintains at least four bases inside northern Iraq as a result of an agreement with Saddam Hussein after the American no-flight zone created a power vacuum in the region during the 1990s. In the town of Barmani, the Turks have a base with 35 tanks, and are repairing a disused air strip and building up troop levels, according to Iraqi Kurdish intelligence officers. But this is no invasion: The Turks supply...
...Kurds in the region. Turkey has accused the Iraqi Kurdish administration in northern Iraq of failing to do enough to clamp down on the PKK. This week, Turkey raised the possibility of economic sanctions against northern Iraq, including restrictions on the flow of traffic and goods at a key border crossing from Turkey into Iraq, as well as cutting off electricity that Turkey supplies to the region. Turkey's biggest fear is that Iraqi Kurds are intent on establishing a separate Kurdish state on their border, which might encourage Turkey's Kurdish minority to attempt to secede. That concern...