Word: turkeys
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...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will try to calm these passions in person with a hastily scheduled trip to Turkey. After strong language from both Washington and London, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears to have gotten the message. He broke the government's long silence on the issue and finally vowed to shut down PKK "operations" in Iraqi territory. Turkey has agreed to consider talks with Iraqi government representatives, including, perhaps, Iraqi Kurds--but not with the PKK, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group. Turkey may yet send troops across the border, but if communication channels...
...have to stop acting like a Kurdish national resistance leader and more like a President. What he has to do is kick the Turkish Workers' Party, the PKK, out of Iraq. I am told it would be fairly easy because most of the PKK's fighters operate from within Turkey rather than Iraq...
...would have hoped that Talabani would have understood that the last thing the Iraqi Kurds need is to incite Kurds in neighboring countries. At the moment, there are three or four international oil companies ready to drill in the north. The only practical oil route is through Turkey - which of course the Turks will close if the Kurds don't do something about...
...still leaves us with sorting out the good Kurds from the bad Kurds. Frankly, I don't see how it can be done. We do not have the forces to patrol the border between Iraq and Turkey. It would take at least another hundred thousand troops. We have little or no political leverage over Talabani, who on occasion has told interlocutors that the Turkish General Staff is funding the PKK - presumably to unbalance Turkish democracy and justify a coup d'etat. It's nonsense, of course, but demonstrates that Talabani is still not ready to confront...
...should all keep our fingers crossed and hope the Iraqi Kurds come to their senses and do something about the PKK. If they don't, we're going to take one more walk along the abyss - Turkey and Iran coming together and ganging up on the Kurds. Talk about a board we'll never nail down...