Americas

Americas

U.S., Turkey Deny Intelligence Rift

21 June 2010 23:29 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The U.S. and Turkey on Monday sought to squash speculation that the deaths of 12 Turkish soldiers at the hands of Kurdish rebels over the weekend were caused by Washington’s withdrawal of intelligence support, APA reports â€œThe Wall Street Journalâ€.
A renewed terrorist campaign by the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, has claimed the lives of more than 50 Turkish soldiers over the past two months, triggering conspiracy theories in some Turkish media which point the finger variously at Israel, "deep state" opponents to Turkey’s Islamic leaning government within Turkey and the U.S.
Turkey’s national security council Monday "discussed revising intelligence and the structure of personnel serving in [southeastern Turkey]," according to a statement from the office of President Abdullah GÃ¼l, who summoned and chaired the meeting. The statement also called on neighboring countries to do more to combat terrorism.
The scale of the attacks over the weekend, in which 11 soldiers died in an attack on a post along Turkey’s border with Iraq and another was killed at a barracks, led to claims that the U.S. had withdrawn the intelligence support it offered in the past as a result of Turkey’s opposition to sanctions against Iran in the United Nations Security Council. Turkey responded to the attacks with strikes against suspected PKK bases inside northern Iraq on Saturday, triggering a complaint from Iraq’s foreign ministry.
"There has been no change in the level of U.S.-Turkey intelligence sharing regarding the PKK in northern Iraq," U.S. Ambassador James F. Jeffrey said in a statement Monday. "We stand ready to review urgently any new requests from the Turkish military or government regarding the PKK."
On Monday, Turkey’s Chief of the General Staff Ilker Basbug also appeared to damp speculation that a U.S.-Turkish, or indeed a Turkish-Israeli rift, was to blame for the losses. He said in a speech that for the past 10 days, Turkey has been using Heron unmanned aerial vehicles recently delivered by Israel for surveillance in northern Iraq, according to Anadolu Ajansi, Turkey’s state news agency. He said the UAVs were being used "in coordination with the United States."
According to Faik Bulut, a Kurdish former Palestinian Liberation Organization member who now writes on Turkish militant groups, the latest attacks were well signaled by PKK leaders and were also home-grown. He said he was concerned that PKK pledges to take the war to Turkish cities could lead to a significant escalation later this year if not checked.
The relative quiet of recent years on the PKK front came as Turkey’s government was pledging a new "democratic opening" to provide Kurds with greater political and cultural rights. But the government met nationalist opposition and delivered little. Instead, some Kurds who returned to Turkey from northern Iraq through a kind of pilot amnesty program were put on trial; the Constitutional Court earlier this year shut down the main Kurdish political party in Turkey’s parliament for having ties to the PKK. On Friday, 151 Kurds, among them a dozen mayors including the prominent mayor Dyarbakir in Easter Turkey, were charged with membership in the Kurdistan Associations Union, described by prosecutors as the PKK’s urban wing.
Late last month, imprisoned PKK leader Abdulah Ocalan said he was withdrawing from efforts to bring the Turkish government and PKK together due to lack of progress, and was leaving decisions to commanders in the field and Kurdish politicans. Days later, a PKK spokesman announced the end of a year long cease-fire.
Ethnic Kurds make up about 15% of Turkey’s population and are concentrated mainly in the South East. The PKK grew up in the 1970s with the goal of creating a Kurdish homeland that would include Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. In the brutal guerrilla war that followed, several tens of thousands of peopleâ€”most of them ethnic Kurdsâ€”were killed. Since then, the PKK has moderated its demands to Kurdish language schooling and regional autonomy, among others.