BLACK OPERATIONS IN IRAQ BY TURKISH CONTRA-GUERRILLAS

"Turkey is working in Iraq with 3 major Sunni radical groups: Ansar al-Sunni Army, Iraq Islamic Army, and the 1920 Revolution Battalion, especially within the last 6 months. Turkey is supplying technical and logistic support to them."
~ Özgür Gündem.

Someone else from the US military comes along and tries to spread propaganda for Washington's puppet government in Ankara. Posted over at the MoJo Blog:

Evidence is piling up that the Turkish government will commit its armed forces against the de facto Kurdish state in Northern Iraq sooner rather than later. . .

[ . . . ]

What most Americans don't know is that the Turkish government has tried to negotiate a settlement with the Kurds through its new Special Envoy for Iraq, Murat Ozcelik. People who know Ozcelik insist he is the best person to negotiate Turkey's peace with the Kurds. Unfortunately, his Kurdish counterpart, Massoud Barzani, has turned out to be a fool who thinks he leads a pan-Kurdish movement inside Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

What the hell is Murat Özçelik doing "negotiat[ing] Turkey's peace with the Kurds" in South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq)? Turkey needs to negotiate peace with the 20 million Kurds inside Turkey and I've got a news flash for Özçelik and Douglas Macgregor, the author of the piece at the MoJo Blog: Mesûd Barzanî does not speak for the 20 million Kurds of Turkey. There are 20 DTP parliamentarians in the TBMM who were elected by the Kurds of Turkey as their representatives, and they are the ones that Özçelik must begin negotiations with.

Then we have the KCK Executive Council which also represents the Kurds of Turkey. Özçelik must also bring them into negotiations and then we can have a dialog along the lines already proposed by KCK in August 2006 (http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3467):

The framework for the steps that need to be developed mutually in the second phase for a permanent solution:

1- The acknowledgement of the Kurdish identity and the constitutional guarantee of all identities under the identity of a Citizen of Turkey as the main identity,

2- The lifting of obstacles on the development of the Kurdish language and culture, the acknowledgement of education in the mother tongue and Kurdish acknowledged as the official second language alongside Turkish in the Kurdistan region, and with this to show respect to other minority cultures,

3- The acknowledgement, on the basis of freely practicing politics and organizing, of the right to thought, belief and freedom of expression, the lifting of all social inequalities in the constitution and laws, firstly being those of gender discrimination,

4- A social reconciliation project with the aim of mutual forgiveness of both people’s for the development of a peace and freedom union, on this basis the release of political prisoners including the PKK Leadership, and no obstacles to them participating in politics and social life,

5- The removal of forces in Kurdistan there for the purposes of special war, the abolition of the village guard system and the necessary social and political projects to be developed for the return of displaced villagers,

6- In parallel to the realization of the above articles, the initiation, with a timetable determined by both parties, of the gradual disarmament and legal participation into the democratic social life.

All of this, of course, would take place within the current borders of Turkey:

We would like as a movement to emphasize once again that the right solution is a democratic autonomy within the borders of Turkey. We believe that a solution in the unity of Turkey will be for the benefit of firstly the Kurdish people and all the people of the region.

Contrast that with the propaganda of Macgregor:

. . . the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group that seeks to establish a Kurdish state in the region.

Macgregor actually admits that current tension between Kurds and Sunnis in Iraq is the result of Turkish black operations:

Much of the violence that is picking up between the Kurds and the Sunnis may well be the first sign of a Turkish counter-offensive to punish the Kurds for their continued support of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group that seeks to establish a Kurdish state in the region.

Thanks, pal, for confirming what was reported one year ago by Özgür Gündem and carried on Rastî:

According to Özgür Gündem, a contra-guerrilla base has been founded in Amed (Diyarbakır) by the Ankara regime. These contra-guerrillas not only will operate against Kurds in the region of Amed and North Kurdistan, but also against Kurds in Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

The goal of the contra-guerrillas is to delay the Kerkuk referendum through black operations. Since Turkey cannot conduct a military operation in the South, it's initiating black operations through this contra-guerrilla group, operating in the same way it did in Şemdinli, in the Council of State, and in the Hrant Dink murder. JITEM and the Patriots Movement were behind those operations.

Ostensibly the contra-guerrilla group raised donations from $500,000 per month to $1,000,000 per month for the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF). I say "ostensibly," because it's more likely that the "donations" are coming directly from the Ankara regime. In addition, the contra-guerrillas give rewards for each successful ITF operation.

Turkey is working in Iraq with 3 major Sunni radical groups: Ansar al-Sunni Army, Iraq Islamic Army, and the 1920 Revolution Battalion, especially within the last 6 months. Turkey is supplying technical and logistic support to them.

The contra-guerrillas contacted some Arab tribes in Mosul and promised economic assistance to the tribes if they encourage the Sunnis to attack KDP and PUK offices.

Turkey has also been in contact with Arabs in Kerkuk, who had moved there during Saddam's arabization. Turkey organized these Arabs into death squads and provided them with assassination lists of Kurdish leaders. Attacks against Turkmen leaders, including Iraqi Turkmen Front leaders, would be encouraged in order create chaos.

They have assassination plans for some Arab and Turkmen leaders in order to turn Kurds and other peoples against each other and create a basis for the justification of the assassinations of Kurdish leaders.

The goal is to delay the Kerkuk referendum and not to allow Kerkuk to become part of Kurdistan.

The Ankara regime has invaded South Kurdistan in pursuit of PKK a number of times in the past and the TSK has always left with its tail between its legs. If the Ankara regime thinks it will insert itself in order to save Kerkuk for the ITF, then it had better learn the meaning of the word "quagmire", from Andrew Lee Butters almost one year ago:

So this is going to be a slow motion disaster rather than a spectacular one. Turkey will have to go deeper and deeper into Iraq, committing itself more and more to a course that will at best be ineffectual and at worst drag it and Iraqi Kurdistan into the great sucking sound that is the American project in Iraq. The only way out of this is for the Turkish state to begin political negotiations with the PKK, an internal enemy that it has been unable to defeat for more than 20 years. But the US, which labels the PKK a terrorist group, is hardly in a position to preach to its allies about talking to terrorists.

At the same time, Murat Karayılan confirmed the potential "quagmire":

Speaking to The Associated Press deep in the Qandil mountains straddling the Iraq-Turkish border, some 150 kilometers (94 miles) from the northern Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, Karayilan warned an incursion would "make Turkey experience a Vietnam war."

[ . . . ]

"Iraq's Kurds will not support the Turkish army," he said. "If Turkey starts its attack, we will swing the Turkish public opinion by political, civil and military struggle."

[ . . . ]

Karayilan said the PKK was only defending itself against attacks by the Turks.

"This was not the first time. It happened many times before and no one talked about it, so why this time," he said, adding the clashes took place at least 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the border, within Turkey, not Iraq.

He said he believes the Turkish attacks are meant to destabilize Iraq, not remove the rebels.

"Turkey is only making pretexts to enter the Kurdistan region in Iraq," he added.

For those hard of understanding: Quagmire = Vietnam.

Not only should we expect meddling by the Ankara regime in the refusal to allow elections in Kerkuk, but we should also consider the recent turmoil in Xanaqîn as the result of Turkish contra-guerrillas, including recent roadside bomb attacks that resulted in the deaths of six peşmêrge.

Furthermore, let's not expect much from the KRG, Barzanî, or Talabanî. They have too much money tied up in business interests with Ankara for them to take a stand against Turkish black operations aimed against Kurdistan.