US-UK MILITARY ACTION IN IRAQ AND TURKEY

Turkey’s reaction to a possible American bombing of Iraq was active objection last February and it contributed greatly to Kofi Annan’s eventual agreement with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad thereby forestalling the military action. Ten months later, last week, Turkey’s “active opposition” had turned into passive observation as more missiles were showered on Iraqi military installations in four days than the entire Gulf war in 1990-1991. The following is the short story of the reasons and prospects for future of the Iraq dilemma from Turkey’s angle.

The 4-day Anglo-American military action in Iraq between December 16^th-19^th was given a different reception from Turkey than on previous occasions. Last January and February Turkey played an active role in preventing the joint military action in Iraq by the United States and the UK. President Demirel went out of his way and telephoned the permanent members of the UN Security Council, as well as Arab leaders, especially the Emirates in the Gulf, opposing the military action at that time. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates had second thoughts about allowing their territories to provide the bases for American and British jets and missiles for bombing Iraq. Foreign Minister Ismail Cem went to Iraq on February 4th, 1998 to have talks with President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Foreign Minister. As a result of these efforts, the five-point Turkish proposals for solving the problem through diplomatic ways, without recourse to force, finally became the agreement signed by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in Baghdad. Thus the war was avoided in February and again in August.

Turkey’s silenced objection and the reasons

Last week’s US-UK attack was different as far as Turkey’s stance was concerned. The Foreign Ministry issued a statement at the outset of the American attacks:

“On the grounds that Iraq has not fully complied with the UN resolutions and the commitments therein, the USA and the UK have announced that they have launched an air operation against Iraq on the night of December 16^th, 1998 against that country’s military and security installations and WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) capability.

The developments which began in 1990 with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and which gave way to a chronic crisis have inflicted grave harm to the region and Turkey. In this period Turkey has exerted every effort for the solution of the crisis through peaceful ways by compliance with the UN Security Council resolutions.

It is a disquieting development that hot confrontations should again be lived through right next to our frontiers in the Middle East region which is threatened by instability due to terrorism and other disputes. Like in the past, this time too Turkey is taking the necessary measures for the prevention of the recurrence of unconstructive developments that affect itself as a result of these events.

Turkey, which attaches great importance to safeguarding Iraq’s territorial integrity and political unity, has long been defending the necessity of Iraq’s full compliance with the UN Security Council resolutions and its commitments therein and to taking its place within the international community as an important member of the region with the termination of the sanctions.

Turkey demands that the pains of the Iraqi people who are paying the gravest price of the crisis be ended as soon as possible.”

This statement is not much different from Turkey’s previous Iraq policy, but there was a basic difference in Turkey’s stance this time. The active objection to the military intervention of the Anglo-Americans has now been changed into silent observation. The differences between February and December in Turkey’s Iraq policy can be summed up as follows:

• In both cases Turkey has called for full enforcement of the UN Security Council resolutions, especially Resolution 687 in 1991. This time Turkey’s outlook was that the Butler report states that Iraq is not observing the UN resolutions and Ankara accepts it as true, disregarding Baghdad’s very convincing announcements that they had given to the UN millions of pages of documents and allowed the UNSCOM teams to make inspections of the installations.
• The four-day bombing of all of Iraq’s military installations has proved that Baghdad was right in its declarations that there are no chemical and biological weapons there, because otherwise the Iraqi people would have now been eradicated from the surface of the earth with released poisonous gases and germs from the weapons. Disregarding this fact, FM Cem says that it is not a matter of having these weapons or not, but having the capability of producing these weapons. The UN resolutions in this regard should be observed, he stresses.
• Was the US-UK action in conformity with the UN resolutions or should they have sought the Security Council’s green light for the action? In this controversy too Ankara sides with the West and says that a fresh resolution is not needed. In February Ankara had its reservations about this point and did not support Washington.
• Both today and in February Ankara says that the sanctions on Iraq should be lifted because after the Iraqi people the Turks suffer the most from these sanctions. This time, however, Ankara is less emphatic on abolishing the sanctions.
• Ankara believes that the latest 4-day operation is not the last intervention in Iraq. The Foreign Minister has already expressed his belief that there may be further confrontations in future and that is exactly what London and Washington have announced. According to Ankara’s information, the realyy severe blow to Iraq will be delivered by the US-UK at the end of January, after Ramadan, now that Iraq’s air defence system has been destroyed extensively.
• Turkey’s initiatives in favour of Iraq in February were within DSP Chairman Bülent Ecevit’s policy of “Neighbourhood Initiative”. He aimed at improving relations with all Turkey’s neighbours, but received a favourable response from neither Iraq nor Syria. “At that time”, says İsmail Cem of his initiatives in February, “we acted by taking a number of risks (in our relations with the West). Our initiatives were not responded to by our neighbours. In the latest crisis between Turkey and Syria, Iraq again acted unconstructively and issued a very unfavourable statement against us.”

Saddam’s unwise support of the PKK angers Ankara

The most important factor in Turkey’s withdrawing its support from Baghdad was Iraq’s unwise moves during and after the latest Turkish-Syrian crisis. In addition to the unfavourable statement against Turkey during the crisis, the Saddam regime continued to annoy Ankara by starting to shelter the PKK.

Since the Adana Agreement between Turkey and Syria, Iraq has openly changed its policy of denying sanctuary to the PKK.

At the disbanding of the Atrush refugee camp in northern Iraq, 6000 refugees did not want to return to Turkey and they were relocated in a camp in Iraq. What’s more, the Saddam regime did not leave the management of the camp to the UN Refugees Office, but brought in PKK militants to office. That was the beginning of the improved relations between Saddam and the PKK, but also the souring of relations between the Iraqi dictator and Turkey. Today Saddam has allotted a military camp to the PKK near Baghdad. According to intelligence reports reaching Ankara, the PKK’s military presence near Baghdad is being consolidated.

While Turkey is one of the main forces in the world supporting Iraq’s territorial integrity and political unity, thus cutting down the ground from under the western powers to establish a Kurdish State in northern Iraq, Baghdad thinks that Turkey is condemned to do so for self-interest and engages in other policies than sincerely cooperating with Turkey in that regard.

Indeed, Turkey’s fear is that after Saddam’s downfall there may be a chaos in Iraq and it may give way to the disintegration of Iraq with UDIs by several ethnical groups. Ankara warns the West that this chaos may be telling for the Anglo-American interests in the end.

Meanwhile, Turkey is taking all the measures to prevent these developments from harming its interests. One fear is a mass migration of Kurdish refugees from Iraq into Turkey as was the case in April 1991. On March 22^nd-23^rd, 1991 President Bush had a summit with President Özal in Camp David in an effort to work out a confederation between Turkey and Jelal Talabani’s PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan). Özal was all for it, but unable to get it accepted by Turkish State organs, especially the TGS (Turkish General Staff) and the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). A week after Özal’s return to Ankara, a mass migration of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds from Turkey’s southern frontiers caused enormous problems for Turkey both militarily and economically. Ankara is now determined not to allow the recurrence of such a migration during the enforcement of the Anglo-American plans to disintegrate Iraq as from January 1999. Like in the February crisis, this time too State Minister Şükrü Sina Gürel has been assigned to coordinate the preparations and measures to prevent such an eventuality for Turkey.

Turkey acts with long-term interest calculations, not with emotions

Despite Baghdad’s repeated mistakes that annoy Ankara, Turkey is trying to act with prudence and insists on maintaining Iraq’s unity. At the expense of annoying Washington and London, Turkey has strongly turned down arrangements to take any part in the ongoing western activities to topple Saddam. The British press has already reported that a dissident Iraqi general was not allowed in Turkey when the Anglo-Americans sent him to Istanbul to coordinate the anti-Saddam forces work in Iraq, under the guidance of “Mr Fox”, an American diplomat in Ankara who reportedly worked for the success of the Desert Fox operation whose first stage has just come to an end. Ramadan will be a period for the preparation of the following and maybe the final stage of that operation.

Under these conditions, Bülent Ecevit will hand back the duty of forming the new government to President Demirel tomorrow. Would you engage in any adventure at such a critical time for Turkey and the Middle East if you were in the President’s shoes? uras@ada.net.tr, December 20^th, 1998