Analysis: Turkey's Iraq troop decision

By Nick Thorpe BBC News, Istanbul

The Turkish Government's decision not to send 10,000 troops to Iraq has been met largely with much relief across Turkey, where the potential deployment was deeply unpopular.

Turkey has sent troops into Iraq in the past to pursue Kurdish rebels

Only the army seemed upset: Chief of the General Staff Hilmi Ozkok commented that this would leave Turkey with "no say" in the future of Iraq.

Last February, the government agreed to a US request for its troops to transit Turkey, in return for Turkish troops going in behind them.

But that plan was scuppered by the vote of the Turkish Grand Assembly or Parliament, not to approve the government decision, triggering a major crisis in Ankara's relationship with Washington.

On 7 October, the Grand Assembly finally approved the deployment of a Turkish force, only to be told by the US that it would not be a good idea to send it, after running into fierce opposition from the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).

Next week the rotating IGC chairman Jalal Talabani is due to visit Ankara, Tehran, and Damascus with a large Iraqi delegation - 10 of the 25 members of the IGC are expected. Iraqi Kurds make up around 16% of the population of Iraq, and have five seats on the IGC.

Security obsession

While some observers see each twist in the deployment saga as a sign of Turkish or US diplomatic ineptitude, others see this as an opportunity for Turkey.

There were angry protests in Turkey against troops deployment

Fences with the US have been mended, no Turkish blood will be shed in Iraq, and other, better opportunities will now appear to help the rebuilding of the country - starting with Mr Talabani's visit.

"The Turkish establishment - by which I mean mainly the Turkish army - gives priority to the Kurds when it looks at Iraq, but not in the way they should," says Cengiz Candar, a political analyst who visits Iraq frequently.

"They have not freed themselves yet from a security obsession, a secession paranoia which sees northern Iraq as a hotbed for separatist activity and violence which might spread from there to Turkey."

Instead, he argues, Turkey should recognise the IGC and, above all, formulate a new policy towards Iraq which lays aside past distrust, and recognises the Iraqi Kurds as its partners and allies in the country.

As far as relations with Turkey's own Kurds are concerned, Mr Candar says a solution should be found by implementing the Copenhagen democratic and human rights criteria which the European Union has set as a precondition for eventual Turkish accession.

"That would be a real remedy to meet Kurdish demands and liberties and their accommodation with the Turkish system for a would-be EU state."

Trade ties

His views are gaining ground in Turkey, Candar believes, but are still a minority in government and army circles.

Whenever you set foot in the northern part of Iraq...you see the area as a natural extension of the Turkish economic sphere of influence Cengiz Candar Political analyst

A central problem in Turkey's relations with Iraq remains the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK.

By 1999, when their leader, Abdullah Ocalan was caught and sentenced by Turkey, their long guerrilla campaign had been defeated by Turkish security forces.

The cost to the Kurds of eastern and south-eastern Turkey of the guerrilla campaign, and the scorched earth policy the army adopted in response, was very high - up to 4,000 villages razed to the ground, and several million people displaced.

The semi-nomadic way of life of the people, who used to travel hundreds of kilometres each year with their flocks seeking pasture in the mountains, was destroyed.

One of the few sources of income remaining in the south-east is trade with Iraq. Almost every family has a share in a truck, taking Turkish food and goods into Iraq, and returning with crude oil or diesel.

But that trade is a hostage to every twist and turn of the security and diplomatic situation - the tailback of trucks at the Habur Gate border crossing this week was 30km on the Turkish side.

New Kurdish Party

This week, the PKK, which transformed themselves into KADEK - the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress a year ago, announced their own dissolution.

They are to be replaced soon with the KHK - the Kurdistan People's Congress - which a statement said would be "a wider, more representative organisation seeking a peaceful settlement with the states of the region."

But that move was dismissed by Turkish officials as simply a "manoeuvre" to offset increasing military pressure on them by US-led forces in Iraq and moves within the EU to have KADEK added to its list of terrorist organisations.

Some 5,000 PKK-KADEK fighters are believed to be holed up in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq.

Inside Turkey, Kurdish interests are campaigned for by DEHAP - the Democratic Peoples' Party - which failed to win enough support to cross the 10% threshold to enter Parliament in last year's elections.

"The present government has taken no steps to solve or find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question," said Nazmi Gur, deputy president of DEHAP in Ankara. "That's why we are quite pessimistic about this government."

Nevertheless, he said, his party unconditionally supports Turkish EU membership as the only method for guaranteeing the Kurds their rights. He just does not want Turkey accepted as it is and admits to disappointment with the EU for not, in his opinion, stressing the Kurdish question enough.

Back in Istanbul, Cengiz Candar has his eye on the bigger picture.

"Whenever you set foot in the northern part of Iraq, inhabited predominantly by Kurds, you see the area as a natural extension of the Turkish economic sphere of influence," he says.

"And with a new opening to the Iraqi Kurds, they could carry Turkey into the power structures in Baghdad."