Turkey’s Kurdish Calculus

(Israpundit)Ankara re-embraces its old allies in Washington, at the expense of Tehran and Damascus.
By SONER CAGAPTAY, WSJ
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has made a bloody comeback in Turkey. According to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, PKK-related violence has killed some 700 people since the summer of 2011. This deadly toll recalls the horrors of the 1990s, when thousands of civilians were killed in PKK terror attacks and a brutal war in eastern Turkey between the government and Kurdish militants.
The resurgence of PKK violence is no accident. It is directly related to Turkey’s defiant posture in support of the Syrian uprising and against the Assad regime and its patrons in Iran. The upside for the West is that Ankara is starting to re-embrace its old friends in Washington.

The breakdown in Turkish-Syrian ties began in the summer of 2011. Since then, Damascus has once again allowed the PKK to operate in Syria. Meanwhile, to punish Ankara for its Syria policy, Iran’s leaders have made peace with the Kurdish rebels they had been fighting, letting the PKK focus its energy against Turkey.
This was not Ankara’s plan. When the Syrian uprising began in spring 2011, Turkish leaders initially encouraged Bashar Assad’s regime to reform. In August 2011, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spent six hours in Damascus asking Assad to stop killing civilians.
The Syrian tyrant not only disregarded Turkey’s pleas; he also sent tanks into Hama hours after Mr. Davutoglu left the capital. Thereafter, Ankara broke from Assad and began calling for his ouster. Turkey began providing safe haven to Syrian opposition groups, and media reports have even indicated that Ankara has been arming the Syrian rebels.
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European Pressphoto Agency
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
Assad responded by letting the PKK operate in Syria after keeping a lid on the group for more than a decade. In 1998, Assad’s father had cracked down on the longtime presence of Kurdish militants in Syria, after Turkey threatened to invade if Syria continued to harbor the PKK. This spring, Assad allowed the PKK to move some 2,000 militants into Syria from their mountain enclave in northern Iraq. Assad, in effect, signaled to Ankara: “Help my enemy, and I will help yours.”
The Iranian regime has spoken in similar tones. In September 2011, immediately after Ankara started to confront the Assad regime, Tehran reconciled with the PKK’s Iranian franchise, the Party for Freedom and Life in Kurdistan. Tehran had been fighting its Kurdish rebels since 2003, as part of a strategy to take advantage of the rift between Turkey and the U.S. at the onset of the Iraq War. By helping Turkey defeat Kurdish militias, Iran had hoped to win Ankara’s favor at the expense of its own archenemy: Washington. But Iran flipped this posture last year, and by making peace Kurdish militants, it gave the PKK freedom to target Turkey.
The new stance on the PKK could not have worked so well against Turkey had the Syrian uprising not excited Kurds across the Middle East, including in Turkey. As Syrian rebels eroded the regime’s power in northern Syria this summer, Kurds started taking control of cities there, just across the border with Turkey.
Encouraged by this development, the PKK has tried to wrest control of Turkish towns, targeting especially vulnerable spots in the country’s rugged and isolated southernmost Hakkari province, which borders Iraq and Iran. Although the PKK has not yet secured any territory, the battle for Hakkari has caused hundreds of casualties over recent months.
Iran appears to be complicit in this new PKK assault, at least in part. Last month Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters that the government had “received information that [PKK] terrorists infiltrated from the Iranian side of the border” before launching a massive assault on the town of Semdinli in Hakkari. Tehran denies this.
Rejuvenated by its welcome in Syria and Iran, and also by Ankara’s stunted “Kurdish Opening”—an aborted effort in 2009 that had aimed to improve Kurds’ rights in Turkey—the PKK is now spreading tension beyond the Kurdish-majority areas of southeastern Turkey. On Aug. 20, the group killed nine people with a car bomb in Gaziantep, a prosperous and mixed Turkish-Kurdish city that had been spared from PKK violence. Once again, the Syrian-Iranian axis cast its shadow over the assault: Turkish officials alleged Syrian complicity in the Gaziantep attack, and when Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili met with Turkey’s prime minister in Istanbul on Sept. 18, he was also reportedly admonished.
Ankara’s Middle East policy rests on one basic premise: that anyone who supports the PKK is Turkey’s enemy. It follows that Ankara has a problem with Damascus until Assad falls, and a long-term problem with Tehran even after Assad falls.
Accordingly, these shifting stones in the Middle East are also bringing Ankara closer to its longtime ally the U.S. Turkey has agreed to host NATO’s missile-defense system, which aims to protect members of the Western alliance from Iranian and other nuclear threats.
After weeks of attacks and riots against their embassies elsewhere in the Middle East, Americans may well be wondering if the Arab Spring has had any positive consequences at all for the U.S. The severing of Turkish-Iranian ties, at least, can count as one.
Mr. Cagaptay is a Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
(image from Venitism - a pro Kurd blog)

fascinating. I was about to open my arms to the Kurds about two years ago when social media rumors were hinting that we should support them as atrocity victims. I've no doubt that they are indeed victims, but their recent allegiance to Iran and Syria isn't exactly the type of response I'd of hoped for. The Kurds are an interesting third or fifth,,, or maybe sixth leg in mid-east politics. I've heard that they all aren't Shia either. Some of the Kurds are also Sunni Islam... or maybe I was being lied to about that as well. It's hard to know what to believe. Often times Westerners are told they are ignorant about mid-east political matters. That might be true... but usually because the sources we ask lie to us.

Elbit Systems announced Sunday that it stands to lose close to $65 million from yearly profits for 2011 due to the Defense Ministry’s decision in December to stop the delivery of sophisticated intelligence systems to the Turkish Air Force.

El means G-d or the name of a pagan God. So the company means God-Op?

(spacewar.com)

(anneinpt.wordpress.com) Further fallout from Israel’s deteriorating relationship with Turkey has hit the Israeli defence firm Elbit.

Elbit Systems announced Sunday that it stands to lose close to $65 million from its yearly profits for 2011 due to the Defense Ministry’s decision in December to stop the delivery of sophisticated intelligence systems to the Turkish Air Force.
According to Elbit’s announcement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, it was still in talks with Defense Ministry director-general Udi Shani about receiving compensation for the ministry’s decision to nix the deal just weeks before planned delivery.
In December, defense officials said that although Israel was working to improve ties with Ankara, the ministry “responsible for every product that receives an export license” and that it could not currently permit the delivery of the intelligence- gathering systems to Turkey.
“This has to do strictly with this system and should not impact the overall ties between the countries,” an official said.
The $140 million deal, signed in 2009, was for the sale of the advanced infrared Lorop camera and associated equipment. Developed by Elbit subsidiary El-Op, the camera is installed in a pod which can be carried on combat aircraft. The systems were supposed to be delivered to Turkey in the coming months.

....then Turkey torpedoes Israeli participation in NATO exercise, NATO reconsiders, Turkey bashes Israel

Turkey succeeded in thwarting the navy’s participation in Active Endeavor, it has, however, failed to prevent Israel from upgrading its ties with NATO. Defense officials said this week that the sides were on the verge of signing a new cooperation agreement that would lead to a significant upgrade in relations.
…
Israel is also considering a request by NATO to open an office at its headquarters in Brussels. Defense officials said that the offer was still open and that it was being “positively considered” by the government.
It also appears that Israel’s un-invitation is being reconsidered by NATO.

NATO said Friday it is considering an Israeli offer to contribute a warship to the alliance’s naval patrol in the Mediterranean, despite Turkey’s opposition.
…
Israel is a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO outreach program with seven friendly nations bordering on that waterway. Romero said the alliance is prepared to enhance practical cooperation with all partner nations in the region, including Israel.
Some NATO governments have opposed past attempts to forge closer cooperation with Israel, saying that could hurt the alliance’s relations with other Muslim states, including Afghanistan, which remains NATO’s top operational priority.

Turkish ultimatum to Israel: Apologize or face 'plan B'

(YNET) Turkey's foreign minister issued a menacing warning to Israel Thursday, saying the Jewish state must apologize for a deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound vessel by the time the UN report on the incident is published. The UN Palmer Report is expected to be released in the coming days, and likely as early as Friday.

why is it do you think Turkey wants an apology so badly before this Palmer Report comes out?

Turkey is keen to bury the report, because while far from being a pro-Israel document, by upholding the legality of the blockade it places some of the responsibility for the flotilla fiasco on Turkey’s shoulders.

Addressing ongoing delays in releasing the UN report on the lethal IDF raid, Ahmet said, "It is not remotely possible for us to agree to a six-month delay," the Turkish Zaman news website reported.
“For us the deadline (for the formal apology from Israeli officials) is the day the UN report gets released, or we resort to Plan B,” Davutoglu said, but did not elaborate on what the alternate Turkish route would be. "We are not in a position to tell the UN to release or delay it," the Turkish minister added, referring to the upcoming Palmer Report, "but we will do as necessary when the UN finally does release it."
Ban Ki-moon announced that he was postponing the delivery of a UN panel's report on Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed nine Turkish activists. He said the reason for the delay was to give the two governments more time to reach a "harmonious agreement" on its findings.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel will not apologize to Turkey over the 2010 flotilla incident, despite an earlier demand by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to do so.

At the time, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said it would be impossible for Turkish-Israeli ties to improve without an apology. Minister Davutoglu also addressed the issue in an earlier news conference, saying that "if the Palmer Report does not contain an apology, both sides and the United States know what we will do."

"Israel is facing a choice: deeper relations with Turkey or open a gap with the Turkish state that will not be overcome very easily," he said.

'Plan B' scenarios

Turkish officials already referred to "Plan B" and possible sanctions against Israel in the past, yet did not detail the measures they may adopt. However, according to information accumulated in Jerusalem, the Turkish plan may include the following steps:

• Downgrading Turkey's diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv
• Rejection of the appointment of a new Israeli ambassador to Turkey
• An Erdogan visit to the Gaza Strip in September
• Full Turkish support for the Palestinian UN statehood bid, coupled with an effort to form a lobby and attempts to isolate Israel at all frameworks
• Granting legal assistance to the families of Turkish fatalities and the filing of lawsuits against Israel, including ones submitted to the International Criminal Court at The Hague
• Terminating the defense cooperation with Israel, a move that would include the annulment of joint exercises and defense industry projects
• Imposition of economic sanctions and the cutting back of investments in Israel. While Israeli businesspeople will be allowed to operate in Turkey, Ankara would refrain from taking steps to promote trade.
• Turkish newspaper Hurriyet recently reported that Ankara may adopt another step: Suspending all political and economic ties between the states. The same threat was voiced last year by Turkey's ambassador to the United States