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November 27, 2006

CQ Weekly - In Focus

Joseph Ralston, a retired Air Force general assigned to defuse growing tensions between Turkey and Iraq-based Kurdish guerrillas, got a taste of the difficulties he's up against when he paid visits to Ankara and Iraqi Kurdistan.

Ralston traveled to the region in September on the orders of President Bush because some 200,000 Turkish troops had massed along the border with Iraq, threatening to move across the mountainous frontier and destroy the sanctuaries of the outlawed Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Any such incursion had the potential to ignite a war between Turkey and Iraq's autonomous Kurds, who have ethnic ties to the PKK.

Ralston, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with close ties to both Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, got off to a good start by reminding both sides of their shared economic interest in keeping the border quiet. He noted some 130 Turkish companies were working on hundreds of infrastructure projects in Iraqi Kurdistan worth an estimated $1 billion. When the PKK declared a cease-fire, the gesture won applause from the United States and Iraqi Kurds.

But according to Ralston, Turkish officials told him they rejected any use of the term "cease-fire" to describe the PKK move, insisting that it would confer legitimacy on a group they regard as a terrorist organization.

Today, Turkish troops remain poised on Iraq's northern border - a reminder to Ralston and the Bush administration of the unresolved grievances that threaten to widen the war in Iraq at a time when Bush is trying to find a way to salvage the beleaguered U.S. mission there.

For many Iraqi Kurds, the PKK issue is a family affair, with relatives and clansmen in Turkey being denied what they see as their right to express their ethnic cultural identity. Acknowledging that PKK fighters use Iraqi Kurdistan for sanctuary, they say the key to defusing the tense border situation is for Turkey to grant rank-and-file PKK guerrillas a general amnesty. If Turkey refuses and invades Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurds say they will fight to defend their land.

But the amnesty issue has divided Turkey's civilian leaders and its military. The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears willing to consider the idea. But Turkish officials say the PKK is responsible for some 30,000 killings over the past 30 years. The amnesty issue has grown even more divisive inside Turkey as it moves toward elections in November next year and seeks entry into the European Union.

Turkey's ambassador to the United States, Nabi Sensoy, says Ralston's appointment has created great expectations back home for a solution to the PKK problem. But he makes it clear that a lot is riding on Ralston's efforts. "Now the Turkish nation is expecting tangible results," Sensoy said. "If we cannot give this view to the Turkish public, I think it will be a very unfortunate thing that might happen in the future."

The threat of a Turkish military thrust into northern Iraq hangs over Ralston's head should he fail in his mission. Such a move might unite Iraqi Kurdish fighters with the PKK. And with large ethnic Kurdish minorities in the bordering states of Turkey, Iraq and Iran, Ralston acknowledges such an incident has the potential to touch off a regional conflagration. "An invasion," Ralston said, "would be a very complicating factor."

Turkey Sends a Message

Turkish Kurds, who make up 20 percent of Turkey's 70 million people, have rebelled on numerous occasions since the birth of the Turkish republic in 1923, demanding greater cultural autonomy. The PKK emerged as a violent group in the late 1970s and has used northern Iraq as a staging ground for attacks into Turkey since the mid-1980s. Today, some 5,000 PKK guerrillas are believed to be holed up in their sanctuaries along the Turkish-Iraqi border, said Henri Barkey, an expert on the Kurds, at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa.

Dr. Najmaldin Karim, president of the Washington Kurdish Institute, which looks after Iraqi Kurdish interests in the United States, acknowledges the PKK presence in northern Iraq. But he says Iraqi Kurds feel empathy for Turkish Kurds who have been denied their "Kurdish identity."

Ralston says these PKK sanctuaries are a "huge problem" for the Turks. In the nearly four years since the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, the group killed hundreds of people in cross-border attacks into Turkey, he said.

"The Turkish authorities are saying to the United States - and understandably so - 'You are in charge of Iraq. Why are you letting this Iraqi territory be used to harbor terrorists?' "Ralston said.

But with their hands full fighting the Iraqi insurgency, the Bush administration largely ignored Turkish demands to shut down the PKK sanctuaries. U.S. officials said military priorities lay elsewhere. Some officials suggested that the lack of urgency in confronting the PKK also was payback for Ankara's refusal to allow U.S. forces to launch a northern prong of the 2003 Iraq invasion from Turkey.

Whatever the reason, Turkey got Bush's attention last summer when the government moved soldiers to the border and informed the United States it was poised to move against the PKK sanctuaries. In August, Bush appointed Ralston, the vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a major U.S. defense consulting firm, as his special envoy to defuse the situation.

"It is safe to say the United States did not understand the seriousness of this issue up until recently," Ralston said.

Despite the diplomatic sensitivities Ralston encountered in Turkey in September, the White House still hopes that his long history with the Turkish military will ease relations with Ankara.

From 2000 to 2003, Ralston was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe and commander of the U.S. European Command. In that post, he had extensive contacts with Turkey, a NATO member for more than a half-century.

Ralston also has excellent relations with Iraq's Kurds, who became semi-autonomous in their northern Iraqi enclave in wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, thanks to a U.S.-enforced no-fly that shielded the Kurds from Saddam Hussein's regime. In the four years before he took up his NATO command, Ralston, then vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, renegotiated its renewal each year with Turkey.

But Ralston, who is returning to the region next month, will have to work fast to prevent the Iraq War from widening in the region.

In his efforts to neutralize the PKK, Ralston has been working along several tracks. He has taken note of U.S. and Turkish intelligence that indicates the group receives millions of dollars from supporters in western European countries. At Ralston's recommendation, U.S. authorities launched a campaign in October to persuade European governments to shut down the financial support.

At the same time, Ralston is working with the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to halt Iraqi Kurdish support for the PKK and shut down PKK offices in Iraq.

"These people are getting logistical support," said Turkish Ambassador Sensoy. "Where do they get it? They have the capabilities of command and control systems. How are they able to do that in northern Iraq? They are free in their movements all over the country."

The Washington Kurdish Institute's Karim says PKK guerrillas live among the Kurds in northern Iraq. "These people live in remote areas, but they have to come and buy things in the cities and towns. You know, food and clothes," Karim said.

The Problems of Amnesty

It is precisely this closeness that has prompted Iraqi Kurds to call on Turkey to offer a general amnesty for rank-and-file guerrillas. Karim says many of them are too young to have been involved in much fighting. If such an amnesty is offered, he says, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership will disarm the PKK fighters and allow them to return to their villages in Turkey or provide them with asylum to remain in Iraq. But without such a gesture, "Ralston's mission will probably not succeed," Karim said.

Though Ralston supports the idea of an amnesty, he has not pushed for it in his talks with the Turks. He said it's a matter for the Turkish people to decide.

Sensoy says the Turkish government is considering an amnesty. But by all accounts, it is an incendiary issue, especially for the Turkish military. Sensoy notes that conditions the Turkish parliament placed on a 2003 amnesty proposal caused it to fail. This effort, he said, was "not real amnesty, but it was reduction of their jail terms according to the crimes they committed. Those who were not involved in killings were to be exonerated."

Karim warns that a similar offer by Ankara would be "a non-starter, because [PKK guerrillas] are not just going to lay their arms down and go into Turkish prisons until they find out they have committed crimes or not."

The longer the PKK problem festers, the greater the chances that Ralston may have to fall back on recommending the use of military force. Ralston received some help Nov. 18 from al-Maliki, who promised to crack down on the PKK sanctuaries and said an Iraqi brigade was poised to close down a U.N. refugee camp near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that Ralston calls a rest and recuperation center for PKK guerrillas. If that fails, Ralston says he would have no qualms about recommending that U.S. forces do the job.

"I think it is safe to say there is no single silver bullet here," Ralston said.

--Frank Oliveri, CQ Staff

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