Turkey mulls Syria intervention to crush Kurds

Turkish soldiers in a military vehicle patrol on the Turkish-Syrian border in the town of Reyhanli (Photo: Reuters – Osman Orsal)

 Published Thursday, July 26, 2012

Turkish security forces killed at least 15 Kurdish rebels in a raid near the country's border with Iraq, officials have said, as Turkey's prime minister warned his country may intervene in Syria to stop Kurdish rebels setting up base in the border region.

Turkish drones reportedly spotted a group of Kurdish fighters who blocked roads on Monday in Hakkari province, then pinpointed them for an attack when the Kurdish fighters returned to the same area on Tuesday evening, the security officials said.

Three Turkish soldiers were injured in clashes that ensued, they said.

The raid could not be confirmed by Kurdish sources.

The region is the theater of a 28-year-old conflict between Turkish forces and fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which in various incarnations has waged a campaign for autonomy in the largely Kurdish southeast of Turkey.

Turkey has cemented ties with the Kurdish leadership of Iraq's semi-autonomous north, where the PKK has a military presence, through trade and investment, but remains wary that the example of Kurdish self-rule in Iraq and deepening chaos in neighboring Syria could inflame its own Kurdish conflict.
Syrian Kurdish opposition figures say Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have quit areas of Hassaka and Aleppo provinces, which border Turkey, leaving them under the control of the PKK-linked Democratic Union Party (PYD).

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted by the TV 24 channel on Wednesday as saying a PKK-linked Kurdish presence could give Turkey cause to intervene militarily in Syria, as it has done repeatedly in northern Iraq since that region slipped from Baghdad's grip following the 1991 Gulf War.

"The terrorist PKK organizations cooperation with the PYD is something we cannot look upon favorably," it quoted him as saying.

"If a formation that's going to be a problem, if there is a terror operation, (if) an irritant, emerges, then intervening there would be our most natural right."
(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

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