Turkije versterkt strijdkrachten bij Iraakse grens

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Op donderdag 31 mei 2007 00:14 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

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Want ook hier behoren de koerden tot de onderdrukten.

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Op donderdag 31 mei 2007 00:14 schreef Drugshond het volgende:

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In feite doet Turkije nu hetzelfde als wat Israel doet. En kan hun aktie dan ook ergens wel begrijpen... ergens ook niet. Want ook hier behoren de koerden tot de onderdrukten.
Of is dit een dominosteen voor Turkije om meer invloed te verkrijgen in Noord-Irak vanwege de olie.

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Op donderdag 31 mei 2007 12:54 schreef Harry123 het volgende:
Het Turkse Republiek voert al sinds haar bestaan een assimilatiebeleid jegens de Koerden. Tot voor kort had ze de Iraakse Koerden redelijk onder controle. Dit veranderde met de val van Saddam. De rol van de Turken werd hierdoor afgezwakt en autonomie voor de Iraakse Koerden was een feit geworden.

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Op donderdag 31 mei 2007 12:54 schreef Harry123 het volgende:
Turkije probeert inderdaad gebruik te maken van het gebrek aan stabiliteit. Of dit zal lukken is nog maar de vraag, want de VS is fel tegenstander van een inval in Noord-Irak.

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Op vrijdag 1 juni 2007 16:12 schreef sp3c het volgende:
ze lijken dit jaar daadwerkelijk te menen!

http://video.milliyet.com.tr/default.asp?id=7559

nu is mijn turks wat slecht maar als het goed is wordt hier gemeld dat ze de grens zijn overschreden?
kan iemand de juicy bits vertalen?

en waarom sturen ze al die oude rommel er naar toe, ze hebben veel beter materiaal!

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Sources: Thousands of Turkish troops enter Iraq
POSTED: 12:44 p.m. EDT, June 6, 2007

Story Highlights
• NEW: Iraqi border officer says no evidence of any incursion
• Operation not a large-scale offensive, sources say
• Turkey has been battling Kurdish guerrillas who operate from Iraq
• Official for Turkey's military won't confirm or deny report


ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who operate from bases there, Turkish security officials said.

Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the raid was limited in scope and that it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks.

"It is not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands," one of the officials told The Associated Press by telephone. The official is based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984.

The officials did not say where the Turkish force was operating in northern Iraq, nor did he say how long they would be there. Both officials are involved in anti-rebel operations, though they did not disclose whether they participated in the planning of the operation on Wednesday.

Col. Hussein Rashid, a top official with the Iraqi border guards, dismissed the report.

"Not even a single Turkish soldier has entered Iraqi territory," he said by telephone from his post near the border with Turkey, although he pointed out that Turkish troops have been operating very close to the border as part of a recent buildup. "I have made contacts with many border posts and none report any incident."

The Turkish officials said any confrontation with Iraqi Kurdish groups, who have warned against a Turkish incursion, could trigger a larger cross-border operation. The Turkish military has asked the government in Ankara to approve such an incursion, but the government has not given formal approval.

An official at military headquarters in Ankara declined to confirm or deny the report that Turkish troops had entered Iraq.

Turkish troops have staged so-called "hot pursuits" into northern Iraq in the past, usually after citing reports of attacks against Turkish soldiers in the border region.

The Turkish military said rebels across the border in Iraq opened fire Wednesday on a Turkish military outpost in the province of Hakkari, which borders both Iraq and Iran. It said there were no casualties.

The last major Turkish incursion into northern Iraq was in 1997.

During major incursions in the 1990s, fighting occurred on a front stretching more than 100 miles, mostly in rugged terrain where communications were difficult and the Turkish Kurds were entrenched in the mountains.

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Op zaterdag 2 juni 2007 12:35 schreef TheMagnificent het volgende:
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Op zaterdag 2 juni 2007 12:35 schreef TheMagnificent het volgende:
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Genoeg...

Voor eens en voor altijd afrekenen met de PKK-terroristen.

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Fierce battles rage Thursday between the Turkish army and Kurdish PKK rebels on both sides of Turkish-Iraqi border. A Turkish Black Hawk shot down over Iraq. Heavy casualties are reported on both sides. Turkish tanks have also been hit. The PKK Kurdish Workers Party turns out to have been ready for the major Turkish operation, well-armed with anti-tank and shoulder-borne missiles for shooting down Turkish warplanes and helicopters. Despite Ankara’s blackout on the scale of operation against the Kurdish rebels on both sides of the border and the scope of the Turkish incursion of Iraq, DEBKAfile’s military sources report the situation as of Thursday, June 7:

PKK bands, who stole earlier into southeastern Turkey from Iraq and locally, are hitting Turkish concentrations behind the lines and impeding their thrust into Iraqi Kurdistan to destroy rebel hideouts. The Turkish army is therefore fighting on two fronts: in the southeastern Turkish Gabar, Cudi and Bakok mountains and River Cehennem, as well as in northern Iraq.

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 10:32 schreef Die_Hofstadtgruppe het volgende:
Maar goed, eigenlijk weet men het dus gewoon niet of het nou waar is of niet?

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 10:26 schreef KirmiziBeyaz het volgende:
Ah Debkafile,de altijd betrouwbare Israelische website voor nieuwsitems zonder bronvermelding.

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 10:26 schreef KirmiziBeyaz het volgende:
Ah Debkafile,de altijd betrouwbare Israelische website voor nieuwsitems zonder bronvermelding.

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Turkey and Kurdistan: Behind the Non-Invasion

Blame it all on DEBKAfile.

Today the rumor-intelligence website ran with a story alleging that the Turkish military buildup in southeastern Turkey boiled over into a 50,000-troop invasion of northern Iraq -- designed not only to crush the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists across the Turkish-Iraqi border but to send the distinct message that Kurdish independence is a pipe dream. DEBKA's story promised that "this is only the first wave of Turkish invaders, with more to come." From there, the AP and Reuters went to their sources in Ankara, Erbil (the capitol of Iraqi Kurdistan) and Baghdad, and ran with pieces suggesting that Turkish troops were engaged in what one anonymous Turkish official called "hot pursuit," but not an actual invasion. All of a sudden, it looked like the sum of all fears -- a full-fledged Turkish intervention in Iraq due to Kurdish ambitions -- was manifesting.

It wasn't. A White House official deferred comment to the State Department, which began this morning to put out the line that there was no indication of a cross-border operation by the Turks. A State Department spokeswoman, Janelle Hironimus, explained to Muckraker that the department was unaware of "any Turkish incursion into Iraqi territory," calling the story "false."

(...)

So what was the actual incident that sparked today's brief-but-intense international controversy? According to Reuters, this:

Jabar Yawir, deputy minister for Peshmerga Affairs in Kurdistan, said: "This afternoon 10 Turkish helicopters landed in a village in Mazouri, which is ... 3 km (2 miles) inside the Iraqi border. They landed with around 150 Turkish special forces."

"After two hours they left and there were no confrontations with the PKK," he told Reuters. He said the village was in a PKK-controlled area.

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 19:39 schreef Devrim_ het volgende:
Ik heb gehoord dat er bommen zijn gehoord zónder toestemming.
De strijd is dus begonnen!

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 19:39 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Obstinaat de oordopjes uitgedaan?

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 00:51 schreef rood_verzet het volgende:

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Voor eens en voor altijd afrekenen met Turkse fascisten?


Daarnaast geeft het nog geen excuus om Noord Irak binnen te vallen. Achterlijke mensen, het is de enige stabiele regio in Irak na de val van Hussein en nu willen deze mafkezen weer hun militaristische expansiedrift laten tonen.

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 19:56 schreef salutem het volgende:
Ben benieuwd wanneer er de eerste turk opstaat die tegen deze waanzin demonstreert......

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 19:43 schreef Devrim_ het volgende:

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Het is oorlogs tijd
Iedereen heeft honger

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 20:00 schreef Die_Hofstadtgruppe het volgende:

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 19:59 schreef Devrim_ het volgende:

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Ja...de PKK heeft minimaal 30.000 doden op hun naam staan...De Turken zullen zéker tegen de oorlog demonsteren

....

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 20:00 schreef Devrim_ het volgende:

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Ja grappig he..hongerige mensen

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 20:01 schreef Die_Hofstadtgruppe het volgende:

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[afbeelding]

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 20:02 schreef Die_Hofstadtgruppe het volgende:

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Wat lul je nou dom dan?

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 20:03 schreef Devrim_ het volgende:

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De VS zit daar om hele andere redenen..Zij zijn daar omdat Irak Kernwa...oh wacht nee..De VS zit daar voor de olie

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 20:04 schreef Devrim_ het volgende:

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Dat wou ik aan jou vragen..Wat is er grappig aan hongerige mensen?

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 20:26 schreef Die_Hofstadtgruppe het volgende:

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Ja klopt de VS haalt heel veel gratis olie uit Irak ja.

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Op donderdag 7 juni 2007 20:28 schreef Die_Hofstadtgruppe het volgende:

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Over welke hongerige mensen heb je het eigenlijk? Weet je dat zelf wel?

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Op vrijdag 8 juni 2007 09:44 schreef Die_Hofstadtgruppe het volgende:

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Big Turkey incursion in Iraq would be U.S. nightmare

By Arshad Mohammed Thu Jun 7, 9:06 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A large-scale invasion of Northern
Iraq by Turkish forces would be a nightmare for the United States and could destabilize the one part of the country that is relatively calm, analysts said on Thursday.

A Web site report on Wednesday that 50,000 Turkish troops poured into Northern Iraq to fight Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas set off alarms in Washington, where U.S. officials scurried to try to find out what, if anything, had happened.

While Turkish, U.S. and Iraqi officials denied any major incursion had taken place, a military source said Turkish troops conducted a limited raid across the mountainous border.

While such operations are not uncommon, analysts said the incident focused attention on the possibility that recent attacks in Turkey blamed on the PKK could prompt major Turkish retaliation against rebels that use Iraq as a safe haven.

Ankara blames the PKK for more than 30,000 deaths since the rebels launched their armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

The risk, analysts said, is that Turkey might become drawn into a wider conflict with Iraqi Kurds even if it initially sought to conduct a small-scale operation, and that other countries, including
Iran, might also feel emboldened.

"It could open a Pandora's box for the quagmire -- the fiasco -- in Iraq to turn into a regional quagmire, with regional countries starting to fight wars on Iraqi territory," said Brookings Institution analyst Omer Taspinar.

Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the CSIS think tank in Washington, said, "A complete mess in the North of Iraq creates problems for everything we are trying to do in Iraq. It creates problems for our deep defense relationship with Turkey and it creates an even more chaotic situation in a part of the world where we are desperate for less chaos."

'UNFORSEEN CONSEQUENCES'

The roughly 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are already stretched fighting the insurgency and the last thing Washington wants is fighting in northern Iraq, which won autonomy from
Saddam Hussein in 1991 and is among the least violent parts of the country.

The United States has made no secret of its views and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the point again on Sunday, telling reporters he hoped "there would not be a unilateral military action across the border into Iraq."

Analysts said there is growing public sentiment in Turkey for its government to do more to combat the PKK following a series of attacks, but they said there appears to be little appetite in Turkey for any major cross-border action.

"Both the civilian and the military (leadership) do not really want to do an operation that the U.S. government strongly opposes. They have also learned a lesson from Israel's experience with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, so they don't want to get into a situation where they are trapped or will be in a protracted conflict," said Zeyno Baran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington.

"My concern is that at some point they will have to do something, which is probably going to be limited. The big question is that the intentions could be small scale but ... sometimes there are unforeseen consequences," she added.

A U.S. official said the key indicator on what Ankara will do will be whether there are additional attacks inside Turkey blamed on the PKK. The group, which the United States views as a terrorist organization, killed seven paramilitary policemen in Turkey this week in the single deadliest attack in a year.

"I think they are likely to hold back short of more significant terrorist attacks inside Turkey," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said.

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4 Turk soldiers killed in security zone

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago

ISTANBUL, Turkey - A Turkish soldier died Friday of wounds from a roadside bomb that was blamed on Kurdish separatists, raising the military death toll in the attack to four.

Turkey's military command, meanwhile, declared its "unshakable determination" to defeat the rebels, who cross the border from
Iraq to assault Turkish targets.

The attack Thursday evening occurred in one of several "temporary security zones" that the military had just declared along the Iraq border during its campaign against the guerrillas.

The blast came amid increasing activity by Turkish troops along the frontier that has fed concerns the army might stage a large-scale offensive against rebel bases in the predominantly Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

Turkish leaders say guerrillas cross into Turkey to stage attacks in their recently escalated fight to win autonomy for southeastern Turkey, where ethnic Kurds make up much of the population.

In a statement on its Web site, the military's General Staff vowed to fight the rebels and called on all Turks to stand together "to resist in the face of these terrorist actions."

"The Turkish Armed Forces has an unshakable determination in fighting terrorism and it is a solid truth that it will give the necessary answer to such attacks," it said.

Turkey's private Dogan news agency said gunfire was heard for about 45 minutes toward midnight Thursday in the Turkish border town of Cukurca, and that Iraqi Kurds claimed Turkish shells were fired at Kurdish rebel camps in northern Iraq, along the Hezil river and near the town of Derkar.

Dogan quoted Turkish military officials as denying the allegation, and saying their activity was only a drill.

The roadside bomb targeted a Turkish military vehicle near Siirt, a city 45 miles north of the Iraq border, the governor's office said. It killed four soldiers and wounded five other security personnel, including pro-government village guards, the office said.

Turkey has grown increasingly frustrated with the rise in attacks by the PKK rebel movement, and its leaders have sent more troops to the frontier while publicly raising the possibility of sending the army into northern Iraq.

On Wednesday, the military said it was establishing "temporary security zones" near the border. The declaration came the same day that Turkish security officials and an Iraqi Kurdish official said hundreds of Turkish soldiers crossed the border pursuing guerrillas.

Turkey's foreign minister denied there was a cross-border operation. Turkey is an ally of the United States, and U.S. officials have argued against an attack into Iraq, fearing that might drag its Iraqi Kurdish allies into the conflict.

Some think Turkey may hope its military buildup will push the United States and Iraqi Kurds to crack down on the separatists and head off a Turkish offensive.

The military did not say what it meant by "temporary security zones." Some Turkish media said the areas would be closed to civilian plane flights, but others said additional security measures would be implemented in the zones and entry would be restricted.

In a statement posted on its Web site, the military said the zones would be in place until Sept. 9, but gave no other information.

Newspapers said the areas are in Sirnak, Siirt and Hakkari provinces. Sirnak and Hakkari are next to the border, while Siirt is north of the frontier. All three provinces have been the scene of fighting with Kurdish rebels.

Some Turkish officials have said that if troops stage a major incursion into Iraq, they might set up a buffer zone inside Iraq to try to stop rebel infiltration.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, cautioned Turkey against such an operation and urged cooperation.

"We ask almighty God to lead all of us to the way of dialogue and negotiation to solve all questions," Talabani told reporters Thursday. "There is a tripartite, American-Iraqi-Turkish committee that is responsible for solving these matters."