Turkey Extends Mandate For Iraq Incursions

By Cernig

The US has managed to keep a lid on this one for now, but it is so not going away.

The Turkish government will ask parliament to extend by one year its mandate to order military strikes against separatist Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, the deputy prime minister said Wednesday.

...The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) dominates the 550-seat parliament and is likely to face no difficulty in securing approval for the extension.

The government won a one-year parliamentary authorization on October 17 last year for cross-border raids against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels who have led a 24-year-long bloody campaign against Ankara.

I keep hoping the US, having sat on the fence so long this issue almost fatally bit them on the ass, can now keep punting a Kurd/Turkey general showdown until coalition troops are safely out of Iraq. Because as far as I can see an eventual collision is inevitable. Turkey won't let the Kurds have an indpendent state and the Kurds won't take no for an answer. Eventually, that means war between what will by then be a breakaway province which has allied itself with the US occupation of Iraq for its own gain and a NATO member. With a very real prospect of a Kurd/Iraq civil war too (come to think of it, we're looking at a possibility of that already). We really, really don't want to be in the middle of all that.