Date:12/04/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/04/12/stories/2003041204401400.htm

International

Turkey threatens to send in forces

By Atul Aneja

AS SAYLIYAH (Qatar) APRIL 11. In seeking to establish its hold over the northern Iraqi oil fields, the U.S. is facing a major challenge, not from Iraqi guns, but from the movement of ethnic Kurds that is agitating neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Iran and Syria.

The problems in northern Iraq have arisen because ethnic Kurds poured by the hundreds into the northern Iraqi oil capital of Kirkuk on Thursday. The move rang alarm bells in Turkey, leading Ankara to seek an urgent clarification from the U.S. Secretary State, Colin Powell, on the steps Washington envisaged to reverse this development. Otherwise, Turkey indicated that it was prepared to send forces of its own which had already been deployed along Turkish-Iraqi border into Kurdish strongholds.

Iran and Syria have not expressed their consternation explicitly, but are unlikely to take the Kurdish intrusion into Kirkuk lightly. Turkey is agitated because it fears that by controlling Kirkuk and its oil fields, the Kurds would acquire the resources to create an independent Kurdish state or Kurdistan. That, in turn, would generate secessionist pressures inside Turkey, which has a Kurdish population of around 15 million residing along its border with northern Iraq. In other words, Turkey apprehends that it could lose part of its territory dominated by Kurds to an independent Kurdistan that is sustained by the oilfields of Kirkuk and Mosul. Turkey has also historical claims over the area's oil resources, which are traced to the days of the Ottoman Empire.

It also fears that with the Kurds arriving in Kirkuk in hordes, the ethnic Turkoman population in the city, which has been traditionally close to Ankara, would be overwhelmed. The diminishing influence of the Turkomans in Kirkuk would not suit Turkey's interests. Iran, with an estimated Kurdish population of six million and Syria, which has nearly 1.5 million Kurds, also feel threatened by the Kurdish presence in Kirkuk, which is seen as a stepping stone to an independent Kurdistan that could tear down parts of their existing frontiers.

The Kurds, however, disagree with these arguments as they trace their heritage to Kirkuk. Kirkuk, their home turf, is believed to be the place where two dozen holes in the ground have been venting natural gas for thousands of years.

The local population, according to Plutarch's accounts, had set afire a street sprinkled with oil seepages to impress Alexander the Great when he passed through this area during his conquests.

In seeking the reversal of Kurdish intrusion from Kirkuk, the United States is, therefore, attempting to remove the key irritant that could encourage countries such as Turkey and to a lesser extent, Iran and Syria, to directly or indirectly intervene in the ongoing Iraq war.

Aware of the stakes involved, the spokesperson of the U.S. Central Command, Vincent Brooks, said the U.S. 173rd airborne division had positioned itself in the oil fields in northwest Iraq.

Gen. Brooks said the Anglo-American forces were hunting for 55 leaders of the ousted regime of the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. The U.S. forces had also blocked the main exit points on the Syrian border to check their escape.