The Turkish-PKK Dispute: Then & Now

Turkish soldier patrols near Turkish-Iraqi border

The historic enmity between Turkey and the Kurish separatists who now face the prospect of Turkish military strikes in northern Iraq is not something that you can blame on the Bush administration. But it is one more monkey wrench in a war that was supposed to be over in months, if not weeks, and of course shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

In a vote reminiscent of the 2003 resolution authorizing George Bush to launch military strikes against the Saddam Hussein regime that were opposed by key NATO allies, the Turkish parliament has voted overwhelmingly to authorize the military of that NATO ally to send troops across the border to fight Kurds who carry out attacks in Turkey, a move that is opposed by the U.S. and other NATO countries.

Beyond that symmetry and despite all of the huffing and puffing of Turkish officials, don't expect the other shoe to drop anytime soon. Although the Turks launched three major forays into northern Iraq in the years before the U.S. invasion, the diplomatic pressure on them to chill out is intense.

Then there is Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, who in a moment of unintended comic relief, says that his government is determined to put down the rebels -- an empty promise if there ever was one because the Baghdad government has virtually no clout in Iraqi Kuridstan and can barely tie its own shoes in Baghdad.

Nevertheless, the prospect of Turkish military action is a complication for the U.S.

This is because while Iraq as a whole teeters between pacification and chaos, the north has pretty much been an asterisk and is more or less a model of what the Americans have been trying to in the country at large with only limited success.

The confrontatation pits Turkey against the rebel arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the U.S. and NATO consider to be a terrorist organization.

PKK claims to have taken more than 30,000 lives over 20 years of fighting to create an independent socialist Kurdish state in an area that it claims as Kurdistan, which comprises parts of northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria.

If Turkey launches military strikes, they would be from Sirnak, a province on the border between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, which compared to the rest of Iraq has had a comparatively charmed existence since the First Gulf War in 1991.

At the end of the war, there was an uprising against Saddam. After several clashes with Kurdish troops, Iraqi troops withdrew and the U.S. extended its no-fly zone to the Kurish north, which today is relatively prosperous, has its own parliament, flies its own flag and, for the most part, has welcome the U.S. occupiers with open arms.

Photograph by Agence-France Presse