Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Warning from Turkey probably directed also at the U.S. and Israel

Turkey is a pivotal country in the region and Israel’s little deception could throw Turkey into Iran’s waiting arms.

Per a report in the latest issue of the New Yorker, Israel is actively involved in supporting the Iraqi Kurds, who are fast sowing the seeds of their independence, albeit often under the convenient guise of a new Iraqi federalism. According to the article by veteran writer Seymour Hersh, who has aptly unearthed the secrets of Israel's nuclearization, not to mention the Abu Ghraib prison torture fiasco, Israel's secret service, Mossad, is engaged in covert operations among Iranian and Syrian Kurds, in addition to training Iraqi Kurd commandos and setting up the latter as a counterweight to Shi'ite militias.

Albeit this is not purely a response to Israel’s fear of militant Shi'ism emanating from Iran, and the US's inability to contain this threat. The economic dimension of Israel's push for a Kurdish state or, at the least, a largely autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq which could realize the long sought-after dream of an oil pipeline from Mosul to Haifa, echoing the statement last March in the Israeli paper, Haaretz, by Minister for National Infrastructures Joseph Paritzky, that such a pipeline would diversify Israel's sources of energy and lessen its dependence on expensive Russian oil. The fact that this pipeline would have to travel through the "weak" and compliant state of Jordan does not seem, at least from the prism of Israel's national (security) interests to be an insurmountable problem.
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At present, Iraqi oil is being shipped via Turkey to a small Mediterranean port near the Syrian border.

Ankara, which considers the transit fee it collects an important source of revenue, has warned Israel it would regard the talked-about Kirkuk-Mosul-Haifa pipeline as "a serious blow to Turkish-Israeli relations."
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-Am

Allawi to visit Syria and Iran shortly, the Turkish army warns the Kurds, again
Iraq-Syria, Politics, 7/9/2004

The Turkish army has warned the Kurds of Iraq against the consequences of attempting to change the people's demography in Karkouk, renewing its call on the US to chase the fighters of the Kurdistani Labor Party in northern Iraq, considering that Washington has not succeeded in meeting Ankara's demands to this effect.

Meantime, a spokesman for the Iraqi government said that its chairman Eyad Allawi will pay a visit to Iran, Syria and Kuwait in the framework of a tour in the region " within the coming days" and will also head to London and Brussels.

The spokesman explained that Allawi's tour will also cover Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as " other countries" adding that Allawi will not make his tour at one time.

Meantime, the assistant for the Turkish army chief of staff Gen. Elker Basbough said in an implicit remark to the Kurds of Iraq that " ethnical groups are seeking to change the demographic structure in Karkouk at a time when measures are taken to establish peace in Iraq." He added " we expect the provisional Iraqi government will prevent that," noting the failure in having a " just and durable solution" for Karkouk's situation constitutes a threat for the geographical and political unity of Iraq."

Basbourgh warned that such a development will create great concern in Turkey on the security of the region. On the other hand, Basbourgh warned that the Turkish army will keep its forces positioned in north Iraq as far as the activists of the Kurdistani Labor party are in the region. He said " it is clear that the US has not so far succeeded in taking any effective measure against those terrorists and satisfy our expectations."

http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/040709/2004070914.html