Eradicating the PKK

A series of attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has brought Turkey to the verge of invading northern Iraq to destroy Kurdish terrorist bases there. Within the last two weeks, the PKK has stepped up attacks inside Turkey, killing 31 people, including a busload of civilians and and 13 military commandos; more than 100 people have been killed in such attacks since the beginning of the year.

In response to the escalating terrorist threat, Turks have put aside their political differences and are demanding a vigorous military response to PKK attacks, and the Turkish Parliament responded Wednesday by voting 507 to 19 to order military strikes or a large-scale invasion of northern Iraq during the next year. In parliamentary debate, one legislator after another angrily pointed out that time and again, Washington and Baghdad have promised to curb PKK operations. But they have failed to deliver, and Turkey’s patience is running out — understandably so.

As the Turkish Parliament prepared to vote, President Bush, along with representatives from the European Union, besieged Ankara with pleas that it refrain from launching any major cross-border incursion into Iraq. (Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he will not order an invasion right away.) At one level, these world leaders are absolutely right: A Turkish invasion of Iraq would be a geopolitical nightmare, one with the potential to further destabilize Iraq and the rest of the region. Preventing this from happening must continue to be a top foreign policy priority of the United States.

But the PKK is a menace that must be put out of business. Between 1984 and 1999, it waged war against the elected government in Turkey; more than 30,000 people died in that intra-Turkish conflict. In 1999, Turkey forced Syria to kick out PKK boss Abdullah Ocalan; the charismatic Ocalan, subsequently captured by Turkey, has been imprisoned for more than eight years. After he disappeared from the scene, PKK attacks tapered off dramatically. But in the past few years, the group has had a resurgence in northern Iraq, according to Turkish and American officials.

To forestall a Turkish invasion, it is essential to put the PKK out of business. No one expects very much from the Baghdad government headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; if the PKK is to be stopped, it will be up to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq.

But is unclear whether the KRG (which, like Turkey, is a friend of the United States) is prepared to take this step. KRG officials insist that they are essentially powerless to do anything about PKK attacks on Turkey, and that the current spate of attacks are all being carried out by PKK operatives inside Turkish territory.

Clearly, the United States government is very skeptical of this assertion. The Turks “are furious, and they wish to see somebody get ahold of the PKK,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Wednesday. “Ideally, it would be the Kurdish government, and that’s who we are pressuring to deal with the terrorists in their midst.”

The good news is that some Iraqi Kurds are publicly acknowledging the need to deal with the PKK problem emanating from northern Iraq. Following a Wednesday meeting in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said that, should the PKK not end their armed struggle, “we want them to leave our country and go somewhere else, because the Kurdistan Regional Government and the Kurdish people will not tolerate it.”

Both Mr. Morrell and Mr. Talabani have it about right: The PKK terrorist presence harms the interests of all honorable Iraqis and Turks, whatever their religious or ethnic background. In the long run, the KRG needs to adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorist operations from its territory — the best way to ensure that the Turkish Army remains on its side of the border.