Turkey has launched a “cross-border land offensive” — what the old folk used to call an “invasion” — into northern Iraq:
Turkey’s military said on Friday it had launched a cross-border land offensive backed by fighter jets into northern Iraq on Thursday evening to hunt down Kurdish PKK guerrillas.
Turkish television reported, without citing sources, that 10,000 troops had entered Iraqi territory. NTV said troops had moved 10 km (6 miles) inside Iraq.
“The Turkish Armed Forces, which attach great importance to Iraq’s territorial integrity and stability, will return home in the shortest time possible after its goals have been achieved,” the General Staff said in a statement posted on its Web site.
Good luck with that, guys.
The cute part, of course, was the US response:
A senior U.S. official said the land incursion was “not the greatest news”.
But hey, at least he knew what was going on:
In Baghdad, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said his government was not aware of any Turkish ground offensive.
That’s never a good sign.
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10 Comments
You need to get up on the terminology, Master Marmot.
As ol’ Bruce Cummings would tell you, the local unplesantness in 1950 was simply a local cross-border land offensive that happened to progress all the way to Daegu.
BTW, the Turks have been conducting raids into Iraq for a while now.
The only offensive Turkey I’ve come across recently was the one I just ate in my subway sandwich.
But the turkey offense did go “cross-border” later on in the day.
Ominously, “Turkish troops will stay in the region as long as the conditions dictate this. It will be very difficult for the PKK to re-base itself in northern Iraq,” Turkey’s former counter-terrorism chief, retired General Edip Baser, told NTV.
It sure sounds like the Turks may stay a while to root out the PKK — and along the way just happen to take over the oil fields in the region where the ROK seem intent to develop.
Remember back to the first days of the Iraq War when Turkey invaded Iraq and were headed for the oil fields. The US had to parachute in US airborne and special forces to block their advance. I can’t believe that Turkey — without any rich oil fields — has given up its ambitions.
That the US is assisting the Turks with intelligence on the PKK sounds really strange.
I wonder if it’s a good idea to sell them those XK2 tanks now…
They already have South Korean self propelled artillery…
Who can predict the outcome and fallout of land wars in Asia with any confidence?
This part of the Reuters article made me laugh:
“‘The Turkish Armed Forces, which attach great importance to Iraq’s territorial integrity and stability, will return home in the shortest time possible after its goals have been achieved,’ the General Staff said in a statement posted on its Web site.”
In view of this: http://www.time.com/time/world.....92,00.html
Pandora’s box reopened.
If I may opine, it’s time that US foreign policy be yanked away from the hands of Republicans, who generally fight wars for reasons of economic cronyism, benefiting govt contractors at the expense of national security and the welfare of those who serve.
The equation is quite simple: less money for Halliburton, more to support our armed forces whose mission, after all, is to protect the nation, not to sacrifice themselves for the welfare of the military industrial corporations.
Military cronyism has distorted the US economy. We need to redirect our resources to the national economy once again in this critical time of fundamental economic transition from a manufacturing to a service economy.
Glad I got that off my chest…
The Korean War Museum in Yongsan uses an even better euphemism - 외정(外征)(foreign excursion) - but only to describe Korean participation in foreign wars.
And now the Bush Admin is lecturing Turkey that this terrorist problem cannot be solved by military assault, but rather “greater political and economic initiatives” are what’s needed and would work much better. I’m sure the entire world outside the Bush Admin / Rush Limbaugh Bubble joins me in finding this LOL funny… Cheney & Gates & co just have no sense of irony at all, just keep on writing Jon Stewart’s scripts for him. They are their own satire…