Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
November 7, 2007 By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
DOHUK, Iraq, Nov. 6 — Viewed from the outside, Iraqi Kurdistan looks close to war. Tens of thousands of Turkish troops are amassed on the border. And thousands of Iraqi Kurdish pesh merga fighters have taken up positions in the Mateen Mountains, ready for a counterattack, their local commanders say, should any Turkish operation hit civilians.
But wander the markets and byways here and a different reality comes into view, helping to explain why, despite bellicose Turkish threats, an all-out armed conflict may be less likely than is widely understood: the growing prosperity of this region is largely Turkish in origin.
In other words, while Turkey has been traditionally wary of the Kurds of Iraq, it is heavily invested here, an offshoot of its own rising wealth. Iraqi Kurdistan is also a robust export market for Turkish farmers and factory owners, who would suffer if that trade were curtailed.
Moreover, the Kurds’ longstanding fear of dominance by other powers now seems to be colliding with modest yet growing material comfort for some urban Kurds that was unthinkable not long ago, and has come on the back of Turkish investment, consumer goods and engineering expertise.
About 80 percent of foreign investment in Kurdistan now comes from Turkey. In Dohuk, the largest city in northwestern Kurdistan, the seven largest infrastructure and investment projects are being built by Turkish construction companies, said Naji Saeed, a Kurdish government engineer who is overseeing one project, a 187-room luxury hotel with a $25 million price.
Some of the projects, including overpasses, a museum and the hotel, are financed or owned by the Kurdistan Regional Government, Mr. Saeed said, underscoring the direct financial partnership. Turkish investors are also building three large housing projects, including a $400 million venture that will feature 1,800 apartments as well as a health clinic, school, gas station and shopping center.
At the construction site for a 15-story office building in central Dohuk, all of the engineers and managers are Turkish, as are dozens of laborers. “There are not any Kurdish engineers for a big project like this,” Ahmed Shahin, the Turkish engineering manager, said.
Since the American invasion four years ago, Dohuk has had a burst of consumerism, also thanks largely to Turkey. At the upscale Mazi Supermarket, rows and rows of Turkish-made glassware, shoes, cleaning supplies, beauty products and frozen chickens are for sale. Sixty percent of Mazi’s products are from Turkey, Sherwan Jamil. a store manager, said. Many other products are imported through the Turkish border crossing at Zakho.
“Turkish things are the best, better than Syria and Iran,” said Shamiran Eshkery, 34, as she shopped for shoes. “We don’t have any problem with Turkish food and clothing, but we are upset because we don’t want to fight.”
Indications are growing that Turkish officials do not want a large battle, either. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested in Washington this week that military operations in Iraq would be narrowly concentrated on guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., who use the jagged mountain border frontier as a haven after attacks in Turkey.
“We have taken the decision to pursue an operation,” Mr. Erdogan said Monday through an interpreter at the National Press Club. “We are not seeking war,” he added, but offered no specifics or timing.
His battle is largely one of perception, trying to convince the Turkish public that he is acting against the Kurdish guerrillas and that he has United States support to do so. But most analysts in Turkey expect any attack to be limited. Whatever the case, Mr. Erdogan’s visit seemed to satisfy the Turkish public. Daily newspapers on Tuesday shouted headlines like, “Green Light to the Operation.” Hard-line nationalists expressed disappointment, but on talk shows, most seemed to welcome the result.
“People are probably giving the government the benefit of the doubt at the moment,” said Ilter Turan, a political science professor at Istanbul Bilgi University. “Most are relieved that no major operation will start on Iraq.”
But if a large attack were to occur, Turkish soldiers would encounter thousands of Kurdish pesh merga fighters who have formed a loose sort of Maginot defensive line that parallels the Turkish border along the ridges of the Mateen Mountains. Kurdish leaders speak only generally about repelling an invasion, but political and military commanders here have specific instructions: Attacks on civilian villages will draw a fierce counterattack.
“If the civilians face any problems, that is our 100 percent red line,” Muhammad Muhsen, a regional leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party office in Amedi, said in a recent interview, before Kurdish authorities prohibited local commanders from discussing the conflict with Turkey. Amedi anchors a large border region where fighters are camped on south-facing slopes as trucks bring pesh merga and weapons up curvy roads.
Mr. Muhsen expressed a common fear among Kurdish commanders, that the Turkish military wants to use recent guerrilla attacks as an excuse to damage the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq. “Turkey doesn’t even want to say the name Kurdistan,” he said. “How would it ever accept Kurdistan as an independent nation?”
Yet years of fighting the P.K.K., have made for strange bedfellows, especially in Bamarni, a village north of Dohuk. In the mid-1990s the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the dominant power in western Kurdistan, allowed the Turkish military to occupy several bases on the Iraqi side of the border, when both were fighting the P.K.K. The Turks now have about 1,500 soldiers at these bases, said a senior American military official in Baghdad who was not authorized to speak for the record.
In Bamarni, Kurdish pesh merga fighters are now stationed at a camp beside a Turkish air base that is home to dozens of tanks and armored vehicles. Turkish soldiers routinely dash out in gun trucks to deliver food to soldiers operating tanks that oversee the air base. They also buy supplies at local shops, said Ahmed Saeed, a local political official at a Kurdish outpost nearby.
“They have no obstacles to going to the market,” said Mr. Saeed, who estimated that as many as 400 Turkish soldiers and 50 tanks were at the base. The pesh merga never have problems with the soldiers, he said. But if heavy fighting breaks out he is not sure what to expect. “If they surrender themselves to us, then we will not kill them, because we are peaceful,” he said.
Sabrina Tavernise contributed reporting from Istanbul, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Iraqi Kurdistan.
November 7, 2007 By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
DOHUK, Iraq, Nov. 6 — Viewed from the outside, Iraqi Kurdistan looks close to war. Tens of thousands of Turkish troops are amassed on the border. And thousands of Iraqi Kurdish pesh merga fighters have taken up positions in the Mateen Mountains, ready for a counterattack, their local commanders say, should any Turkish operation hit civilians.
But wander the markets and byways here and a different reality comes into view, helping to explain why, despite bellicose Turkish threats, an all-out armed conflict may be less likely than is widely understood: the growing prosperity of this region is largely Turkish in origin.
In other words, while Turkey has been traditionally wary of the Kurds of Iraq, it is heavily invested here, an offshoot of its own rising wealth. Iraqi Kurdistan is also a robust export market for Turkish farmers and factory owners, who would suffer if that trade were curtailed.
Moreover, the Kurds’ longstanding fear of dominance by other powers now seems to be colliding with modest yet growing material comfort for some urban Kurds that was unthinkable not long ago, and has come on the back of Turkish investment, consumer goods and engineering expertise.
About 80 percent of foreign investment in Kurdistan now comes from Turkey. In Dohuk, the largest city in northwestern Kurdistan, the seven largest infrastructure and investment projects are being built by Turkish construction companies, said Naji Saeed, a Kurdish government engineer who is overseeing one project, a 187-room luxury hotel with a $25 million price.
Some of the projects, including overpasses, a museum and the hotel, are financed or owned by the Kurdistan Regional Government, Mr. Saeed said, underscoring the direct financial partnership. Turkish investors are also building three large housing projects, including a $400 million venture that will feature 1,800 apartments as well as a health clinic, school, gas station and shopping center.
At the construction site for a 15-story office building in central Dohuk, all of the engineers and managers are Turkish, as are dozens of laborers. “There are not any Kurdish engineers for a big project like this,” Ahmed Shahin, the Turkish engineering manager, said.
Since the American invasion four years ago, Dohuk has had a burst of consumerism, also thanks largely to Turkey. At the upscale Mazi Supermarket, rows and rows of Turkish-made glassware, shoes, cleaning supplies, beauty products and frozen chickens are for sale. Sixty percent of Mazi’s products are from Turkey, Sherwan Jamil. a store manager, said. Many other products are imported through the Turkish border crossing at Zakho.
“Turkish things are the best, better than Syria and Iran,” said Shamiran Eshkery, 34, as she shopped for shoes. “We don’t have any problem with Turkish food and clothing, but we are upset because we don’t want to fight.”
Indications are growing that Turkish officials do not want a large battle, either. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested in Washington this week that military operations in Iraq would be narrowly concentrated on guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., who use the jagged mountain border frontier as a haven after attacks in Turkey.
“We have taken the decision to pursue an operation,” Mr. Erdogan said Monday through an interpreter at the National Press Club. “We are not seeking war,” he added, but offered no specifics or timing.
His battle is largely one of perception, trying to convince the Turkish public that he is acting against the Kurdish guerrillas and that he has United States support to do so. But most analysts in Turkey expect any attack to be limited. Whatever the case, Mr. Erdogan’s visit seemed to satisfy the Turkish public. Daily newspapers on Tuesday shouted headlines like, “Green Light to the Operation.” Hard-line nationalists expressed disappointment, but on talk shows, most seemed to welcome the result.
“People are probably giving the government the benefit of the doubt at the moment,” said Ilter Turan, a political science professor at Istanbul Bilgi University. “Most are relieved that no major operation will start on Iraq.”
But if a large attack were to occur, Turkish soldiers would encounter thousands of Kurdish pesh merga fighters who have formed a loose sort of Maginot defensive line that parallels the Turkish border along the ridges of the Mateen Mountains. Kurdish leaders speak only generally about repelling an invasion, but political and military commanders here have specific instructions: Attacks on civilian villages will draw a fierce counterattack.
“If the civilians face any problems, that is our 100 percent red line,” Muhammad Muhsen, a regional leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party office in Amedi, said in a recent interview, before Kurdish authorities prohibited local commanders from discussing the conflict with Turkey. Amedi anchors a large border region where fighters are camped on south-facing slopes as trucks bring pesh merga and weapons up curvy roads.
Mr. Muhsen expressed a common fear among Kurdish commanders, that the Turkish military wants to use recent guerrilla attacks as an excuse to damage the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq. “Turkey doesn’t even want to say the name Kurdistan,” he said. “How would it ever accept Kurdistan as an independent nation?”
Yet years of fighting the P.K.K., have made for strange bedfellows, especially in Bamarni, a village north of Dohuk. In the mid-1990s the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the dominant power in western Kurdistan, allowed the Turkish military to occupy several bases on the Iraqi side of the border, when both were fighting the P.K.K. The Turks now have about 1,500 soldiers at these bases, said a senior American military official in Baghdad who was not authorized to speak for the record.
In Bamarni, Kurdish pesh merga fighters are now stationed at a camp beside a Turkish air base that is home to dozens of tanks and armored vehicles. Turkish soldiers routinely dash out in gun trucks to deliver food to soldiers operating tanks that oversee the air base. They also buy supplies at local shops, said Ahmed Saeed, a local political official at a Kurdish outpost nearby.
“They have no obstacles to going to the market,” said Mr. Saeed, who estimated that as many as 400 Turkish soldiers and 50 tanks were at the base. The pesh merga never have problems with the soldiers, he said. But if heavy fighting breaks out he is not sure what to expect. “If they surrender themselves to us, then we will not kill them, because we are peaceful,” he said.
Sabrina Tavernise contributed reporting from Istanbul, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Iraqi Kurdistan.