SYRACUSE, N.Y.
Better late than never.
As the foreign minister
Abdullah Gul revealed in this space last week, postwar
public opinion has changed in Turkey. Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to reassert that secular
Muslim nation's historic position as America's
stalwart strategic ally. At the moment the coalition
most needs a boost, leaders of the powerful Turkish
Army are now ready to provide a division of
peacekeeping troops.
Yesterday, the Turkish
Parliament approved — by a whopping 2-to-1 majority —
the government's proposal to take an active part in
stabilizing Iraq. Unlike Russia and Pakistan (our
allies in name only), and unlike France and Germany
(our outright diplomatic adversaries), Turkey's
government does not insist on a new U.N. resolution
stripping control from the U.S. and Britain before
lending a hand. That will affect other countries now
hanging back, as well as the U.N. resolution itself.
Credit our State
Department's counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, with
some deft diplomacy in Ankara. The big obstacle, from
the Turks' point of view, was the P.K.K., a renegade
Kurdish force that for decades has been trying to bite
off a piece of Turkey in a separatist guerrilla war
that cost 35,000 lives. (Even today, some of these
terrorist Kurds make up much of Ansar al-Islam, the Al
Qaeda affiliate fighting us in Iraq.)
From the point of view
of the peaceful Kurds — who, protected from Saddam by
allied air forces based in Turkey, built a democracy
in the past decade — the big obstacle was not just the
longtime Turkish oppression of its Kurdish minority,
but the habit of Turkish troops of staying in parts of
Iraqi Kurdistan just in case the P.K.K. terrorists
should regroup.
To allay Turkish
concerns about terrorist bases near its border with
northern Iraq, the U.S. promised to help suppress the
P.K.K. To reassure the democratic Kurds who fought
Saddam, we are setting up ways to transport and supply
Turkish troops without establishing that army's
presence in cities like Mosul and Kirkuk. A sea route
may be the solution.
But every solution
begets a new problem. The Iraqi Governing Council that
we appointed now brings to mind the old television
commercial in which a testy bride insists, "Mother — I
can do it myself!" Many of its appointees are
reluctant to welcome any more peacekeeping troops from
any foreign country. Months away from a trained police
force of their own, these Iraqi politicians know that
the way to local voter appeal is to assert
independence loudly from the occupiers who brought
them freedom and are currently taking casualties to
restore order.
Now is the moment for
Iraq's Kurdish leaders, their anti-Saddam credentials
unassailable and their gratitude for the coalition's
intervention sincere, to take the long view. Neither
Massoud Barzani nor Jalal Talabani is running for the
top job in the new Iraq; the interests of Kurds are
now best served by their support of secular Shiite or
even Sunni leaders who will respect Kurdish autonomy
within a federal Iraq.
The three dominant
voices in the council are Ahmad Chalabi (secular
Shiite, once the Pentagon's choice), Iyad Alawi
(secular Shiite with some Baathist background,
formerly the C.I.A.'s choice, this month in the
rotating chairmanship) and Adnan Pachachi (Sunni,
former foreign minister, supported by the Egyptians,
Saudis and Jacques Chirac). Alawi is gaining political
strength. All three know the council is far from ready
to hold elections, much less able to hold down the
Baathist remnants and Afghan Arabs seeking to sabotage
the nascent government.
Because the Kurdish
leaders need not pander to potential Iraqi voters by
outwardly resisting the help sought by the coalition
of fresh foreign troops, they have become the crucial
element in ensuring free Iraq's future. They should be
aware of two dangers: (1) rushing the end of
occupation before the rule of constitutional law is
established, and (2) encouraging neo-isolationism in
America and the cutoff of foreign aid by biting the
hand that freed them.
Message to Massoud,
Jalal, Barham and Hoshyar: cooperate with the
coalition and work out Iraq's deal with the Turks to
stay only one year. That's what the Turks want, too,
as well as your American friends. This is a big
moment. Don't miss the historic opportunity for your
people.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
October 8, 2003
