I saw an extended report on the PKK, produced by reporters allowed among them. Their forces are comprised of at least as many women as men, and they state in interviews that they always save the last bullet for themselves. I agree that they will be the big winners if Turkey makes a move.

Yet, in priciple, I support their cause - the Kurds deserve their own land in northern Iraq.

As a people, they're a long way from a safe refuge (much less a homeland) there. They've no guarantees as yet, and should Bush win over Turkey to his POV as you fear, the Kurds may stand to lose more than they think they will. Allied in a war against Iran will make them the front line fighters, or at least the major diversion as you say.

Shining Path and marxism aside, I suspect the PKK is primarily motivated by mistrust.

Is it just me, or is some of the text being cut off by the right-hand margin?

And thanks, Hannes, great posting.

Remember, remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.

However, my father, and grandfather, used to say the plotters
were the only men to enter parliment with honest intentions.

Is it just me, or is some of the text being cut off by the right-hand margin?

Did you mean "right-hand margin" or "right-wing"?

from the November 05, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1105/p02s02-usfp.html

In Washington Monday, the Turkish prime minister will focus on Kurdish rebels. The US will try to repair relations.

By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

On the surface, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Washington Monday is about Kurdish separatists across Turkey's border in northern Iraq, and whether the United States can pull Turkey back from launching an incursion against the rebels.

There will be lots of talk about the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, long involved in a bloody war with the Turkish government. Both the US and Turkey consider the group a terrorist organization.

But on another level, Mr. Erdogan's meeting at the White House with President Bush is about repairing relations with a crucial ally estranged by the war in Iraq. It will also test whether the US can keep a lid on the war-related flash points roiling the Middle East.

"It's high noon for the strategic relationship between the US and Turkey," says John Hulsman, a distinguished scholar in residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. "The PKK is the impetus, but the real issue is addressing relations that for the Bush administration have been going awry since the Iraq war."

Another "real issue" is Kurdish autonomy in Iraq, and what the Turkish military especially fears that means for Turkey, others say.

"If this were really only about the PKK, the Iraqi Kurds' offers to provide the Turks [with] information on the PKK would at least be accepted as a starting point," says Elizabeth Prodromou, a political expert on Turkey at Boston University, who is also a consultant to the State Department. "But it's not accepted because the military sees this in the context of Kurdish autonomy."

On Sunday, Kurdish rebels released eight Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq who had been captured two weeks earlier. The move could ease public pressure on Turkey's government to launch a cross-border invasion, but still, Turkey was unlikely to soften demands for tough action against the PKK.

Turkish officials have said that any decision about a cross-border incursion would await Erdogan's Washington visit.

White House officials are hoping that Turkey is in a mood to concentrate on its broad interests in a strong relationship with the US, rather than focusing narrowly or exclusively on the PKK. In addition to addressing efforts to counter the PKK, Erdogan and Mr. Bush will discuss "the promotion of peace and stability in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and the broader Middle East," as well as US support for Turkey's bid to join the European Union, the White House says.

But from the Turkish perspective, the PKK is the issue – and the goal of the trip is convincing the US that an offensive against the militants is justified, according to analysts. "Erdogan is coming with many files in his suitcase, but they are all on the PKK," says Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Erdogan will come with data on PKK attacks on Turkish sites and the military, on the dozens of Turks killed in PKK attacks in just this past month, and on PKK camps and strength in northern Iraq, Mr. Cagaptay says.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Turkish officials this past weekend in Turkey. Although the US has called for Turkish restraint in dealing with the PKK, Secretary Rice assured the officials that the US would help in the fight against the rebels.

"We consider this a common threat, not just to the interests of Turkey, but to the interests of the United States as well," she said Friday at a joint news conference with the Turkish foreign minister. "This is going to take persistence, and it's going to take commitment. This is a very difficult problem."

The US rates low marks from Turkish politicians and the Turkish public over what they see as an American failure to control the territory in next-door Iraq, where PKK militants appear to roam free.

They also believe the US has failed to get tough with the Iraqi Kurds, whom they fault for not going after the militants.

"The Turkish view is that Iraq is a crisis of our making that has made their life more difficult, says Mr. Hulsman.

At an international conference on Iraq Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to work with neighboring countries to address threats such as the PKK.

By Vincent Boland in Istanbul
Financial Times
updated 5:12 p.m. ET, Sun., Nov. 4, 2007

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, is due to meet George W. Bush in Washington on Monday amid signs that a diplomatic and military crisis over PKK Kurdish separatist attacks across the Turkish-Iraqi ­border had slightly eased.

As Mr Erdogan was en route to the US, the PKK released eight Turkish soldiers it had captured two weeks ago in an incident that led to overt threats by Turkey to send its army into northern Iraq to crush the rebels' bases there.

Diplomats said the release of the soldiers would not of itself end the public, military, political and media pressure inside Turkey for a military incursion into Iraq, a move strongly opposed by the US, Iraq and much of the international community.

However, they said it would improve the context in which the talks between Mr Erdogan and the US president would take place, after weeks of deteriorating relations between Turkey and the US.

The context for the meeting was helped on Saturday when Iraq promised to step up efforts to shut down PKK bases in the mountains along the Turkish border.

Turkey remains sceptical of the ability of the Baghdad government to do so in an area controlled by the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government.

But Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister, insisted that "a number of concrete measures" would be implemented, including checkpoints, disruption of supplies and logistics to the bases, and the closure of any PKK offices in northern Iraq.

"I can say that soon you will see these visible measures implemented on the ground in order to show the seriousness of our co-operation with the government of Turkey," Mr Zebari said. He was speaking in Istanbul after a conference of foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbours, which was attended by Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations secretary-general, and Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state.

Mr Erdogan is under intense pressure to order a large-scale military incursion into northern Iraq to pursue the PKK, which has killed nearly 50 Turkish ­soldiers and civilians in the past month.

The PKK is labelled a ­terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the European Union.

Turkey has moved up to 100,000 soldiers and their equipment to the border with Iraq and has restricted the movements of civilians in the area. Several targeted raids across the border have been carried out and more are expected.

However, Mr Erdogan is said to be reluctant to see a large-scale invasion and would rather see the US and Iraq take military measures against the PKK.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21623458/