Armenia Genocide Bill Turkey Warns US

Turkey warns US about Armenia genocide bill as angry Turks are ready to cut U.S. ties.

Turkey is becoming less restrained about defying the United States because of a United States congressional committee’s approval of a resolution labeling the mass killings of Armenians around the time of World War I as genocide.

“In the United States, there are several narrow-minded legislators who can’t think of their own interests and who cannot understand the importance of Turkey,” said Murat Mercan, head of the Turkish parliament’s foreign relations committee. Mercan was speaking of the bill in the US congress which has already passed a house committee that labels the deaths of approximately 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide.

Turkey’s top general, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, told the daily Milliyet newspaper that a congressional committee’s approval of the measure had already harmed ties between Turkey and the US. “If this resolution passed in the committee passes the House as well, our military ties with the U.S. will never be the same again,” Buyukanit was quoted as saying.

“I’m the military chief; I deal with security issues. I’m not a politician,” Buyukanit was quoted as saying by Milliyet. “In this regard, the U.S. shot its own foot.”

The relationship that the US has with Turkey is an important one. The United States military uses facilities in Turkey, especially Incirlik Air Force Base, to send about 70 percent of U.S. air cargo to Iraq. About one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq is send through Turkey. U.S. bases also get water and other supplies carried in overland by Turkish truckers who cross into Iraq’s northern Kurdish region.

In addition to Turkey’s threat to close off Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey may decide to conduct a military campaign into northern Iraq to root out rebels who seek a unified, independent nation for Kurds in the region. From a base inside Iraq, Murat Karayilan, head of the armed wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, warned that an eventual Turkish incursion would “make Turkey experience a Vietnam war.”

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and is once again escalating. Turkey says the rebels use Iraqi Kurdish territory as a safe haven and want to cross the border into Kurdish Iraq to hunt them down.

Should the “genocide bill” pass congress a serious split will occur between the US and Turkey that will further complicate and very likely harm the US position in Iraq and the entire region. In my opinion, this is a very stupid time for the US congress to press forward with a bill that if passed has the potential to add such an addition layer of complications and hardship upon the US military.

This is one bit of stupidity that can not be laid at President Bush’s feet. The President and his team must be horrified at the turn in the Turkey – US relationship that the passage of the genocide bill by a congressional committee has already caused. Should in response Turkey kick the US military out of Turkey and then invade Northern Iraq the potential for a complete disaster for the US is high.

For one thing the US would find that the only region in Iraq, northern Iraq governed by the Kurds, that has thus far been relatively stable would be enveloped in chaos. There would be US forces, Kurdish militias, PPK forces, and Turkish troops all operating within a fairly small area.

At it’s worse we could have situations where US troops and/or Kurdish militia units are head to head with heavily armed Turkish forces seeking out PPK forces who are operating in Iraq. A miscalculation and mistake could easily escalate into direct conflict between US forces and other armed forces in the area. The fog of war could get quite murky indeed.

The deterioration of the US relationship with Turkey could be yet another set of unintended consequences arising from the US invasion of Iraq. Should Turkey close off Turkish air space and port facilities to the US the US will have to work overtime to find other routes to supply our forces in Iraq.  Without a doubt alternative means will not be as attractive as present ones in Turkey or we would already be using them.  

Should Turkey invade Iraq the world is just that much closer to a full blown World War Three. As in all wars, once underway one step leads to another in a painful journey on an uncertain rough winding path. The path’s destination is obscured until the end of the conflict with the full consequences not being known until many years later.

Turkey’s anger at the US and the US congress’s insensitivity to the degree of their anger may be a complication that may seem minor to some but that can lead to grave consequences. Such miscalculations have fueled every war since the first rock was tossed thousands of years ago.

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