Middle East

The Bush administration made a diplomatic ‘full court press’ with Turkish leaders to dissuade them from attacking the Kurdish Workers Party [PKK] guerrillas hiding out in Iraq after the killing of 17 Turkish troops and the capture of 8 others by the PKK on Sunday. Turkish Prime Minister Rejeb Tayyip Erdogan is alleged to have […]

Ferit Demir reports (via The Scotsman): ‘ Kurdish rebels [of the PKK/ Kurdish Workers Party] killed at least 17 Turkish soldiers, wounded 16 others and took several hostage in an ambush near the Iraqi border yesterday . . . Turkey’s military general staff said 32 rebels were killed in continuing clashes. Its artillery also shelled […]

Iraqi president – slash – Kurdistan leader Jalal Talabani condemned Syria’s president Bashar al-Asad for supporting the Turkish claim of the right to invade Iraq in search of Kurdish guerrillas [the Turks–and I suppose the US State Department — say ‘terrorists’] being given safe harbor there. Talabani connived at the US invasion of Iraq in […]

The leader of the Kurdistan Regional Authority in Iraq, Massoud Barzan, called Friday for talks with Turkey. The call was immediately rejected by Ankara, which accuses Barzani of deliberately harboring 3,000 to 5,000 guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party who have been going back over into Turkey and blowing people up or killing them (i.e. […]

Gen. John Abizaid at Stanford U.: ‘ While [panelists] discussed green technology, the subject of America’s operations in Iraq was also a hotly debated topic. Abizaid, who was formerly the Commander of the United States Central Command, quickly established a connection between the two topics. “Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that,” […]

The Turkish parliament authorized a Turkish incursion into Iraq in pursuit of guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Syria threw its support behind Turkey on this issue. Syria has 2 million Kurds of its own, in a population of 19 million [plus 1.4 million Iraqi refugees]. Bashar al-Asad fears Kurdish nationalism as a threat […]

The tensions between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan contributed to jitteriness in the oil markets that drove the prices to as high as $88.20 at one point on Tuesday before falling back to over $87. The oil price spike in turn frightened investors and hit stock markets around the world. The United States consumes about 21 […]

Shiite militiamen rained mortar shells on the Polish base at Diwaniya on Monday, and the fighting that thus broke out left 4 civilians, 3 gunmen, and at least 5 Iraqi children dead, along with 28 wounded. 15 houses were also partially destroyed in the fighting. The Polish ambassador was targeted, recently, as well. The recent […]