Turkey Plans To Exhaust All Diplomatic Options

Before taking military action by sending troops over to Iraq to take on PKK militants, Turkey’s government will decide to push towards a direction of diplomacy first.

An announcement was made by Ali Babacan the Foreign Minister that a talk is scheduled with senior Iraqi officials which includes Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. This is one of the steps taken in exhausting all diplomatic solutions. First, Turkey’s government wanted to send troops to the northern part of Iraq occupied by the Kurds where members of the PKK were hiding out. Turkey was urged by both the United States and Iraqi governments not to take any military action. So far, Turkey is going to continue going the diplomatic route. The United States has already urged Iraq to take fast action in combating the insurgents to stall the raids across the border as threatened by the Turkish government. According to the United Nations envoy to Turkey, the patience of the country is not unlimited. There may be the implication that Turkey’s patience is running out. Already, the PKK has claimed that they have killed twelve soldiers on Sunday and captured several other Turkish troops. However, only eight are missing according to the military. While Ali Babacan is meeting with Nouri Maliki, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday. Babacan stated in an interview that while they prefer diplomacy, they say that military action is also a method to deal with terrorism. He then added that Iraq must do something to stop the attacks on Turkish territory. In addition, Babacan explains that the Turkish military can’t do anything because the PKK immediately retreat back into Northern Iraq. So far, Maliki and Bush have agreed in cooperation with the Turkish government to keep the PKK from using any part of Iraq to plan and carry out attacks. It looks that a lot of pressure is on Iraq’s current government to take action against the PKK. Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani who is a Kurd said that the PKK would offer a truce soon. So far, the PKK ambush on Sunday as made public opinion bitter. Both the media and opposition leaders have called for immediately military strikes against the PKK.