"America between the Turks and Kurds
Dec 13th 2006 | ANKARA AND WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
As tension rises between the Turkish government and Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, the Americans are in a quandary
IT IS looking ever more awkward for the Americans to keep two of their closest allies in the Middle East simultaneously sweet: Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, who enjoy extreme autonomy in what is now the only stable part of Iraq. Kurds there are particularly rattled by several of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by a former secretary of state, James Baker (see article). The Turks, for their part, are increasingly angered by a renewal of attacks in Turkey by guerrillas of the home-grown Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Moreover, they have never liked the idea of an autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, seeing it as a magnet for Kurdish nationalism in the region—especially in Turkey itself."
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