Turkey Withdraws From Iraq
The Turkish military has announced on its website that it has withdrawn all its troops from Iraq. According to the military, the decision to withdraw the troops wasn’t forced on the Turks by outside forces: they had simply accomplished their goals. According to Turkey, the threat the PKK posed to Turkish citizens has now been removed.
All in all, 237 Kurdish terrorists have been killed. 24 Turkish soldiers have died in combat as well (the PKK says that many more soldiers have died, but in these cases it’s better to trust the government than a terrorist organization considering the fact that it’s more difficult to lie about this for an army since it has to release the names of those killed, etc.).
This is one of the major advantages of an operation such as the one Turkey started: there’s no need to stay in Iraq for ages. The goal wasn’t to bring stability to Iraq, the goal was to remove the threat the PKK posed. That’s, frankly, quite easily done. No, destroying the PKK completely is not easily done, but weakening it severely is doable.
It’s now up to the Iraqi government to step up to the plate and to make sure that the PKK doesn’t return / rebuild.
There is something fishy about this (not too hard to guess, but anyways…).
I read somewhere that PM Erdogan had shared with a media outlet (or plural) his ‘address to nation’ in advance of its intended delivery time (to be witheld by the outlet until that time, of course). And then, continued the report, this abrubt withdrawal came, and the address was completely withdrawn by the PM to be redone in the light of that development.
I don’t know; one should probably not read too much into these things. But this whole issue is pregnant with still more problems and dangers.
"but what if PKK reestablish their bases in Kurdistan, will Turkey re-invade?"
-gasbag idiots T.Russert, J.McCain
The Turkish military used to be a strong political force. Now they go to Iraq to help Erdogan divert the attention from the headscarf issue, and they come back when the US tells them so.
Well, I hope at least the Supreme Court is still what it used to be…