Washington, Baghdad silent on Iraq border conflict

By Anne-Beatrice Clasmann and Carsten Hoffmann Sep 2, 2007, 8:23 GMT

Ankara - On Iraq's northern border, Turkey and Iran have a common enemy in their sights.

The armies of both countries are engaged in conflict with around 7,000 Kurdish militants who, tolerated by the government of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, are entrenched in the mountainous frontier region.

The militants belong to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey, and the Party for Freedom and Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) from Iran.

Here a forgotten war is being waged.

Iranian artillery fire targeting suspected PJAK positions in the provinces of Sulaymanyah and Arbil is heard almost on a daily basis. Yet on the political front, the conflict is little heard of. Few seem to be troubled by this border war, save for the residents of Kurdish villages who have been forced to flee their homes.

In contrast to the ongoing car bombing campaign targeting markets, bridges and barracks in the Iraqi capital, the violence in the north seems to be little more than a sideshow to the main conflict for the politicians in the capital.

A lone voice of dissent in Baghdad is Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, himself a Kurd. Notes of protest are occasionally submitted to the Iranian embassy over the shelling. And yet relations between the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and the Shiite administration in Tehran remain good.

Even in Washington, where any interference by Iran in Iraqi affairs normally results in accusations and warnings from the Bush administration, any opposition to the Iranian attacks on the border region remains firmly behind closed doors.

The problem for US President George W Bush is that the two Kurdish parties of Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani are his two staunchest allies in Iraq, and must not be alienated for the sake of appeasing NATO-parter Turkey.

'What is Washington to do in the dilemma of two friends battling each other on an unwanted new front in Iraq?' wrote Robert Novak of the Washington Post at the end of July.

So far Bush has opted for a strategy of silence, Kurdish lawmaker Mahmud Othman charges. 'America sees its ties with Turkey as more important than its relations with the Kurds,' independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) quoted the conservative Islamic politician as saying.

What is more difficult to understand however, is Washington's silence on the Iranian artillery campaign.

In Turkey, with at least 14 million Kurds representing half of the worldwide population, the lack of comment from across the Atlantic is the subject of ever more bitter criticism.

Fresh reports that PKK rebels are using US weapons to fight Turkish troops are stoking the sense of anger. The arms are believed to stem from shipments originally intended for use by Iraqi police forces.

Ankara will not however be drawn on the possibility of a joint Turkish-Iranian push against Kurdish militants in Iraq.

Although the Turkish army has massed 10,000 troops along the Iraqi frontier and readied for a major offensive, it has so far engaged only in minor missions. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears committed to a policy of restraint.

'We hope that our allies will finally do something. If not, however, there are many possibilities open to us,' an advisor to the Turkish premier however warned.