The November 2 British Independent reported that US- NATO ally Turkey "has started to impose economic sanctions on Iraqi Kurdistan by stopping flights between Istanbul" and Irbil, capital of the Kurdistan autonomous region in northern Iraq.
The Independent noted that an "economic embargo by Turkey would have a devastating impact on the economy of Iraqi Kurdistan, which is dependent on supplies coming from Turkey over the Habur Bridge in the east of the country. The closure of the bridge, which carries 1000 lorries a day, would also be a serious blow to US forces in Iraq, who receive much of their fuel and supplies through Turkey."
Turkey, which has massed up to 100,000 troops on Iraq's northern border, threatening to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, inhabited by 4-5 million Kurds, if Washington and its puppet Iraqi government do not act against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrilla camps.
The PKK has some 3500 fighters in camps in Iraqi Kurdistan from where it has launched cross-border attacks against Turkish troops and police as part of its 23-year campaign for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish inhabited southeast. Kurds comprise 13-19 million of Turkey's 72 million inhabitants.
Announcing the economic sanctions on November 1, Turkish foreign minister Ali Babacan declared: "When we talk of economic sanctions, we don't mean to cause difficulty to people living in Turkey and Iraq. We are targeting the economic sources of the terrorist organisation and those elements providing support to the terrorist organisation."
Public sympathy for PKK
Ankara, Washington and the European Union label the PKK a "terrorist" organisation. At a joint press conference in Irbil on November 2 with British defence secretary Des Browne, Kurdistan regional government (KRG) president Massoud Barzani declined to join Browne in condemning the PKK as "terrorists", saying that he would only do so if they turned down a Turkish offer of talks — an offer Ankara has adamantly refused to make.
While Barzani and the other leaders of the KRG have been staunch allies of Washington, politically supporting its 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, they have made it clear that the KRG, which has a 100,000-strong Kurdish militia, will not attempt to arrest and hand over PKK leaders based in Iraqi Kurdistan, as Ankara and Washington have demanded.
The Independent observed that, "All parties are eager for somebody else to do something about the PKK but it is not clear what can be done. The PKK is not very numerous, has highly mobile camps rather than bases and can hide in the vast mountain ranges along the Turkish and Iranian frontiers."
The October 28 New York Times noted that public sympathy in Iraqi Kurdistan for the PKK fighters "is enormous, and the fighters procure supplies and health care here with ease".
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the KRG of "aiding and abetting" the PKK and, according to the November 1 British Guardian, the Turkish press has turned Barzani into a hate figure, calling him "insolent" and "traitorous".
Anti-US sentiment
Public hostility to Washington in Turkey has become widespread as a result of US support for Iraqi Kurdish self-rule. In a global survey conducted earlier this year by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre, only 9% of Turks held a favourable view of the US (down from 55% in 2002).
The November 1 Christian Science Monitor reported that in the past two years some of Turkey's most popular books and films "portray the US and Turkey at odds — if not at war. Turkey's all-time box office champ, 2006's Valley of the Wolves, saw a ragtag Turkish force square off heroically against a whole division of bloodthirsty American soldiers in northern Iraq.
"Metal Storm, a bestselling political fantasy book from the year before, went even further, describing an all-out war between Ankara and Washington in the not so distant future (the year 2007, to be exact), in which Turkey ultimately prevails with the help of Russia and the European Union.
"Analysts say the public's mood represents a trend that has worrying implications for the future health of the ties between the two NATO allies."
The November 7 Chicago Tribune reported that as winter sets in, Ankara " faces a growing number of tough political and military decisions over whether, how and when" to attack PKK camps in northern Iraq. "Not only do the cold weather and tough terrain set up a possible morass for any military incursion, but an invasion could also backfire by inadvertently assisting the rebels' campaign to regain relevance.
"Most experts and even people on the street now expect a smaller incursion, or targeted air strikes, rather than the full-scale invasion originally predicted when Turkey began building up its troop presence on the border with Iraq."
Retired General Haldun Solmaz Turk, who until 2005 worked for the Turkish army's general staff, told the Tribune: "From a professional military perspective, a large-scale invasion would not make sense militarily, and politically." He predicted a Turkish operation that is mostly airborne, with troops airlifted to specific targets, backed up by attack helicopters.
Meanwhile, on October 31, retired US Army General John Abizaid, who was the commander of US forces in the Middle East until this March, said in a speech at Pittsburg's Carnegie Mellon University, that substantial numbers of US troops would be in the Middle East for "25 to 50 years".
"Over time, we will have to shift the burden of the military fight from our forces directly to regional forces, and we will have to play an indirect role, but we shouldn't assume for even a minute that in the next 25 to 50 years the American military might be able to come home, relax and take it easy, because the strategic situation in the region doesn't seem to show that as being possible", Abizaid said.
Oil
According to Associated Press, Abizaid said that the world economy's dependency on Middle East oil would keep US troops in the Middle East for a long time. "I'm not saying this is a war for oil, but I am saying that oil fuels an awful lot of geopolitical moves that political powers may have there", he said.
Of course, Washington is not waging a war in Iraq in order to ensure that Middle East oil continues to reach "the world", but to secure the world's cheapest-to-extract oil resources for the big US oil corporations. This is also what lies behind Washington's plans for a future Iraq-style invasion of oil- and gas-rich Iran.
On October 31, Reuters reported: "Civilian deaths from violence in Iraq fell again in October to their lowest level this year, government figures showed on Wednesday, bolstering the US military's assertion that a troop surge is reducing bloodshed.
"US military fatalities also showed a significant drop in October — so far 36 have been reported for the month, the lowest since March 2006, and well below 65 deaths in September."
According to the US-based ICasualties.org website, which tracks Iraq war casualties, 844 US troops died in Iraq in the first 10 months of this year, compared with 822 in the whole of 2006, 846 in 2005, 849 in 2004 and 486 in 2003 — putting 2007 on course to be the deadliest year of the war so far for the US occupation forces.
Reuters also reported that, "Figures from Iraq's health, interior and defence ministries recorded 758 civilians killed in violence in October, along with 117 policemen and 13 Iraqi soldiers. In September, 884 civilian deaths were recorded, and 62 policemen and 16 Iraqi soldiers were killed.
"The September and October tolls represent a sharp drop from monthly figures earlier in the year. The highest civilian toll this year was 1971 in January, and the monthly toll stayed well above 1000 until September's dramatic decline."
However, the November 2 Washington Post reported that while the US military said about 800 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, "an unofficial tally by the Iraqi health ministry showed that 1448 civilians had died violently, including those whose bodies were dumped without identification. An official provided the data, which showed an increase in deaths compared with September, on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to release it publicly."
A new report issued by the Iraqi Red Crescent organisation on November 4 said that 2.3 million Iraqis — mostly women and children — have fled their homes in Iraq and remain displaced within the country. It says the majority of the displaced suffer from disease, poverty and malnutrition, and that most of them are in Baghdad, where they are living in buildings with no water or electricity.
In a media statement, the International Commmittee of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent said that the report showed that along with a critical lack of basic health care, Iraq also lacks infrastructure to deliver basic services such as water, sewage treatment and electricity.