News Release

U.S. Approval of Turkey’s Bombing: Disaster in the Making?

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TurkeyPatrick Cockburn — author of The Rise of Islamic State — just wrote a piece titled “Turkey conflict with Kurds: Was approving air strikes against the PKK America’s worst error in the Middle East since the Iraq War?” Meanwhile, the New York Times recently reported: “U.S. Jets to Use Turkish Bases in War on ISIS.”

AP reports: “NATO announced that its decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, will convene Tuesday after Ankara invoked the alliance’s Article 4, which allows member states to request a meeting if they feel their territorial integrity or security is under threat.”

EDMUND GHAREEB, edmundghareeb at gmail.com
Available for a limited number of interviews, Ghareeb is an internationally recognized expert on the Middle East and especially Kurdish movements. His books include The Kurdish Question in Iraq, The Kurdish Nationalist Movement and War in the Gulf which he co-authored with Majid Khadduri. Ghareeb was the first Mustafa Barzani Scholar of Global Kurdish Studies at the Center for Global Peace at American University.

He can address a number of aspects of this story. Ian Masters interviewed Ghareeb on Sunday: audio. Also see his recent segments on The Real News.

KANI XULAM, kani at kurdistan.org, @AKINinfo
Xulam is director of the American Kurdish Information Network. He said today: “The U.S. had been helping the Kurdish group in Syria — the YPG. That group is basically another branch of the PKK, which Turkey just bombed in Iraq — a sovereign country — with an apparent U.S. green light. There certainly hasn’t been a condemnation by the U.S. government of the bombing. A paper in Australia succinctly headlined it this way: ‘Turkey confuses Middle East mess by attacking Islamic State’s main opponent, the Kurds.’

“Turkish president Erdogan also has domestic interests in lashing out now. He was aiming to totally dominate Turkish politics but had major setbacks in the recent parliamentary elections. There are major corruption charges against several of his ministers for allegedly siphoning off money into personal accounts. His son is making financial deals with Israel while the father is grandstanding for Palestinians in Gaza. By attacking the PKK now, he wants to pump up the jingoistic sentiments in the country and silence his critics. He demonizes the PKK while the group has kept its guns silent in Turkey for three years.”