Gates to Turkey: Wrap It Up!

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is telling Turkish officials to wrap up their military incursion into Northern Iraq which was apparently for the purpose of halting cross border attacks by Kurdish separatists.

From FoxNews.com:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that he will tell Turkish leaders they need to wrap up their military operations in northern Iraq quickly, and that the ongoing assault must not last longer than a week or two.

“It’s very important that the Turks make this operation as short as possible and then leave. They have to be mindful of Iraqi sovereignty,” said Gates, adding, “I measure quick in terms of days, a week or two, something like that, not months.”

“The clock is ticking in terms of how much time is available to get all the different aspects of this agreement implemented,” he told reporters.

Turkey launched an incursion into Northern Iraq on Monday to pursue terrorist members of the Kurdish Worker’s Party, PKK, who have been launching terrorist attacks inside of Turkey then retreating to the safety of Iraq where they believed the US government wouldn’t allow Turkey to follow. For years this was the case until this past Monday when Turkey couldn’t allow it to continue any longer.

In Northern Iraq, the Kurds have relative independence without being an independent country. They police themselves and their territory. This should have been handled by the Kurds working in cooperation with the US military but the Kurds didn’t ask the US for assistance and the US relied on the Kurds to handle the problem. But they didn’t.

Turkey like the United States in 1914 has a right to quell cross-border attacks from a hostile force hiding in another country if the second country does not handle the situation which Iraq and Mexico (1914) didn’t do. So Gates is giving the Turks time to conduct their incursion and asks them to wrap it up quickly. This is understandable as we don’t want Turkey to expand their military operation with the goal of gaining territory.

So far this operation falls into the category of the larger global war on terrorism. It should remain there as long as Turkey wraps this up quickly.

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