When you see the Turkish flag being marched through the streets you know that reason may have a hard time prevailing. Outrage over recent PKK attacks among the nationalist populace explains much about the Turkish government’s heated rhetoric. Now the gov’t is trying to tamp down that sentiment, in some weirdly Orwellian ways:
The Turkish broadcast authority today halted all television and radio broadcasts that refer to the [Oct. 21] attack, in what it said was an attempt to quell the public unrest since the incident.
The Senior Board of Radio and Television said the broadcasts “negatively affect social order and people’s moral values, create a weak image of security forces and have a negative impact on social psychology.”
This NYT report, about the simmering war between Iran and the PKK-affiliated PJAK, seems to reconfirm that Turkey is stirring up an international ruckus to mollify public opinion. If the PJAK claims are to be believed, Iran has absorbed some significant troop losses on its western front, and has been intermittently shelling in the Qandil Mountains for some time, but is not threatening a military incursion. (Doing so, of course, would be pretty foolish, considering how eager the Cheneyites are to start bombing them.) Check out the companion video and slide show, on the sidebar to the NY Times Iran story, for a very rare look at the PJAK guerrilla forces.
There’s some interesting (albeit dated) background here on the Iraqi Kurdish civil war in the ’90s and how it involved Turkey and the PKK and Saddam. Add the Iranian factor and this region is truly headspinning.
Comments are closed.