The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

M A R C H 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 Diplomacy and policy changes in both capitals successfully transformed perceptions of the Iraq problem and put U.S.-Turkish relations back on track. Given the challenges that lie ahead, American, Iraqi and Turkish policymakers should continue to focus on dialogue, achieving common cause, and addressing specific issues of concern. Three Problems Disagreement about Iraq provoked the worst down- turn in U.S.-Turkish relations since the 1974 crisis over Cyprus. The issue had several components: the events of 2003 and their legacy, Turks’ negative view of U.S. oper- ations and tactics and, especially, the presence in north- ern Iraq of terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (known in English as the PKK). A significant ethnic mi- nority in Turkey, the Kurds have fought for decades to maintain their cultural heritage and gain basic civil rights. In the late 1970s, the PKK launched an armed rebellion against Aukara for an independent Kurdish state. As is well known, the Turkish Parliament failed on March 1, 2003, to pass a government-backed measure that would have allowed the U.S. Army 4th Infantry Di- vision and other forces to enter Turkey and then invade Iraq from the south. The lack of support and disruption to U.S. plans were big setbacks for U.S.-Turkish relations. High-level consultations, especially among senior de- fense officials, dried up. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not visit Ankara during his remaining three-and-one-half years in office. Our bilateral High- Level Defense Group virtually ceased to function and in- teractions among our militaries shriveled, reflecting estrangement as well as the exigencies of war. (U.S. use of Incirlik Air Base was a key survivor as our security re- lationship turned downhill. Along with arrangements to ship non-lethal supplies by ground across Turkey, it has remained an important link to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.) In addition, an economic aid package that would have sped re- covery from Turkey’s 2001 financial crisis died, as did talk about a possi- ble Qualified Industrial Zone trade preference arrangement. Other events reinforced the neg- atives. • On July 4, 2003, U.S. forces detained and “hooded” a Turkish Special Forces contingent in Suley- maniye. (Turkey has had many hundreds of troops sta- tioned in northern Iraq since the 1990s, and it still does.) The details of the incident remain obscure. Whatever the cause and despite U.S. apologies, Turks saw it as a national humiliation. The chief of the Turkish General Staff declared a “crisis of confidence” with the United States. The act of revenge for Suleymaniye that opened the viciously anti-American film “Valley of the Wolves: Iraq” helped make it one of the most popular movies ever produced in Turkey. • Sensationalist media coverage turned the Novem- ber 2004 U.S. military operation to regain control of Fal- lujah into a horror story full of civilian casualties caused by our reported use of white phosphorus. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the victims “mar- tyrs,” and one of his party’s parliamentarians denounced the operation as “genocide.” A similar operation in 2005 at Tal Afar, home to a large number of ethnic kinsmen, the Turcomen, produced even more lurid headlines. • Whether the picture was of Abu Ghraib or mosques bombed, whether the United States was responsible or not, everything in Iraq seemed to reflect badly on us, our role in the region and our relations with Turkey. The PKK The most intractable component of our problems with Turkey over Iraq was the PKK. After the 1999 capture and rendition to Turkey of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, the group declared a ceasefire in its campaign. Attacks did not entirely stop, but calm returned to Turkey’s south- east, and the state of emergency there ended. The PKK then regrouped at its northern Iraq camps just below the border and at Qandil Mountain, 100 kilometers to the south. Larger-scale terrorism resumed in 2005. Whenever the PKK’s northern Iraq presence got too irritating in the 1990s, Turkish troops had entered Iraq to F O C U S Disagreements about Iraq provoked the worst downturn in U.S.-Turkish relations since the 1974 Cyprus crisis. Ross Wilson was U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan from 2000 to 2003 and to Turkey from 2005 to 2008. A career Foreign Service officer, he also served in Moscow, Prague, Mel- bourne and Washington, D.C. He retired in 2008 and is a visiting lecturer at The George Washington University.