PKK attack casts doubt on leadership

Family members react over the flag-draped coffin of Hasan Aygor, one of 15 Turkish soldiers killed Friday by Kurdish rebels at Turkey-Iraq border.

ISTANBUL // The military and the government in Turkey are coming under growing public pressure after Kurdish rebels killed at least 15 soldiers in a daring raid close to the Iraqi border. Turkish fighter jets attacked suspected positions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq on Saturday and again during the night from Sunday to yesterday in an effort to hit PKK fighters that took part in the attack on the military outpost in Aktutun in southeastern Anatolia on Friday, the general staff in Ankara said on its website. The Aktutun raid was one of the most serious blows by the PKK against the army since the rebels, who want more autonomy for Turkey's estimated 12 million Kurds, took up arms against Ankara in 1984. In the attack, the PKK surprised Turkish troops in Aktutun by launching a daylight onslaught with more than 300 fighters and by using heavy weapons firing from Iraqi territory. All but two of the 15 soldiers who died in the attack were killed as a result of the heavy weapons fire, the general staff said. Two other soldiers are still missing and may be dead, it added. The PKK said yesterday it had the bodies of the two soldiers. "Turkish public opinion doesn't take the short explanations any more," said Cengiz Aktar, a political scientist at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University. "There are several question marks about the efficiency of the Turkish army in people's minds." Public criticism of the military, one of the most trusted and revered institutions in the country, is rare in Turkey. But the Aktutun attack has led many commentators to question the generals' insistence to claim a political role as guardians of secularism besides their military tasks. "Is the Turkish military wasting its resources and energy on domestic political quarrels, leaving it ineffective against the PKK?" the English-language newspaper Today's Zaman asked yesterday. Over the weekend, funerals of soldiers killed in Aktutun turned into mass demonstrations throughout the country, with tens of thousands of people waving Turkish flags and shouting slogans against the PKK. There were also protests against leading politicians who took part in the funeral processions. In one such incident, Abdullah Gul, the president, and Kemal Unakitan, the finance minister, were booed in the western town of Eskisehir. "Why don't you solve this problem?" Nurettin Yildirim, the father of a soldier who was killed in Aktutun, asked a government minister at the funeral procession for his son in the eastern city of Erzurum, Turkish media reported yesterday. "How often has this outpost been attacked in the past? Why isn't anything being done about it?" Mr Yildirim was referring to previous PKK attacks in Aktutun, the first of which took place in 1992. More than 40 soldiers were killed there in five raids over the years, according to media reports. Gen Hasan Igsiz, Turkey's deputy chief of general staff, said during a briefing for Turkish reporters in Ankara that five military installations in exposed border regions, including the one in Aktutun, would be moved to other locations soon. In his briefing, Gen Igsiz was asked how it was possible for a large group of PKK rebels to launch a surprise attack in broad daylight on a position of the Turkish military, the second biggest fighting force in Nato after the US armed forces. Gen Igsiz answered that the PKK had gathered its fighters over time, with one small group arriving after another in the region before the attack, the daily Milliyet reported. Gen Igsiz insisted there had been no problem in intelligence co-operation between the Turkish and the US military in northern Iraq. Washington agreed last year to share real-time intelligence about movements of the PKK in northern Iraq with Ankara. But the general said Turkey had no help from the Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq. "We have no support at all from the northern Iraqi administration," he said. "Let aside any support, they are providing infrastructural capabilities such as hospitals and roads." But blaming the Iraqi authorities did not shield the Turkish military from criticism at home. The media reminded generals of their optimistic statements about Turkey's ability to monitor PKK movements in northern Iraq. Last December, Gen Yasar Buyukanit, the chief of general staff at the time, said PKK camps in northern Iraq were as transparent to Turkish intelligence as houses in the television show Big Brother, where participants are under constant surveillance of cameras, the newspaper Radikal said. Still, in Aktutun, the PKK was able to "stage a bloody attack from a 'Big Brother' house", the newspaper said. The daily Taraf, known for its critical attitude towards the military, said the army leadership had not done its job in Aktutun and had preferred to meddle in politics instead. Referring to a decision by high-ranking generals to boycott a major speech by Mr Gul in parliament last week because the military views Mr Gul as an Islamist, the newspaper, assuming the voices of the dead soldiers, asked on its front page yesterday: "Would we have died that day if the chief of general staff and the force commanders had dealt with Aktutun instead of protesting parliament?" In an effort to quell the rising criticism, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, said his government and the military were looking for solutions. Army outposts in remote areas would be strengthened, and his government would also take a fresh look at a comprehensive solution of the Kurdish conflict. "We will get together again and look at the road map" to end the conflict, Mr Erdogan said. "The problem does not only have a security dimension. We will also look at psychological, sociological, socio-economic, diplomatic dimensions and quickly take the necessary steps." Mr Erdogan gave no further details, but his government had earlier announced an investment programme for the Kurdish area and the creation of a new Kurdish television channel. Tomorrow, parliament in Ankara is expected to extend for another year a mandate for the army to launch military operations against the PKK over the border in northern Iraq. [e-mail]