Turkey's Policy Towards Northern Iraq

Iraq's Kurds are insisting that a federal Iraq grant them high levels of selfgovernment, including control over their own militia and parliament, that the oil-rich Kirkuk area (over which they already exercise considerable informal control) should be formally incorporated into the Kurdish zone, and that the 'Arabisation' policies of the former Ba'athist regime should be reversed. Indeed, they already enjoy considerable de facto control over the Kirkuk area. Ankara, for its part, has strongly signalled that excessive Kurdish autonomy and Kurdish control over Kirkuk are unacceptable, largely because of fears of the consequences for Turkey's Kurdish problem, and the possibility of Turkish military intervention has never been far away. This paper outlines the evolution of events in northern Iraq, and assesses the scenarios and options currently confronting Ankara, Washington and the Iraqi Kurds.