Turkey's powerful military flexed its muscles yesterday, saying an ethnic-based federation in neighbouring Iraq would be "difficult and bloody". It accused US forces there of failing to clamp down on Kurdish rebels.
"If there is a federal structure in Iraq on an ethnic basis, the future will be very difficult and bloody," Gen Ilker Basbug, the number two at the general staff, told reporters, adding that a federation based on geography would be better.
Gen Basbug was speaking 10 days before the Prime Minister, Mr Tayyip Erdogan, goes to Washington for talks with President Bush. These will focus on Iraq, Cyprus and international security.
Ankara has patched up relations with the US since its parliament voted against letting US forces attack Iraq from Turkish soil last year, and US troops are currently being rotated in and out of Iraq through a base in Turkey.
Democratic reforms have started to curb the power of the Turkish military, which has staged three coups and effectively forced an elected government from office as recently as 1997.
However tensions between the fiercely secular generals and Mr Erdogan's government, which has its roots in political Islam, are often bubbling below the surface.
Iraqi Kurds won autonomy in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf war. Now Kurdish leaders want to cement that autonomy under Iraq's new political system, while Arab and Turkmen residents bitterly oppose any such plan.
NATO-member Turkey fears Kurdish autonomy in Iraq could stir up similar aspirations among its own Kurdish minority, and has warned it would intervene if Iraqi Kurds declared independence.
The US has said the decision on a new political framework for the war-torn country rests with the Iraqis.
Gen Basbug also said the US was not doing enough to wipe out Turkish Kurd rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - named on Washington's list of terrorist organisations - who use Iraq as a base for cross-border attacks into Turkey. The conflict has killed more than 30,000 people in the past two decades, although the violence has ebbed since the 1999 arrest of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
"The US's fight against the PKK is not meeting our expectations in the current situation," Gen Basbag said. "Our view is that the US must start some military actions against the terror group within a short space of time." - (Reuters)