Turkey Involved in Saddam’s Gassing of the Kurds?

Many of the critics of the Coalition war plan have seemed to have forgotten Turkey’s role in the Spring of 2003 in preventing the planned deployment of the 4th Infantry Division.

The battle plan originally intended for the 4th ID to spearhead an advance into northern Iraq. The Turkish Parliament refused to grant permission for the operation and the division’s equipment remained offshore on ships, and eventually had to be re-routed through Kuwait after the invasion had started. The planned pincer move with the 3rd ID advancing from the south, and the 4th ID from the north never materialized, allowing Baathists loyalists to escape into Syria, and preventing the capture of Fedayin and AlQaeda operatives who were able to escape and blend into the local populations.

Turkey’s role in the run-up to the war, as well as her hoped for membership in the EU, the large contingent of Turkish Army forces on the Iraqi border, and her ongoing oppression of the Kurdish poulation in the eastern provinces makes this story from Saddam Hussein’s trial even more intriguing.

 

From News 24 : Evidence relating to Saddam Hussein’s alleged use of poison gas against Kurdish civilians was given to his genocide trial in secret on Thursday, so as not to embarrass Turkey. 

After seeing a string of memos issued by Saddam’s chief of staff in 1988 ordering “special ammunition” attacks, the court cut off its microphones while studying documents relating to Iraq’s northern neighbour.

“We will now cut the microphones because this concerns Iraqi-Turkish relations,” said chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, who then presented various documents while the sound in the reporters’ box was cut off.

No details were given of the evidence presented in this part of the trial, nor was it explained how it touched on Turkey.

 

It’s interesting that the American and the European media have reported little, if anything about Turkey’s role in this. If Turkey had a role in Saddam’s massacre of the Kurds, then it should be disclosed, and that involvement should weigh heavily in Turkey’s membership petition to the EU.