based on the Asia Times article
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID14Ak02.htmlA controversial interview with Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani by Al-Arabiya television last weekend may convey a superficial impression that events in northern Iraq could be spinning beyond the control of the United States.
Barzani has always been outspoken in asserting the Kurdish people's rights of national self-determination, but this time he was out of line, threatening that he would stoke the fires of Kurdish
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Israel, of course, has an old connection with the Kurds of northern Iraq. According to Seymour Hersh, Israeli intelligence uses northern Iraq for staging subversive activities inside Iran. Hersh wrote in The New Yorker magazine three years ago that Israel also has its eyes on the fabulous oil and gas fields in the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq. Southern Kurdistan alone is estimated to hold 45 billion barrels of oil and 100 trillion cubic meters of gas.
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The Israeli presence in the Kurdish areas has inevitably cast its shadows on Turkey's relations with Israel. Recently, Israel has also been unhappy over the Erdogan government's dealings with the Hamas-led Palestinian government and with Tehran. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently invited Palestinian Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to visit Ankara.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID14Ak06.htmlURKISH-IRAQI BORDER - "They shoot at us every night, from up there," Turkish Captain Imre said, pointing to the forbidding heights where Kurdish separatist fighters sustain a war of attrition. "Not really to kill us, but to harass our troops and let us know they're still there."
A patrol of a dozen Turkish conscripts lumbered up the snow-blanketed ridge to their small base perched at the edge of a steep precipice; Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq lay on the other side. They were fully exposed, and didn't seem to care.
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This pledge took on new meaning on Thursday when hawkish General Yasar Buyukanit, head of Turkey's military general staff, said a military operation in northern Iraq "must be made" to rout the estimated 4,000 PKK militants hiding there. Turkey maintains it has the right to make such an incursion under international law, although it has reportedly sought permission from the Baghdad government.
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Gonzales must have helped with their idea of international law Preemptive takes on new meaning