OIL CAUGHT BETWEEN TURKEY & KURDS

Oil Victim Of Turkey, Kurd Fight
Ben Lando, April 18, 2007 (UPI)

WHO
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Turkey’s government, Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (President Masoud Barzani)

WHAT
Long standing tensions between the Kurds and Turks were unleashed when Saddam Hussein was taken down and the Kurdish region of Iraq became semi- or defacto- autonomous. The PKK, a rebel group using terrorist methods such as mines and bombs within Turkey, is working for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan made up of Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Turkey has threatened to send its military into the Kurdish region in pursuit of its opponents. The Turkish military is reportedly massing on the border though the US, the EU and Arab states oppose an invasion.

WHEN
16 PKK soldiers/terrorists were killed in Turkish Kurdistan April 15. Exchanges between the two governments have escalated in the last 2 weeks.

WHERE
The Turkey/Iraq border region of Kurdistan, especially around the city of Kirkuk and in Iraq's Qandil Mountains

WHY
The northern region has almost 40 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. Historically, Kurds were the dominant majority in the region of Turkmen, Christians and Arab Muslims. The joining of Kirkuk, with its large oil resources, to the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq threatens Turkey’s sense of control over its own Kurdish population.

QUOTES
- "If the Turks intervene and there are pitched battles in the north -- the Turks chasing the PKK and the Iraqi Kurds taking a stand against it -- then clearly it's bound to affect not just the transportation but also the production of oil," said Bulent Aliriza, a Turkey and Caspian oil expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies, where he is director of the Turkey Project.
- "It's clearly a short-term loss for the Iraqi oil industry, whatever happens, whether the Turks invade or just threaten to invade," said Alex Turkeltaub, managing director of Frontier Strategy Group, a global natural-resource consultancy. "It will certainly harm production if there were military action."
- "The sector is so bad that you don't need to do much to hurt it now," said Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, which publishes the Iraq Pipeline Watch Web site that tracks attacks on Iraq's oil sector (at least 399 from June 2003 to Feb. 27, 2007). "Anything that adds uncertainty or lack of security will just make things worse."