Analysis: Turkey-Iraq spat may hit energy

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) — As Washington, Baghdad and Ankara intensively seek a last-minute diplomatic solution to Turkey’s intention to invade Iraqi Kurdistan to deal a decisive blow to Kurdistan Workers Party guerrillas, the ominous consequences of an invasion are becoming clearer.

While a Turkish military operation carries the possibility of inflaming the one remaining area of Iraq relatively free of insurgent operations against coalition forces, the destabilization produced by an attack could quickly spread far beyond northern Iraq to engulf eastern Turkey’s regions, which have a significant Kurdish population, and threaten not only Iraqi oil exports but a significant portion of Caspian production as well — both the Kirkuk-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipelines terminate at the same Turkish Mediterranean port.
There are already clear indications that PKK militants are considering attacking energy assets if a Turkish military offensive is directed against them. In seeking to avert a Turkish military assault, the PKK’s Abd-al-Rahman Chadarchi told Al-Sharq al-Awsat in a telephone interview that in such an instance his group would assault oil targets “since they bring huge amounts of money to Turkey.”

“The military regime in the country will use this (energy revenues) to develop its war machine to utilize it against the Kurdish people in Turkish Kurdistan,” he told the paper.

On Oct. 20, Kurdish Roj TV carried an interview with PKK Executive Council Chairman Murat Karayilan in which he said: “If you want to prevent an attack by an opposing force, the first thing to do is weaken that force’s resources. It is highly likely that the guerrillas will attack the oil pipelines transiting Kurdistan because they provide the economic funding for the Turkish army’s aggression.”

With oil prices hovering around $90 a barrel, the consequences of such a clash on the global economy are ominous and nowhere is this better understood than in Ankara — Turkey imports around 90 percent of its energy needs. Furthermore, Turkey in the past has taken massive financial losses from a cessation in the flow of Iraqi oil to Botas’ Ceyhan terminal. During eight years of U.N.-imposed sanctions on Saddam Hussein