Ankara: The break-up of either Iraq or Syria could lead to global conflict, Turkey’s defence minister said on Tuesday as Turkish tanks deployed near the border with Iraq ahead of a planned Kurdish independence referendum.
“A change that will mean the violation of Iraq’s territorial integrity poses a major risk for Turkey,” Nurettin Canikli said.
“The disruption of Syria and Iraq’s territorial integrity will ignite a bigger, global conflict with an unseen end”.
Turkey, with a large Kurdish population of its own in the south of the country, fears that the independence referendum in Iraq could embolden the outlawed PKK which has waged an insurgency in the southeast since the 1980s.
Canikli said Ankara could not allow the formation of an ethnic-based state in the south of the country.
“Nobody should have any doubt that we will take every step, make every decision to stop the growth of risk factors,” he said.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey will consider imposing sanctions on Kurdish northern Iraq.
Erdogan, who is attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York, told world leaders on Tuesday that the referendum in northern Iraq could lead to fresh conflicts in the Middle East.
Speaking to reporters outside his hotel, Erdogan said Turkey’s national security council and cabinet would discuss potential sanctions on northern Iraq when they meet on Friday.
“As the national security council, we will advise the government on our decision. With it, the cabinet will meet and discuss this. It will both evaluate this and put forth their own stance on what kind of sanctions we can impose, or if we will, but these will not be ordinary,” Erdogan was quoted by Anadolu as saying.
Turkey has strong trade ties with northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government, which pumps hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day through Turkey and has approved plans for Russian oil major Rosneft to invest in pipelines to export gas to Turkey and Europe.
“We will announce our final thoughts on the issue with the cabinet meeting and national security council decision,” Erdogan said.
“I think it would be better if they saw this.”
Kidnapped officers
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has confirmed media reports that two Turkish intelligence officials have been captured by Kurdish rebels in neighbouring northern Iraq.
Cavusoglu’s comments, in an interview with Al Monitor news website on Monday, were the first confirmation by a Turkish official of Kurdish and other media reports that two National Intelligence Organisation agents were kidnapped by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, while on a mission in northern Iraq.
Cavusoglu said Turkey is working for the return of “all citizens that the PKK kidnapped,” adding that Ankara was not engaged in direct talks with the militant group “to bring back those two persons.”
Reports claimed the agents were captured during an anti-PKK operation in Iraq in August.
The group is considered a terror organisation by Turkey and its allies.
