[NYTr] Bush Envoy on PKK Issue Resigns over US Policy Failures

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

McClatchy - Nov 1, 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/21032.html

Former envoy: U.S. driving Turkey, Iran together

by Warren P. Strobel

WASHINGTON — The retired general who served as President Bush's special
envoy to deal with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said the United
States has failed to keep its promises to Turkey to confront the
Kurdish terrorist group, and Turkey may feel that it has no choice but
to attack the PKK's sanctuary in northern Iraq.

Retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, in a brief interview, declined
to say why he stepped down several weeks ago. But published reports
have said that he was frustrated by the Bush administration's failure
to act against the PKK.

In his first extended comments since his departure, Ralston told
McClatchy Newspapers that the United States is unwittingly "driving,
strategically, the Turks and the Iranians together" because both
nations share concerns about violent Kurdish separatist groups.

"The U.S. government should make good on the commitments they have made
to the Turks," Ralston said.

Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States, while the United States and
Iran are increasingly in confrontation across a range of issues.

The White House and the U.S. military have appeared leery about opening
a new front in the war in Iraq — particularly in generally stable
northern Iraq — by launching assaults against the PKK. Neither the
U.S.-backed Iraqi government nor the semiautonomous Kurdish Regional
Government has shown any inclination to go after the group.

The officer who commands U.S. forces in northern Iraq, Maj. Gen.
Benjamin Nixon, last week said he planned to do "absolutely nothing" to
curb PKK activities.

Ralston, a vice chairman of the Washington-based Cohen Group, a
consulting firm, said the statement was "directly opposite" promises
Bush has made to Turkey.

Asked whether the Turkish military would invade northern Iraq, which
PKK fighters use to launch attacks into Turkey, Ralston said: "They're
going to have to, in the absence of the U.S. doing anything."