22^nd October 2007

Turkey will launch military action against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq despite frantic appeals for restraint from America and Nato, its Prime Minister has told The Times.

Speaking hours before the PKK, the Kurdish Workers’ Party, killed at least 17 more Turkish soldiers yesterday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey had urged the US and Iraqi governments repeatedly to expel the separatists but they had done nothing. Turkey’s patience was running out and the country had every right to defend itself, he said. “Whatever is necessary will be done,” he declared in an interview. “We don’t have to get permission from anybody.”

Mr Erdogan, who begins a two-day visit to Britain today, also offered a bleak assessment of relations between the US and Turkey, a country of huge strategic importance to Washington. He said that a “serious wave of antiAmericanism” was sweeping Turkey, called America’s war in Iraq a failure, and served warning that if the US Congress approved a Bill accusing the Ottoman Turks of genocide against Armenians during the First World War, the US “might lose a very important friend”.

The sombre and unsmiling Prime Minister was only a little less critical of the European Union, accusing some members of reneging on their promises to admit Turkey and claiming that the EU had inflicted a “big injustice” on his country over Cyprus.

Mr Erdogan’s belligerence will cause alarm in Washington and London, and was probably designed to do so. One aide said that he was engaging in “open diplomacy”. The Kurdish regional government, which has a force of about 100,000 men, has promised to resist any incursions. The PKK is threatening to destroy pipelines carrying Iraqi oil to Turkey, and the only peaceful region of Iraq could easily be plunged into chaos.

A Turkish attack on PKK bases in northern Iraq would also cause a serious breach with Washington. Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country of 75 million people, has Nato’s second-largest army, is a key ally in America’s “war on terror” and provides a vital supply route for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Late last night Mr Erdogan said that Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, had asked Turkey to delay any action for a few days. He told Dr Rice he expected “speedy action” from the US.

But in his interview with The Times Mr Erdogan was in no mood to heed Western appeals for restraint. The PKK was hiding behind the US and Iraqi governments, he complained. It was using American weapons. “We have told President Bush numerous times how sensitive we are about this issue but have not had a single positive result.”

The targets were not innocent civilians or Iraq’s territorial integrity but a terrorist organisation that regularly attacked Turkish targets, he said. “If a neighbouring country is providing a safe haven for terrorism . . . we have rights under international law and we will use those rights and we don’t have to get permission from anybody.”

Military action could be avoided only if the Americans and Iraqis expelled the PKK, closed its camps and handed over its leaders, he said.

Mr Erdogan said that last week’s parliamentary vote authorising military action showed that Turkey’s patience was exhausted. He would not be drawn on the scale or timing of any operation, but Turkey is thought to have more than 60,000 soldiers massed along the Iraq border. Other Turkish officials said that the PKK had six training camps and 3,500 fighters in the mountains of northern Iraq.

Mr Erdogan also rebukedThe Times for publishing an interview last week with Murat Karayilan, a PKK leader in northern Iraq. He said that the newspaper had allowed itself to be “used as a propaganda tool”.

Mr Erdogan will speak in Oxford tonight and meet Gordon Brown tomorrow. He is likely to rebuke the US on several counts. He said that the war in Iraq had fuelled Turkish hostility towards the US. “There’s no success that I can see,” he said. “There’s only the deaths of tens of thousands of people. There’s just an Iraq whose entire infrastructure and superstructure has collapsed.”

He accused the Democrat-controlled foreign affairs committee of “firing a bullet” at US-Turkish relations by approving the “so-called Armenian genocide Bill”. “America might lose a very important friend,” he said.

Mr Erdogan also had harsh words for some European countries. France, Germany and Austria are openly opposed to Turkish membership of the EU. He said that Britain had supported Turkey from the start, but other states who agreed to open accession talks in 2005 were “not standing by their word”. He said that Turkey was “far more advanced” than the most recent entrants from Central Europe.

He identified Cyprus as the main obstacle, and said that the EU perpetrated a “big injustice towards Turkey and the [Turkish] northern Cypriots”. In a referendum in 2004 Turkish Cypriots approved a UN plan to reunite the island whereas the Greek Cypriots rejected it. He protested that the Greek Cypriots were rewarded for their obstinacy with EU membership while the Turks were punished.

The interview took place in an office with a spectacular view towards Asia. Despite his criticism Mr Erdogan insisted that Turkey had decided irrevocably to throw in its lot with the West, and not with Russia and the East.