President George W. Bush Wednesday strongly urged Turkey not to carry out cross-border strikes on Kurdish separatists in Iraq, even as the Turkish parliament voted to authorize such an incursion.However, Turkey is not listening. Their parliament voted to authorize the incursion:
"We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq," Bush said at a White House press conference.
"There's a better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops into the country -- massive additional troops into the country," the president said.
"We are actively involved with the Turks and the Iraqis, through a tripartite arrangement, and we'll continue ... dialoguing with the Turks," Bush said.
Bush also noted that Iraqi government had told Turkey it was determined to act against the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Turkey's parliament has given permission for the government to launch military operations into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels.Well, I guess Nancy Pelosi is happy. She has de-stabilized another important alliance in the MidEast, even though it appears more people are wising up to the stupidity of the Turkey resolution:
The vote was taken in defiance of pressure from the US and Iraq, which have called on Turkey for restraint.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the motion does not mean a military operation is imminent.
But he said Turkey needed to be able to respond to a recent rise in bomb attacks blamed on PKK rebels from Iraq.
Turkish MPs backed him overwhelmingly, by 507 votes to 19.
As the vote was being counted, President George W Bush strongly urged America's Turkish ally not to carry out the threatened action.
Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution supported by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago.However, it appears to be coming too little, too late...typical of Democrats. They never ever think about the consequences of their image-building actions...until it is too late.
Almost a dozen lawmakers had shifted against the measure over the last 24 hours, accelerating a sudden exodus that has cast deep doubt over the measure's prospects. Some representatives made clear that they were heeding warnings from the White House, which has called the measure dangerously provocative, and from the Turkish government, which has said House passage would prompt Turkey to reconsider its ties to the United States, including logistical support for the Iraq war.
Until today, the resolution appeared to be on a path to House passage, with strong support from the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California. It was approved last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But this evening, a group of group of senior House Democrats had made it known they were planning to ask the leadership to drop plans for a vote on the measure.
"Turkey obviously feels they are getting poked in the eye over something that happened a century ago, and maybe this isn't a good time to be doing that," said Representative Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat who dropped his sponsorship of the resolution Monday night.
Others who took the same action said that while they deplored the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, beginning in 1915, the modern-day consequences in the Middle East could not be overlooked.
"We simply cannot allow the grievances of the past — as real as they may be — to in any way derail our efforts to prevent further atrocities for future history books," said Representative Wally Herger, Republican of California.
Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats--Undermining our Troops Since 2003.
