The Turkish buildup led Syria to expel PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan,
then based in Damascus, and he was captured several months later and brought
to Turkey for trial. At the time, Yalman commanded the Turkish Second Army,
which had deployed along the Syrian border.
On Wednesday, Turkish commandos, backed by an attack helicopter,
launched an exercise on Mount Cudi near the Iraqi border as part of
preparations for an operation against PKK strongholds. About 100 commandos
trained in scaling the cliffs near PKK camps in the Kandil mountains.
"We have decided that soldier-to-soldier relations should start, and not
diplomat-to-diplomat," Turkish President Abdullah Gul said.
Most of Turkey's former senior commanders have supported an invasion of
Iraq despite the flight of PKK fighters from camps in Iraq's Kandil
mountains. They said a Turkish military operation would deter Ankara's
adversaries throughout the region.
"A cross-border military operation wouldn't finish off the PKK," former
Turkish Chief of Staff [Ret.] Gen. Hilmi Ozkuk said. "Does that mean that it
wouldn't serve any purpose? Of course not. You would be demonstrating
political will, your determination to finish the job, and your refusal to
allow the organization to do as it pleased."
Some of the former commanders said Turkey could renew its claim to
northern Iraq. [Ret.] Gen. Kenan Evran, a chief of staff and president until
1989, told the Milliyet daily that Ankara considered annexing northern Iraq
in 1990 as the United States prepared to invade Iraq.
Evran said Ozal had examined a proposal for the Turkish military to
capture Mosul and Kirkuk, which belonged to the Ottoman empire. He said the
opposition of the Turkish General Staff led Ozal to shelve his plans.
"He [then Prime Minister Turgut Ozal] came to visit me at home and
asked: 'What do you say to us entering the north during the U.S. military
operation and settling the problem of Mosul?" Evren recalled. "I told him
not to do any such thing. It would have been a very difficult operation and
once there we would have got bogged down. We would have had the whole Arab
world against us. I understood that Ozal's real target was the oil in Mosul
and Kirkuk."
