The warning

IRAQI Kurds who helped US forces topple Saddam Hussein are threatening to turn their guns against their old enemy, Turkey, if Ankara sends troops to Iraq at Washington’s request. The warning came yesterday as Iraq’s interim leaders told the Americans they do not want peacekeepers from Turkey or other neighbouring countries but were willing to soften their opposition to avoid a confrontation with Washington. The Turkish parliament’s decision on Tuesday to authorise the sending of Turkish peacekeepers to join the coalition was applauded in Washington, which is anxious to bring in more troops to ease the burden on the 130,000 American soldiers. However, the decision upset many Iraqis because of the legacy of 400 years of Turkish colonial domination of what is now Iraq. Opposition to the Turks runs deepest in the north, where Iraq’s minority Kurds have watched ethnic cousins across the border in south-eastern Turkey wage an on-off separatist guerrilla war in recent decades, in part from bases in northern Iraq.