Turkey is not helping

From the department of just-calm-down-everybody:

Turkey's parliament has given permission for the government to launch military operations into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels.

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.

This sort of thing is not going to help anybody. I don't know whether the Turkish Parliament made this decision based upon the recent US congress decision to recognise and condemn the Armenian massacre, or whether this has been a long time coming.

Turkey really needs to look at how to defuse the situation with its Kurdish minority. Sending out troops to attack Kurds in Iraq is hardly going to please Kurds living in Turkey.

If Turkey wishes to join the European Union (which I earnestly hope they will), they need to start acting like a civilised European nation. They should do the following:

• Secure their borders much more that what they are now.
• Publicly denounce any sort of violence against Kurds in Turkey and reiterate that they are part of Turkey's people.
• Set up health and education programs amongst Turkish Kurds (who I understand are living in poverty compared to the rest of Turkey).
• Ask the United Nations to send troops to the Iraqi side of the border to act as peacekeepers. Using Turkish troops to do this would constitute an invasion.
• Ask the United Nations to set up poverty-reducing measures amongst Kurds in Northern Iraq that is funded mainly by Turkish money.