Turkey is preparing to invade Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Iraq — against American wishes.

Turkish troops are already shelling Kurdish positions across the border. The executive branch will submit a request to parliament some time this week for a larger ground invasion.

Turkey says it is targeting separatists allied to the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). The two sides have exchanged more than two dozen casualties each in border skirmishes over the past several weeks.

They have fought each other since 1984, mainly inside Turkey. The fighting has resulted in more than 40,000 deaths and about two million Kurdish refugees in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

The United States and Turkey both say the PKK are terrorists. The PKK says it is an army fighting a war against Turkey.

Ground strike

Any Turkish ground strike on the few PKK bases in Iraq would have to pass through several Iraqi cities and over several mountains. But despite a joint security agreement aimed at squeezing the PKK’s funding and resources, Iraqi negotiators have stopped short of letting Turkey inside its borders.

The US has urged Turkey to continue to act in concert with the Iraqi government but Turkey is not in a mood to listen. For months the US has promised Turkey that it would keep a lid on PKK activity in the north, with little effect.

Genocide

The US congress, meanwhile, is on the verge of passing a resolution declaring that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War I was a genocide. Turkey has lobbied hard to defeat it.

The roots of Kurdish resistance to Turkish rule grow from decades of ethnic and economic repression. Until 1991, Kurdish music, language, fashion and newspapers were all banned in Turkey.

The PKK’s demands include a further easing of language restrictions, an amnesty for PKK fighters and the right of PKK leaders to be exiled in Europe.

Since 1980, the US has sold or given Turkey, a NATO ally, more than $15 billion of weaponry.

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