By IPS Correspondents
WASHINGTON, May 30 2008 (IPS)

An intensifying fight between Turkey and a reorganised Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) threatens to introduce a new element of instability to the Middle East at a time when some of the most chronic crises in the region are taken on by regional actors, ironically with Turkey itself playing a key role as a peace mediator.

That has left the United States in a dilemma over whether to continue with its traditional policy of giving a green-light for a militaristic approach by Turkey to deal with the long-standing Kurdish issue, or to pressure its longtime ally to try harder for a political solution.

Turkish and PKK sources have claimed since the start of this year to have killed hundreds and dozens from the other side, respectively, signifying the resurgence of old hostilities in the region.

“We are at the threshold of a most critical era in terms of the PKK’s influence,” wrote Mehmet Ali Birand, a prominent Turkish columnist, in the May 29 English-language Turkish Daily News, acknowledging the potentially destabilising consequences of the current conflict.

While Turkey appeared triumphant after the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999, it has witnessed an escalation of attacks by Kurdish insurgents since 2007, raising fears that the country might be plunged into a new era of intra Turk-Kurd fighting reminiscent of 1980s and 1990s.

The fight between the PKK and Turkey has claimed around 40,000 lives over two decades. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by Ankara and dozens of western countries, including the U.S. and European Union members.

“It’s clear that PKK has reorganised itself. I was in Europe recently… and I was amazed how much stronger the PKK is,” said Aliza Marcus, a journalist and author of ”Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.”

”[PKK] has regained the support of many Kurds who are not necessarily outright PKK supporters but do not see another option,” Marcus said.

As Turkey made international headlines last week for its role in bringing Syria and Israel, two longstanding foes, to the negotiating table, 1,000 Kurdish figures, ranging from parliamentarians to PKK affiliates, called on the EU and the U.S. in a statement to appoint an international mediator to resolve the Kurdish question in Turkey.

With Turkey’s strategic weight increasing in the eyes of policy-makers in Washington – among other things, due to the need for a more solid partnership with Turkey over Iran’s nuclear programme and rising influence in the Middle East, and U.S. pressure on Turkey to contribute more troops to fight a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan – any prospects of instability within its NATO ally’s borders could significantly harm U.S. designs for the region as a whole.

There is a strong likelihood that the fighting may spill over to neighbouring Iraq, where PKK’s headquarters are based. The evidence for that is ongoing as Turkey continues on a regular basis to conduct air raids into Iraq’s Kurdistan region in the north. That could drag Iraqi Kurds into the conflict as well.

Turkey launched a ground incursion last February into Iraqi Kurdistan amid initially consenting but increasingly apprehensive international reactions.

Fearing that the operation could destabilise the one relatively safe part of Iraq, Washington finally stepped in. U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates anxiously warned Turkey that if it will not blend military operations with ”economic and political measures”, then ”at a certain point the military efforts become less and less effective.”

”That represented a frustration on the part of the U.S. government that Turkey had for long promised reforms, and the idea was that after Ocalan was captured this would be the time for Turkey to make real changes when it came to the Kurdish issue and instead, Turkey did nothing,” said Marcus.

Meantime, the PKK can take on an even wider dimension by getting Iran involved in the process, as a PKK-affiliated organisation, known as the Party For Free Life in Kurdistan (PEJAK), is fighting Iran. PEJAK, which claims to have received aid from Washington, said it had killed at least eight Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen in clashes inside Iran this week.

While that could be happy news to the U.S., it has the potential to speed up Iranian-Turkish cooperation on the matter. That comes as the U.S. tries to distance Turkey from Iran as part of its policy to isolate Tehran at the regional and international levels.

As the prospects of a bigger conflict inside Turkey and its spillover to regional countries get graver, some are suggesting that Turkey has to take its Kurdish issue more seriously. An early sign of that realisation is beginning to take shape in Turkey as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the allocation of 12 billion dollars to develop the economy of the Kurdish-dominated region of southeast Turkey.

Saying that Erdogan’s economic development plan was not enough, Najmaddin Karim – whose Washington Kurdish Institute was a signatory to the statement by the 1,000 Kurdish figures – noted, “The issue of Kurds in Turkey is a political issue and an issue of identity and has to be addressed as such.”

”The thing is that the Kurdish question is like the genie that is out of bottle now and can’t be put back into the bottle anymore,” said Karim.

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