There is a very disturbing report about the use of chemical weapons by the Turkish military against Kurdish rebels. The ongoing war has led to many thousands of casualties, but the use of chemical weapons would be a outrage. The German magazine Spiegel has photographs purporting to show Kurdish fighters killed in September of 2009 by chemical weapons:
German experts have confirmed the authenticity of photographs that purport to show PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels. German politicians are demanding an investigation.
It would be difficult to exceed the horror shown in the photos, which feature burned, maimed and scorched body parts. The victims are scarcely even recognizable as human beings. Turkish-Kurdish human rights activists believe the people in the photos are eight members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) underground movement, who are thought to have been killed in September 2009.
If this is true it will force us to reexamine our relationship and alliances with Turkey. There was a long period of time where Turkey was held up as an example of a secular democracy in the Middle East. That has been changing at a fairly rapid pace since the ascendancy of Prime Minister Erdogan and his Islamist AKP party. He has made major changes to the leadership of the military which has long served to ensure that religious forces did not take control of the country. If the military now has seen fit to use chemical weapons it could portend major changes for the country as a whole.
Turkey is a NATO member and we share considerable amounts of military secrets with them. We are also planning on selling them our newest jet fighter the F-35. A radicalized Turkey should cause us to reconsider just how wise that is. When you include their deepening ties to the Iranian regime, it is fair to question just how much we can depend on them. All in all there is quite a bit of unsettling news coming out about Turkey and we ignore it at our peril.