Iraq: The Turkish Factor

The Congressional Research Service, a department of the Library of Congress, conducts research and analysis for Congress on a broad range of national and international policy issues. Some of the CRS work is carried out specifically for individual members of Congress or their staff and is confidential. However, there is also much CRS compiled material which is considered public but is not formally published on the CRS website.

For that reason a number of other organisations try to keep track of these publications and make them publicly available via their own websites. Currently, ESO uses the following websites to track these reports and allow access to them in ESO:

EveryCRSReport.com
Federation of American Scientists (FAS)

In some cases hyperlinks allows you to access all versions of a report, including the latest. Note that many reports are periodically updated.Turkey will likely be pivotal to any U.S. military operation against Iraq, but it has many concerns. Foremost, it seeks to preserve Iraq’s territorial integrity and prevent the emergence of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq. It wants its linguistic/ethnic kin in that region, the Iraqi Turkomans, to be fairly represented in a future government. Turkey also is worried about the economic consequences of a war, especially since it is just recovering from a devastating recession.

Finally, it is concerned about the possibilities for a humanitarian refugee crisis and regional instability. The Bush Administration is consulting closely with Turkish officials to assuage their concerns and has provided increased economic assistance while attempting to enhance trade through (free trade) qualified industrial zones in H.R. 5385. Turkey expects still greater rewards for its support. See also CRS Report RL31429, Turkey: Issues for U.S. Policy and CRS Report RL31339, Iraq: U.S. Efforts to Change the Regime. This report will be updated if developments warrant.

EveryCRSReport.com https://www.everycrsreport.com/

Federation of American Scientists (FAS): Congressional Research Service [CRS] Reports https://fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html

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