Kurds warned Wednesday that the sending of Turkish troops to Iraq will only stoke division in a country already burdened by daily fighting between US forces and guerrilla fighters.
"We are absolutely opposed to the sending of Turkish troops in Iraq. The population is going to react," said Bruska Shuways, deputy commander of the Kurdish peshmerga, or irregular army, in the northwestern province of Arbil.
"Neighbouring countries will be working for their own interests as opposed to Iraq's. The Turks will act against the Kurds and by extension Iraq," said Shuways, a top aide of Massoud Barzani, the head of Arbil's ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
The Kurds and Turkey have a tortuous history, with both sides deeply distrustful and suspicious of one another.
And while Iraq's Kurdish parties now have a regular dialogue with Ankara, the pending Turkish deployment could very well strain the fragile relations and threatens to stir up the past, notably Turkish claims to the northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.
Although Turkey has operated in and around the Arbil-Turkish border since the 1990s, as it looked to hunt down the Turkish-Kurdish rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK-Kadek) movement, a large contingent of troops - up to 10,000 could be deployed - is clearly seen as a threat by the Kurds.
For their part, the Turks are wary of a strong federalist Kurdish state that could inspire its own restive Kurdish population.
Ankara is currently in talks with Washington on a strategy to wipe out around 5,000 PKK-Kadek members operating in camps in Iraqi Kurdistan.
"The sending of Turkish troops will cause a great damage to our country, both to relations between Iraq and Turkey, and the Kurds and Turkey," read an editorial in the KDP's Al-Taakhi newspaper Wednesday.
"Turkey is against a federalist Iraq," it said.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), controlling the eastern Sulaimaniyah province, had a similar reaction.
"The presence of foreign military forces in Iraq will not guarantee security for the Iraqi people, but will be a factor for the deterioration in the security situation," Barham Saleh, the prime minister in Sulaimaniyah was quoted as saying in Al-Sabah newspaper Tuesday.
"Turkish troops will face some difficulties if they enter Iraq, because the majority of Iraqi groups do not want any military participation from any neighbouring country," he said.
Saleh, who was in Ankara conveying a message to Turkey from PUK leader Jalal Talabani, stressed Turkish economic participation was welcome in Iraq, just not Ankara's soldiers.
Even in the countdown to the US invasion, the Kurds were fiercely against a Turkish deployment, which was squelched when Turkey's parliament blocked the measure.
And in the post-Saddam era, Turkey has raised Kurdish suspicions amid allegations the Turkish military was arming Iraq's minority Turkmen population.
In the northern city of Mosul, Kurds were clearly unhappy Wednesday.
"The Kurds in Turkey have had their language abolished and Kurdish politicians are not allowed to appear in Turkey's parliament," said Faid Alah Khalid, 24, of the Islamic Union of Kurdistan's student league.
"We think the Turks would do the same in Iraq. Everybody in Iraq hates the Turkmen, but we welcome the Americans."
Uday Yussif, 24, a Christian policeman, said: "There's no problem for us if the Turks enter Iraq, but maybe there will be trouble for other people. Some of the Kurds will accept them, but a large number will refuse them."
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