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ISTANBUL - The
proposed Iraqi constitution that would enshrine a
measure of independence for the country's ethnic
Kurds is viewed with apprehension by three neighbors
already struggling to accommodate the aspirations of
their own Kurdish populations.
Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq each share a portion of
the mountainous expanse of the Middle East long
inhabited by ethnic Kurds, who are thought to number
around 27 million. A minority in each country, the
Kurds are united by language, vibrant customs and an
abiding sense of grievance over being denied a
country of their own. They were promised one as the
victors began drawing lines on maps after World War
I, but when the ink dried, Kurdistan had been
divided among four other countries.
Then three Great Powers -- the United States,
Britain and France -- returned to the region in
1991, to fight the Persian Gulf War. It ended with
Kurds in Iraq's rugged north essentially left alone
to rule themselves under the protection of U.S. and
British air patrols. Twelve years later, their
enclave served as a staging ground for the 2003
invasion.
On Saturday, voters across Iraq will decide on a
constitution that would acknowledge Kurdish
quasi-independence as the law of the land. The
document offers legal sanction to an extensive
autonomy that already has inspired hopes among Kurds
looking on intently from the east, north and west.
In Syria, where Kurds account for about 9 percent of
the population of 18 million, the north of the
country has been tense since rioting broke out in
several Kurdish cities in March 2004. The unrest,
which left at least 30 dead after government troops
opened fire, began at a soccer game where Kurds'
chants of "George Bush!" were answered by Arabs'
chants of "Long live Saddam Hussein!"
"The Kurds were clearly emboldened by what was
happening in Iraq," said Joshua Landis, a University
of Oklahoma historian who is in Syria as a Fulbright
scholar. He noted that the soccer game occurred just
after Washington endorsed Iraqi laws that gave Kurds
veto power over a new constitution.
"In a sense, this just changed the whole environment
among the Kurds, because it was seen as the U.S.
endorsing Kurdish independence," Landis said.
In the aftermath of the unrest, Syrian security
forces clamped down on travel by outsiders to
Kurdish areas. But Damascus also began to invest
there and even floated the possibility of restoring
full citizenship to some 300,000 Kurds stripped of
that status decades earlier.
Analysts said the gesture stalled amid fears that
Kurds would form an alliance with other groups
opposing the Baathist rule of President Bashar Assad.
The intrigues grew with the murder last May of a
prominent Kurdish sheik, Mashuq Khasnawi, who had
openly solicited alliance with the Muslim
Brotherhood, an Arab group with roots in political
Islam that is banned in Syria.
A government spokeswoman said Syria had no official
comment on Iraq's proposed constitution.
Iran faced mass demonstrations in several
majority-Kurdish cities this summer, sparked by the
death in police custody of a Kurdish activist whose
body security agents dragged behind a truck in
Mahabad, a center of Kurdish nationalism. Activists
said that helicopter gunships opened fire on crowds
in another city, a charge that Iran denied.
"What is going on in Iraq has a significant effect
in Iran, especially in Kurdish Iran," said Morteza
Esfandiari, a Washington representative of the
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, which seeks
independence. "The border is pretty loose."
Many of the perhaps 6 million Kurds in Iran complain
of neglect by the country's Persian majority, a
complaint shared by other ethnic minorities.
Esfandiari said five groups, including ethnic Azeris
and Baluchs from the desert southeast, have banded
together in a Congress of Iranian Nationalities for
Federalism.
Such expressions of diversity undercut the image of
Iran as a monolith defined by Shiite Islam. But
because the vast majority of Iraqis are Shiites,
Iran's theocratic government generally favors the
constitution that will empower them, said Hamid Reza
Haji Babaei, an Iranian lawmaker quoted on a
parliament Web site.
Iran's main concern about the Iraqi document
involved "the integrity of the country in a new
federalist form," Babaei said, citing Kurdish
separatist activity in Iran's own past. As for
"unrest in Kurdish towns and cities in Iran after
the draft of Iraq's constitution was published," as
Mahabad's Gov. Seyed Maroof Samadi described the
unrest to the government press agency IRNA, the
blame was on "adventurous individuals."
Turkey brings the most painful recent history to the
issue of Kurdish independence. It fought a civil war
against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party,
known by the Kurdish initials PKK, in the country's
vast southeast through the 1990s. Both the Turkish
army and the PKK still have garrisons in northern
Iraq, and the PKK resumed fighting inside Turkey
last year. Five Turkish soldiers have been killed in
clashes this week.
After complaining for two years that U.S. forces
were not moving against the PKK's bases in Iraq,
Turkish officials say they have found common ground
with Washington, which has begun quietly targeting
PKK infrastructure.
At the same time, Turkey has built new bridges to
Syria and Iran based on their common interest in
containing Kurdish ambitions. The rapprochement with
Syria is especially striking. After decades of
estrangement over border issues and Syrian support
for the PKK, the countries exchanged state visits
for the first time in decades.
"Our shared concern is to have a stable neighbor
with stable borders in order not to have chaos in
the region," said Ahmet Davutoglu, foreign policy
adviser to Turkey's prime minister.
Relations are even more complex on the Kurdish side
of the equation. Iraq's Kurdish parties have
shifting histories of dependence on the governments
of Syria and Iran from their days as exile groups
aligned against Saddam Hussein. Now that Iraqi Kurds
hold key positions in Baghdad, including the
presidency, their duties include capturing wayward
Kurdish guerrillas who cross over from Iran.
"We've had our pesh merga handed over to the Islamic
Republic of Iran" by Iraqi Kurds, said Esfandiari,
referring to Kurdish militiamen. "So it is very
complex."
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