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Behind the Turkey-Kurdish Conflict 19.10.2007
By Stephen John Morgan |
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October
19, 2007
At the end of the 1st World War their territories
fell victim to the redrawing of the map of the
Middle East leaving them dived and stateless.
The Kurds are an ancient people tracing their roots
back to 3000 B.C. With over 40 million Kurds
estimated to be spread out in a arc of territory
stretching from Syria across Turkey and Iran, they
are considered to be the world’s largest ethnic
group without their own homeland.
At the end of the 1st World War their territories
fell victim to the redrawing of the map of the
Middle East leaving them dived and stateless. They
have survived because of their national pride and
culture, which, despite differences in linguistic
dialects, allow them to share a common language,
folklore, music and festivals distinct from their
Arabic, Persian and Turkish oppressors.
For the last century they have resisted all attempts
to viciously suppress their identity from banning of
their language and the right to hold Kurdish names
as in Turkey, who until recently refused to even
recognize their existence as distinct form other
Turks. And worse still when they became the victims
of mass killings during the regime of Saddam
Hussein.
But times are changing and largely because of the
relative peace and prosperity enjoyed in the
autonomous region of northern Iraqi Kurdistan. Ever
since 1991, they have enjoyed a level of
self-government through the British and US no-fly
zone and since the fall of Hussein the country has
flourished economically, politically and culturally.
Although key participants in the Iraqi government,
they already enjoy virtual independence. They have
control over their own substantial oil fields and
the Army and Police are made up overwhelmingly of
former Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga guerrillas –
ferocious mountain fighters over whom the central
Iraqi government and military has no control or
capacity to challenge and whom the US has had to
depend on for cooperation in sustaining peace in the
North.
Turkey charges that the Iraqi Kurdish authorisations
are harbouring and allowing thousands PKK guerrillas
(Turkish separatist Kurdish insurgents) on their
territory from which they are able to find safe
haven, raise finances, take advantage of the
possibilities to organize and to instigate cross
border raids on Turkey across the Candil mountains
which separate the two countries. Iran has also made
similar complaints against the Pejak group of
Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who are attacking Iran
and Iran has already retaliated with incursions and
attacks on their bases. (The Pejak group although
formerly a terrorist organisation is supported by
the CIA as part of US efforts to de-stabilize the
Iranian regime.)
In Eastern Turkey some 37,000 people have died in
the conflict over Kurdish rights. The PKK has
recently increased its attacks on Turkish troops and
civilian, the deaths of some 13 troops and 30
civilians recently has outraged Turkish public
opinion and added to pressure for Turkish incursions
and/or an all-out invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. Last
weeks vote by the Turkish parliament to give
permission to the Turkish army to invade or take any
measures necessary against the threat from the PKK
has stemmed from theses recent events.
However, the underlying reasons for Turkey
considering an invasion lie in the pole of
attraction, which Kurdish Iraq acts as for the 15
million Kurds within Turkey’s borders. Iraqi
Kurdistan attacks as a magnet drawing together the
Kurdish Diaspora and offering hope of a unified
independent homeland for all Kurds. This is
literally fuelled by the enormous oil wealth Iraqi
Kurdistan posses and which makes a homeland a
feasible economic, social and cultural potentiality.
www.ekurd.net
Although the present Kurdish leaders proclaim that
they are content with autonomy the situation remains
extremely volatile. Especially because of the
internal issue of Kirkuk, a city on the frontier of
Kurdistan which is largely Kurdish, but with large
Sunni and Shiite and Turkmen minorities. The city
has huge oil wealth and it will be subject to a
referendum before the end of the year, after which
it is likely that the Kurds will proclaim it their
capital instead of Erbil.
The inter-communal violence that may ensue is added
to the threat of Turkish incursions. Turkey is
vehemently opposed to Kirkuk becoming formerly Kurd
as it would be seen as the final jewel in the oil
crown that could lay the basis for overall
independence for Iraqi Kurdistan. This will
especially be the case if the situation in Southern
Iraq and the country as a whole continues to
deteriorate and the government is trapped in
stalemate, especially over the distribution of oil
wealth nationally.
An imminent invasion is not ruled out after the
parliamentary vote (some 507 to 19 in favour), but
the coming winter snows across the mountain ranges
makes it a less viable option than Spring time. It
is probable that incursions and attacks by Special
Forces will be stepped up with the use of aerial
bombardment at the moment. An all-out invasion would
not necessarily be successful and the Turkish troops
could find themselves as bogged down as US forces
are I the rest of Iraq.
Thousands of PKK guerrillas are said to be massing
in the mountains to counter-attack and if the Turks
were to invade they could find themselves in combat
with formidable and well-armed troops of the former
Iraqi Peshmerga guerrillas, with the official forces
of the Iraqi army and police, which they control,
engaging in combat with the Turks.
Mayhem would follow and the Iraqi government and US
forces would be helpless to intervene. Furthermore,
such an invasion, which is openly supported by
Syria, could embolden both Syrian and, especially
Iranian forces, to likewise invade, in order to
carve up the area between them - de facto-redrawing
the map of the centre of the Middle East.
The US and Iraq have vehemently opposed any moves
and have tried vainly to promise to somehow clamp
down on the PKK activities in the region. But these
are viewed as hollow promises, without the means or
will to back them up and measures which are already
to little and too late. To make matters worse the
recent vote in the Congress to name the mass murder
of Armenians by Turks in 1915 an act of genocide has
further infuriated Turkish sentiments and alienation
from the US. This could result in the closure of
vital air roots that supply some 70% of the US war
effort in Iraq, creating a logistical disaster for
the US.
The Kurdish issue will not be waved away by some
magic wand of diplomacy. War is inevitable at some
point in the near future. But fighting the proud and
aspiring Kurds may prove to be an even greater
debacle for the Turks and their neighbours than even
Iraq is for the US.
thecheers org
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