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Kurdistan... the next new nation?
13.2.2007 |
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February 13, 2007
From New York Review comes this fairly lengthy (and
full) discussion on the history, present and future
of the Kurdistan region.
Turkey's longstanding fear, that the Kurdish federal
region in Iraq will declare independence, adding to
nationalist passions among its own Kurds, is shared
by Iran and Syria, the other countries that have
divided up the ancient region of Kurdistan. Shortly
before the US invaded Iraq, Iran started to change
its former policy of helping PKK militants as a
means of exerting pressure on Turkey.
Murat Karayilan complains that the Iranians and the
Syrians—who, under Turkish pressure, had already
reversed their own pro-PKK policy—frequently now
capture PKK militants and hand them over to Turkey.
Last summer, Iran and Turkey bombed camps in the
Kandil Mountains belonging to the PKK and the Party
for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), a PKK affiliate
dominated by Kurds from Iran, which started
launching attacks in 2004 on Iran's security forces.
Turkey's army massed menacingly on the Iraqi border.
In fear of a land invasion of their territory, and
encouraged, perhaps, by the US, the northern Iraqi
Kurds persuaded the PKK to announce its current
ceasefire, which is only partially observed.
The Turkish government's decision not to enter Iraq
shows how constrained it feels in comparison with
the final years of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship,
when it mounted large-scale annual operations in the
Kandil Mountains. Turkey is still feeling the
effects of its parliament's decision in 2003 to
refuse a US request to use Turkey as a launch pad
for the Iraq invasion. This decision infuriated the
Bush administration and limited Turkey's ability to
influence postwar Iraq. America's occupation of Iraq
has curtailed Turkey's freedom to move forces in and
out of Iraq when it likes; but the Americans have
not themselves taken action against the PKK in Iraq,
as Turkey has demanded.
It is not surprising that the US, engaged in a
demoralizing struggle against insurgents in Iraq's
Arab regions, has balked at starting a new offensive
in Kurdistan, the calmest part of the country,
against an organization that has never attacked it
and at the behest of a country that refused its
request for help three years ago. Turkey suspects
that Bush's appointment of Joseph Ralston, a retired
general, to come up with an anti-PKK policy
acceptable to the Iraqi and Turkish governments is a
smokescreen. More than four months have passed since
Ralston was named to his post, but a specially
formed contact group, with Turkish and Iraqi
representatives, has yet to meet.
If you visit the Kurdish federal region in Iraq,
with its own president, parliament, and flag, you
may come away, as I did, with the impression that it
is on the way to independence. "At this stage,"
Massoud Barzani, the region's president, told The
Wall Street Journal recently, "the parliament of
Kurdistan has decided to remain within a federal,
democratic Iraq." How long will that decision last?
Most Iraqis, and many outsiders, are suspicious of
the Kurds' determination to gain ownership of the
oil-rich governorate of Kirkuk—a territory with a
mixed population of Kurds, Turkmen, Arabs, and
Christians—whose status, according to the
constitution, is to be decided by a referendum
before the end of 2007. In the words of a recent
report by the International Crisis Group, "Kirkuk's
oil wealth would enable Kurdish independence....
[The Kurds] know that without Kirkuk, they would
govern at most a rump state profoundly dependent on
neighbours."
Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish president of Iraq, and a
longtime sparring partner of Barzani, is regarded as
a restraining influence on the Kurds' irredentist
ambitions. In a recent profile of him in The New
Yorker, he described the suggestion of Peter
Galbraith, a former State Department official, that
Iraq should be partitioned, as "wishful thinking....
There is not, I think, a realistic Kurdish leader
who would say, 'We want independence.' Why? Because
it is impossible."
Some Turkish officials believe that the American
government might be protecting the PKK, in order to
give its Iranian affiliate, the PJAK, a better
chance of destabilizing the Iranian government in
the Kurd-dominated areas of northwest Iran. Since
the election last year of President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad it has become harder to discern what is
happening in Iranian Kurdistan.
According to Murat Karayilan, the PJAK has slowed
its attacks on Iran since the Iranian bombardments
this summer, but he says that the attacks are still
taking place. It is harder still to gauge the
support that the PJAK has, though, in the words of
one recent visitor to the region, Iran's Kurds are
"transfixed by what is happening in northern Iraq,
and the local newspapers report on Barzani as much
as they do on Ahmadinejad." Several towns in Iraqi
Kurdistan have growing populations of migrants from
the Kurdish regions of Iran.
An independent Kurdistan, even if it includes Kirkuk,
would still need the goodwill of its neighbors. The
Kurds of northern Iraq are already economically
dependent on Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Iran.
The head of Diyarbakir's chamber of commerce
predicts that by the end of this year, Turkey's
exports to the Kurdish federal region in Iraq,
particularly of food and building supplies, may
total as much as $5 billion.
Kirkuk's oil flows to the Mediterranean via
Turkey—when the pipeline, which has been repeatedly
sabotaged, is able to carry it. Once the US starts
withdrawing from Iraq, the Iraqi Kurds will once
again feel vulnerable to pressures from Turkey and
Iran. Barzani told The Wall Street Journal that he
would welcome a deployment of American troops to
Iraqi Kurdistan—there are none at present. "It
would," he said, "be a "deterrent to intervention by
the neighbouring countries."
The US remains officially committed to Iraq's unity,
but that could change even before George Bush leaves
office. From an American perspective, a new Kurdish
state would have much to recommend it. It would be
friendly to the US, and as much of a democracy as
you are likely to find in the Middle East. But an
independent Kurdistan would probably cause Turkey to
be even more repressive of its own Kurds, and as a
result its chances of entering Europe, which the US
has encouraged, will become dimmer.
Iran would feel more threatened if there is an
independent Kurdistan and would be more likely to
intervene secretly and openly in Kurdish affairs.
Even if they get hold of Kirkuk, the Iraqi Kurds may
find that they have much to gain by putting off
their dream of statehood for more than a few years
to come.
That last para is a real mixture of ideas - tempting
the thought that an independent Kurdistan is not
viable but with the hint that Bush might be tempted
to make it so.
Feet on the ground suggests that nothing much will
change in the short term. Where the greatest
opportunity/danger exists is in who actually moves
first to get the support of the Kurds.
Will it be an increasingly overt Iran attempting to
gain protection from the increasingly bellicose US?
Will it be an increasingly concerned US seeking to
retain or gain "friends" in the Middle East against
foes real and imagined?
probligo.blogspot.com
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