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What They Are Missing 17.9.2007
By Peter Galbraith
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September 17, 2007
Qandil mountain is an unusual trouble spot.
Straddling the Iran-Iraq border in the Kurdish
regions of both countries, it is inaccessible and
inhospitable. When I drove up the mountain in 1992,
valleys with scorching summer temperatures gave way
to large snowfields. At the time, Qandil was home
base for a Western-oriented Kurdish democratic
movement that infiltrated political activists and
guerrilla fighters into Iranian Kurdistan. Today
that base is used by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
a separatist group on the State Department's list of
terrorist organizations for attacks in Turkey, and
PJAK, its Iranian branch. Though the Petraeus and
Crocker testimony last week focused on violence in
and around Baghdad, the Kurdish border regions pose
an explosive threat that could embroil Iran, Turkey,
Iraq and the United States.
The PKK fought a 15-year war with Turkey that ended
in 1999 with the capture of its leader Abdullah
Ocalan. PKK remnants then fled to Qandil; ever
since, Turkey has accused them of terrorist attacks
and threatened to send troops against them. Iran has
made the same accusations against PJAK, retaliated
by shelling Kurdish border villages, and last week
also threatened to send troops into Iraq.
All parties act as if the Kurds on Qandil were
someone else's problem. Iran and Turkey demand that
the Iraqi government stop the cross-border attacks.
But the Iraqi government has no presence within a
hundred miles of Qandil, which is in territory
nominally controlled by Iraq's Kurdistan Regional
Government. For its part, the regional government
has neither the stomach to battle fellow Kurds nor
the helicopters to reach the remote Qandil base.
The United States, on the other hand, has the
military power to dislodge both the PKK and the PJAK,
but the last thing Washington needs now is to open a
new front in the Iraq War. The Bush administration
has told Ankara it sympathizes with its concerns but
has no resources to strike the PKK. Meanwhile, the
Iranians accuse the United States of supporting PJAK,
a charge Washington denies.
The Bush administration has appointed Gen. Joe
Ralston, the former NATO Supreme Commander, as a
special envoy between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds.
Although well regarded in both camps, Ralston's
mission is only part-time and it is limited to the
PKK. Washington should do more to smooth ties
between the two sides. Apart from the PKK, relations
between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan are surprisingly
good. Iraqi Kurds remain grateful for Turkey's role
in setting up and protecting the Kurdish enclave
after the 1991 gulf war. Turkey is now by far the
largest investor in Iraqi Kurdistan. And most
important, Turkey seems to have accepted the reality
of an independent Kurdistan; even Kenan Evren, the
Turkish president who prosecuted the war against the
PKK, has acknowledged that "a Kurdish state" now
exists in Iraq and that Turkey must get used to it.
One major hurdle ahead is the upcoming
referendum—due to be held at the end of the
year—that will likely bring Iraq's oil-rich Kirkuk
province into Kurdistan. U.S. diplomats should ease
Turkey's concerns about Kirkuk's Turkmens—ethnic
Turks who remained after the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire—by ensuring they enjoy local autonomy and an
outsize role in Kirkuk's future administration.
The United States should also encourage Turkey's
efforts to address the grievances that enabled the
PKK to gain so much support. In recent years, Turkey
has legalized Kurdish-language broadcasts and
permitted schooling in the Kurdish language. The
cities of Turkey's southeast now have elected
Kurdish mayors. And in the recent national
elections, 20 Kurdish nationalists won seats as
independents. The PKK itself has moderated,
renouncing separatism in favor of Kurdish rights
within Turkey. If Turkey were to enact a
comprehensive amnesty (so far resisted by its
military), most of the fighters on Qandil Mountain
would return home and the PKK problem would
disappear.
There is little hope for a settlement with Iran,
however. In April 1992, I listened to the Kurdish
leader Sadik Sharafkindi outline his hopes for peace
with Tehran. But four months later he was shot dead
by Iranian agents posing as peace emissaries. To
this day, Iran has refused to deal with even
moderate Kurds, and the price it pays is growing
support for extremists like PJAK. But Washington
must keep Iran from destabilizing Iraqi Kurdistan.
At a minimum, the administration should be as vocal
about Iranian shelling of Kurdish villagers as it is
about Iran's other activities in Iraq. The matter
might also be referred to the U.N. Security Council.
Kurdistan's stable, democratic and pro-Western
government represents America's only enduring
success in Iraq; Washington should do all it can to
protect it.
Galbraith is a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia,
and has advised Iraq's Kurds.
newsweek com
Iranian Kurdistan
**
Iranian Kurdistan (Kurdish: Kurdistana Îranę or
Kurdistana Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) or Rojhilatę
Kurdistan (East of Kurdistan)) is an unofficial name
for the parts of Iran inhabited by Kurds and has
borders with Iraq and Turkey. It includes the
greater parts of West Azerbaijan province, Kurdistan
Province, Kermanshah Province, and Ilam Province.
Kurds form the majority of the population of this
region with an estimated population of 4 million.
The region is the eastern part of the greater
cultural-geographical area called Kurdistan.
More about Iranian Kurdistan
The present leader of the organisation is Haji
Ahmadi. According to the Washington Times, half the
members of PEJAK are women, many of them still in
their teens, and one of the female members of the
leadership council is Gulistan Dugan, a psychology
graduate from the University of Tehran. This is due
primarily to the fact that PJAK is strongly
supportive of women's rights. PJAK believes that
women must have a strong role in government and must
be on an equal level with men in leadership
positions.
More about PEJAK- Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan
**
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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