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Turkish-Iraqi Kurdistan border is time
bomb that Washington must defuse
28.2.2008
By Grenville Byford
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February 28, 2008
It's a 30-year-old story between Iraq and Turkey:
the snow melts, the Kurdish fighters of the PKK
emerge from hibernation in Iraq's Kandil Mountains,
and fighting starts in Turkey's southeast. This year
the Turkish Army started early, pushing thousands of
men across the border in the first significant
ground incursion since America arrived in Iraq. The
Turks apparently procured Washington's acquiescence,
but Iraqi Kurds of all stripes, ranging from the
central government to ordinary Kurdish citizens to
dissident Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, demand
Iraqi sovereignty be defended.
That demand is addressed to Iraq's Kurdish leaders,
Jalal Barzani and Mustafa Talabani. Their Peshmerga
fighters,www.ekurd.net
the most and perhaps
only, effective part of the new Iraqi Army would do
the defending. A Turkish-Peshmerga firefight would
be disastrous, and Washington, if alert, will
already have brokered a tacit understanding that the
incursion will end before Barzani or Talabani feel
they must act. The Turks by then will have destroyed
supply dumps and inflicted casualties but not dealt
the PKK a fatal blow, just like the previous 20-odd
incursions.
This year, 2008, is different however. The PKK does
face a serious threat, not from Turkey's soldiers
but its politicians. In last summer's election,
Turkey's governing AK Party displaced the PKK-associated
DTP (think IRA and Sinn Fein) as the largest party
in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. Nor is AK
finished competing for Kurdish votes. Its leader,
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says he "wants" DTP
stronghold Diyarbakir, Turkey's largest Kurdish
city, in the 2009 local elections. If he gets it,
and Erdogan tends to get what he wants, he will deal
a death blow to the PKK's claim that only it
represents the aspirations of Turkey's Kurds.
What are these aspirations though? Historically, the
PKK fought for an independent Kurdistan, but since
its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured in 1999,
the group has focused on Kurdish rights. Turkey's
secular establishment however, sees any move to
legitimize Kurdish language and culture as
dismembering the republic. They speak of
"separatism," whereas Erdogan admits to a "Kurdish
problem." My travels in Turkey's southeast suggest
few Turkish Kurds want separation, but all yearn for
cultural recognition. "We [Turks and Kurds] built
this country together" one Kurdish politician told
me "Turks have rights in Diyarbakir, and Kurds have
rights in Istanbul."
The problem goes back to the republic's beginnings.
"Happy is he who can say, 'I am a Turk'" proclaimed
Turkey's founder, Kemal Ataturk. It's a slogan
Turkey's Army has plastered across the southeast.
Unfortunately, the word "Turk" means both citizen of
the republic and ethnic Turk. Ataturk originally
meant "citizen," but most Kurds today hear "ethnic
Turk." They might say "I am a Turkish citizen" more
or less happily,www.ekurd.net
but being Kurds, they
are damned if they will say they are Turks. A start
has been made at multicultural reform, but much
remains to be done. Erdogan's problem is that while
his political ambitions in Diyarbakir require he
attempt it, his base has insisted that he first
remove the ban on women with headscarves attending
university. For this, he needs the help of Turkey's
nationalist MHP, which adamantly opposes
multiculturalism. As do Turkey's generals, the
longtime cheerleaders for today's incursion. In
approving it finally, Erdogan probably calculates
that he gets the generals off his back and maybe
blunts the PKK summer offensive, so he can push
ahead with political reform.
The PKK in fact faces a defining moment: absent
terrorist violence, Erdogan will have the running
room to enact reform, but he will gain politically
if he seizes the opportunity. If the PKK truly cares
about reform, it will accept its partial eclipse by
AK as the necessary price. If the PKK, however,
cares only to demonstrate its own importance, then
it will struggle to overcome its losses during the
incursion and visit violence upon Turkey's southeast
this summer. No Turkish government will push reform
while soldiers die in terror attacks. History
suggests the PKK will opt for its own narrow
interests, which may be why AK is gaining Kurdish
support.
Meanwhile Barzani and Talabani hold a critical card.
One axiom of counterinsurgency is that a guerrilla
force with significant local support is undefeatable.
Against Turks (or Americans), Iraqi Kurds will
support the PKK. Only their own Peshmerga have
greater claim on their loyalty. So only Barzani and
Talabani can control the PKK, though they deny this
capability because they have no wish to fight fellow
Kurds. What do they want, though, that might alter
their calculus? The short answer is independence, or
as much devolution as they can negotiate with their
fellow Iraqis. To secure their gains, however, they
need a lifeline that does not come through southern
Iraq. Something only Turkey can provide.
The deal is evident: Barzani and Talabani control
the PKK, if Turkey acquiesces to whatever level of
independence they can get. Turkey fears this
quasi-Kurdistan would attract its own Kurds, but
surely the PKK is the larger problem. Anyway,
serious political reform should defang the threat.
Northern Iraq may look peaceful and democratic to
Westerners focused on the south, but Turkey's Kurds
understand it is really two mutually antagonistic,
quasi-feudal statelets named Barzanistan and
Talabanistan.
The United States can and should broker this deal as
the best way to avoid a border war between Iraq and
Turkey. Superficially it foreshadows the effective
breakup of Iraq. But who are we kidding? Barzani and
Talabani are going to go for as much independence as
they can get anyway, and with their powerful,
American-armed Peshmerga, this will be a lot. They
will likely be more cooperative if they think their
gains are secured by Turkey's acquiescence.
Meanwhile, helping the Turkish government draw the
poison of the PKK will promote Turkey's development
as a real, First World democracy. That's something
as important to America's long-term interest as a
unitary Iraq.
Grenville Byford researches and writes about
Turkey and the Muslim world. He is a former
affiliate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government
and currently lives in Paris.
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