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Is It Time for the US to Reconsider the
PKK?
9.10.2012
By Michael Rubin - Commentary Magazine |
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October 9, 2012
The United States has long designated the Kurdistan
Workers Party (better known by its Kurdish acronym,
the PKK) a terrorist group. The PKK certainly has a
long and bloody history, one in which it targeted
not only the Turkish army but also many local Kurds
who refused to submit to its leaders’ will.
The PKK has always enjoyed popularity in Syria.
While the Turks were fighting the PKK in the 1990s,
the Syrian government hosted the group’s
headquarters. Almost 15 years ago, the Middle East
Quarterly actually interviewed PKK founder Abdullah
Öcalan inside Syria. While Öcalan has since been
captured and imprisoned, the legacy of his long
residence in Syria reverberates with Syrian Kurds
who overwhelmingly favor the PKK (and its local
political offshoot, the Democratic Union Party, PYD)
over Masud Barzani’s autocratic Kurdistan Democratic
Party in neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan.
While the United States considers the PKK a
terrorist group, the PYD now controls significant
territory in eastern Syria including the city of
Qamishli. There, early indications suggest its new
administration has been both professional and
benign. Alas, the PKK designation still gets in the
way of U.S. interaction, if not directly than out of
a diplomatic desire to avoid offending Turkey.
Herein lies the irony: The Turkish government talks
to the PKK, even as it insists others should not.
And, under the current prime minister, the Turkish
government has suggested that national liberation
movements are legitimate partners. Turkey embraces
Hamas, Hezbollah, and the prime minister has even
defended donating money to Al Qaeda financiers. If
Turkey refuses to accept American sensitivities
about terrorism, then the United States should have
no responsibility to carry water for the Turks,
especially if doing so may go against American
interests.
The State Department has now de-listed the Mujahedin
al-Khalq (MKO), a terrorist group which has killed
Americans and, to this day, refuses to apologize.
Designation or not, the MKO is a terrorist group and
remains undeserving of any U.S. support. Perhaps it
is time, however, for the United States to
reconsider its PKK designation. This need not mean
reversing the designation, but it should spell out
what it finds objectionable about the PKK. Has the
PKK targeted U.S. citizens? If so, when? Is the PKK
simply waging an insurgency against Turkish
soldiers,www.ekurd.net
or is it continuing to target Turkish civilians?
What actions, if any, should the PKK take to achieve
a new status under American law? Hopefully, it won’t
go the distasteful MKO route of simply bribing
officials with inflated speaking fees, but will
really and sincerely reform. Even if the State
Department determines that the PKK in Turkey still
deserves its terrorism designation, it might ask
whether this should preclude better and more
productive relations with the PYD, a strengthening
secular movement now controlling territory in
Eastern Syria. Certainly, they are better than the
Al Qaeda alternative now rearing its ugly head among
the Syrian opposition.
Michael Rubin
is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute AEI. His major research area is the Middle
East, with special focus on Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and
Kurdish society. He also writes frequently on
transformative diplomacy and governance issues. At
AEI, Mr. Rubin chaired the "Dissent and Reform in
the Arab World" conference series. He was the lead
drafter of the Bipartisan Policy Center's 2008
report on Iran. In addition to his work at AEI,
several times each month, Mr. Rubin travels to
military bases across the United States and Europe
to instruct senior U.S. Army and Marine officers
deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan on issues relating
to regional state history and politics, Shiism, the
theological basis of extremism, and strategy. Tweet
Michael Rubin
@mrubin1971
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