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Iraq, Kurdistan are on a collision course
over Syrian conflict
28.12.2012
By Mohammed A. Salih - Christian Science Monitor |
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A Kurdish Peshmerga soldier holds a Kurdistan flag
in August during a deployment in the area near the
northern Iraqi border with Syria, which lies in an
area disputed by Baghdad and Kurdistan region of
Ninawa province. Photo: Reuters
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Semi-autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan and the central Iraqi government are on a
collision course as the Kurds increasingly side with
the Syrian opposition and Baghdad stands by the
Assad regime.
December 28, 2012
ERBIL-Hewlęr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq',— In September, as the
Iraqi government reached one of its lowest points in
relations with Turkey in years, Ankara welcomed
Iraqi Kurdistan's President Massoud Barzani as a
guest of honor at a convention hosted by the ruling
Justice and Development Party.
The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
in northern Iraq and the federal government in
Baghdad have not seen eye to eye for years, and the
gap between the two is now widening, particularly
when it comes to foreign policy. That's been put in
stark relief by the ongoing civil war in Syria,
which has shifted the fortunes of Iraq's Kurds.
A decade ago, Iraq was a Sunni Arab-dominated
dictatorship that shared many problems with the
Sunni Turks to the north. Both countries had restive
ethnic-Kurdish separatist movements and uneasy
relations with their Shiite and Persian neighbor,
Iran.
Today, Iraq has a Shiite-dominated government
that is close to Tehran, which is supporting Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria's civil
war. Turkey, still eager to prevent Kurdish
separatist sentiments within its borders, now sees
the Iraqi Kurds as a potential ally in opposition to
the interests of Iran, Baghdad and Damascus.
The emerging sectarian alliances have prompted
Baghdad and the KRG to throw themselves into
opposing camps in the Syrian war, creating
conflicting interests in the supposedly unified
country.
As regional and Western diplomats point fingers at
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for aiding
embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – a
charge which Baghdad vehemently denies – Iraqi Kurds
are increasingly involved with the opposition, lured
by the possibility that in a post-Assad Syria, Kurds
there might achieve some degree of autonomy. That
would allow the KRG to expand its foothold.
The KRG has hosted leaders of the Syrian opposition
in its regional capital, Erbil, much to Baghdad's
dismay. It has also lent support to Kurds in
northeastern Syria – Barzani publicly admitted in
July that his government is providing them with
military training. And now some of the Kurdish
factions there are holding talks with the mostly
Arab Syrian opposition to decide whether and how to
join them in the fight against President Bashar
al-Assad, even though the relationship between the
two camps has been strained by several bouts of
fighting.
"The Syria crisis is forcing everyone around Syria
to choose sides," says Joost Hiltermann, who follows
Iraq for the International Crisis Group (ICG). "Maliki
is worried about the emergence of a post-Assad Sunni
Islamist order in Syria... he finds that he has to
support Assad by default. This puts him de facto in
the Iranian camp and in conflict with Turkey."
The Iraqi Kurds are at the opposite end of the
equation from Maliki. Though Turkey treats its own
Kurdish population poorly, the KRG's deep mistrust
of Baghdad has seen a tactical relationship
developing between Ankara and Erbil and, by
extension, the regional Sunni powers backing the
Syrian uprising.
Although the majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims,
Hiltermann says the KRG's interest is not about
religion, but an attempt to further nationalist
goals. "They [Kurds] have long-term aspirations to
independence, and today this means allying
themselves with Turkey, which is encouraging them to
take distance from Baghdad," Hiltermann says.
Although Iraq's constitution gives the federal
government theoretical control of the country's
foreign policy, the KRG seldom defers to Baghdad on
matters of international relations.
Iraq's Kurds have enjoyed a high level of autonomy
in northern Iraq since the 1990s, when the West
backed a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds during an
uprising against Saddam Hussein's regime. The KRG
has its own diplomatic representatives in some key
international capitals – Washington, London, Paris,
and Moscow among them – and more than 20 countries,
including the US, have diplomatic missions in Erbil.
To say that Baghdad has a problem with the KRG's
overtures to the Syrian opposition and its backers
is to put it mildly.
"They have completely gone their way and are
sometimes on a collision line with the federal
government [in Baghdad]," says Saad al-Muttalebi,www.ekurd.net
a
prominent figure in Maliki's coalition.
"Unfortunately the KRG behaves as if it's an
independent state and sets up its own international
policies... without any consideration to the central
government."
Politicians in Baghdad are particularly unhappy with
KRG's closer ties to Turkey, which harbored exiled
Sunni Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi after he
fled Iraq earlier this year. Mr. Muttalebi, who used
to serve as an adviser to Maliki, lashed out at
Turkey for choosing "an unwise course of action" and
"misusing its relations with Iraq."
But Erbil sees Ankara as a critical counterbalancing
factor against Baghdad, which the Kurdish government
accuses of being increasingly heavy-handed.
"It is true that there is a federal broad-based
coalition government in Baghdad, but day after day
we see it becoming more autocratic," Safin Dizayee,
the official spokesperson for the KRG, told The
Monitor at his office in Erbil.
"[Iraq's] foreign policy is determined not by the
institutions of the state, but by certain
individuals within the state or a certain party,"
Dizayee explains, referring indirectly to Maliki and
his Shiite Dawa Party. "And when it comes to the
policy of that party toward Syria, that might be
actually questionable."
Turkey's annual trade with Iraq stood at around $11
billion in 2011, according to Turkish government's
figures, but Kurdish officials say about 70 percent
of the trade occurs with the Kurdish region. The
discovery of large oil reserves in Iraqi Kurdistan
has only made the energy-thirsty Turkey more
interested in developing closer ties with the KRG
without much regard for Baghdad's opposition. Erbil
has been happy to go along.
But for a country with a long history of internal
conflict and instability, the current regional shift
may not pay off in the end.
"Baghdad and Erbil are taking decisions that they
believe will enhance their regional and domestic
positions," says Ahmed Ali, a Middle East analyst at
Georgetown University. But in a region of
ever-shifting alliances, there is danger in charting
"domestic policy while thinking that regional
alliances are permanent and will help them fulfill
their plans."
Mohammed A. Salih is an Iraqi Kurdish
journalist who has written on Kurds and Iraq for the
past several years. CS Monitor's Correspondent.
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csmonitor.com
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