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Kurdistan reaches toward the sea
3.8.2012
By Prof. Ofra Bengo
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Israeli Haaretz |
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Prof. Ofra Bengio is senior research associate at
the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University. She
is the author of the forthcoming The Kurds of Iraq:
Building a State within a State and editor of the
monthly newsletter Tzomet Hamizrah Hatichon. Photo:
Academia.edu
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The weakening of the
relevant states, alongside the tectonic
sociopolitical changes taking place in the region as
a whole, may end up changing the strategic map of
the Middle East.
August 3, 2012
The last year's upheavals in the Arab world have
somehow blurred the sweeping developments taking
place in a no-less important though less well-known
strategic region that can be called the Kurdish
triangle, comprising Iraqi, Turkish and Syrian
Kurdistan. The net results of these developments may
end up with the landlocked Kurdish Regional
Government of Iraq in a position to create a
corridor reaching the Mediterranean Sea. Clearly, if
the KRG manages to secure such an outlet, its
aspirations for independence will have received a
significant boost.
How feasible is such a scenario and what are the
factors that may contribute to it? Most significant
are the latest developments in Syria, whose Kurds
have taken advantage of the uprising there, and of
the vacuum formed in their part of the country
specifically, to take control of the area and push
their call for autonomy. "We have established
Kurdistan and we will not give it to anyone," is a
typical line reported recently from Syria in the
Turkish press.
Some analysts claim President Bashar Assad himself
was behind the move. Whatever the case, the Kurds of
Syria managed to kill several birds with one stone:
to attain a better bargaining position with
Damascus; to improve their hand vis-a-vis the Syrian
opposition, which has so far been unwilling to
accommodate their national demands; to send a
message to Turkey regarding its own Kurds; and
finally, to move closer to the KRG.
Reaction in the Turkish media to the move has
reflected an anxiety bordering on hysteria, the
essence of which is that, whereas formerly, Turkey
had 800 kms. of border with Kurdistan, they now
share 1,200 kms. Others warned of a "mega" or
"second" Kurdistan, that would threaten to embrace
the Kurds of Turkey and Syria as well. The mayor of
Diyarbakir, Turkey, Osman Baydemir, declared that
the Kurds are going to establish autonomous
Kurdistan, with a common currency and four capitals:
his city, Irbil in Iraq, Qamishli in Syria and
Mahabad in Iran.
Turkey's concerns are threefold. It fears that the
Democratic Union Party, Syria's main Kurdish
organization, which took control of that country's
Kurdish region and which has close connections with
the PKK, the armed Kurdish revolutionary group in
Turkey, will turn the region into a springboard for
attacks against Turkey; that its own Kurds will
attempt to imitate the move of their brethren in
Syria; and that the KRG will try to exploit the
opportunity to draw closer to the sea, via the
adjacent Kurdish regions in Turkey and Syria. Faced
with this multiple threat, Turkish officials and
analysts suggested two solutions: forming a buffer
zone along the border with Syrian Kurdistan and
accommodating Turkey's own Kurds.
Here we touch on another important factor in the
Kurdish triangle, namely the Turkish role. The
Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments that
have ruled Turkey for a decade now implemented an
important change in policy vis-a-vis both their own
Kurds and the KRG. The new policy could be described
as "engagement fraught with ambiguity."
The AKP, in its desire to solve the Kurdish problem,
was even willing to conduct secret talks with the
PKK. But each time it took one step forward, it took
two backwards, with the result being that rather
than weakening the PKK, it kept it alive and
kicking. The AKP also made important moves toward
accommodating the Kurdish language and culture, even
while it sent thousands of Kurdish activists into
prison. This gave a significant boost to Kurdish
nationalism.
The same ambivalence characterizes Ankara's
relations with the KRG. On the one hand, the regime
has become a lifeline for the KRG, with which it
signed an agreement on an oil and gas pipeline
without consulting Baghdad. On the other hand, it
continues rehearsing the mantra of Iraqi unity.
The third factor at play in the Kurdish triangle is
the deepening relations between all three parts of
Kurdistan. In the past, their common borders were
sealed almost hermetically. Moreover, the
governments in the affected countries,www.ekurd.net
together with Iran, tried to coordinate strategies,
with a view to suppressing their respective Kurdish
movements and to forestall ties among them. During
the last decade, though, and especially in the past
year, the borders have became totally porous, while
trans-border activity increased.
For its part, the KRG, which has effectively become
a quasi-state, has turned itself into a model and
the epicenter of Greater Kurdistan. Activists from
all parts of Kurdistan frequent the KRG to consult,
coordinate activities, and organize and train. It
trained members of the Syrian Kurdish organization,
for example, and reportedly sent 700 fighters to
Syria to operate in Qamishli, the closest Syrian
Kurdish city to the KRG.
The Kurdish national movement is now crystallized in
almost all parts of Kurdistan. The weakening of the
relevant states, alongside the tectonic
sociopolitical changes taking place in the region as
a whole, may end up changing the strategic map of
the Middle East. Forged by the Great Powers after
World War I, the borders separating the Kurds of
Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran no longer appear as
sacred or secure as they once did. It is therefore
no longer inconceivable that the Kurds, who number
more than 30 million, will take the opportunity of
the fluid situation to erase the colonial borders of
the 20th century and improve their political
situation in the 21st century, including reaching
out to the sea.
Prof. Ofra Bengio is head of the Kurdish Studies
Program at the Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv
University and author of The Kurds of Iraq: Building
a State within a State.The writer is a professor at the Moshe Dayan
Center for Middle East and African Studies.
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