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June 11, 2010
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The Kurds in the Bilateral and the Multilateral Treaties
Kurdishaspect.com - By Saeed Kakeyi
The Sèvres Syndrome forced the humiliated Turkish military to rally behind its commanders, General Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (to be known later as Ataturk), who won a series of successful counterattacks, against invading forces of the Greeks and Italians. In doing so, he also established diplomatic ties with the Soviets which led to the Treaty of Moscow which was signed on 16 March 1921. Then, Ataturk, reached out for Kurdish help.
Meanwhile, the Kurds, who were suspicious of the Allies’ intentions in Kurdistan, viewed the Treaty of Moscow with great hopes. On the one hand, because it recognized the right of the peoples of the Middle East to self-determination as Article IV of the treaty states that "[T]he contrasting parties…solemnly recognize the right of the nations to freedom and independence, also their right to choose a form of government according to their own wishes" (Al-Karadaghi: 1993, 57). On the other hand, Britain’s destruction of the Kingdom of Kurdistan—established by Sheikh Mahmoud with its capital in Suleimanya in 1919—and its brutal suppression of the Kurds (1991, 53), contributed to such a Kurdish mistrust with the colonial Allies.
Additionally, the Kurds highly respected Vladimir Lenin’s resolve in giving back the disputed regions of Kars and Ardahan to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNTA) in compliance with the provisions of the Treaty of Moscow which was augmented by the Treaty of Kars on 23 October 1921. This is not to forget the mentioning of The Soviet-Persia Treaty of 26 February 26 1921 in which the Soviets acknowledged the sovereignty of Persia and stipulated the right of self-determination to be applied to the peoples of Persia (1993, 58). Furthermore, the Soviets’ establishment of the “Red Kurdistan” in 1922—existed until 1929 as an autonomous region sandwiched between the Soviet states of Armenia and Azerbaijan—brought many Kurdish intellectuals even more closely to them by embracing the Communist ideology.
The Soviets’ positive public diplomacy enshrined by International Law has rendered fruitful for the Turkish nationalists. Ataturk was quick to capitalize on this by proposing a Draft Law to establish Autonomy for Kurdistan which was debated on 10 February 1922 in the GNAT (1991, 166-168). Such a move deceived many undecided Kurds who joined the Turkish nationalist movement in its fights against the non-Muslim liberation movements on the one hand, and stood up strongly against the colonial Allies.
Ataturk abolished the caliphate system, and proclaimed Turkey a republic state in 1923. The result was modern Turkey. The Treaty of Sèvres no longer represented the realities of power. A new treaty had to be negotiated between the Allies and his new militarized Turkish state.
Just as Sèvres represented Turkey’s nadir, the Treaty of Lausanne, signed on 24 July 1923, reflected Turkey’s triumph and the relative weakness of the Allies. In contrast, gone was the law that promised to establish independent Kurdistan. Turkey still retains almost half of Kurdistan, Mosul Vilayet became a disputed subject of Article III of the superseded Treaty, and a part of Diyarbekir Vilayet was given to Syria. The word Kurdistan was not even mentioned anywhere in the Treaty of Lausanne (1991, 82).
The Kurds, the League of Nations and Iraq
In 1926, the League of Nations resolved a dispute between Iraq and Turkey over the control of the former Ottoman vilayet of Mosul. Britain, which was awarded a League of Nations’ Mandate over Iraq in 1920 and; therefore, represented the new state of Iraq in its foreign affairs, argued that Mosul belonged to Iraq. On the other hand, the new Turkey claimed the province as part of its historic heartland. As a result, a three person League of Nations’ commission was sent to the area in 1924 to study the case and in 1925 recommended the region to be attached to Iraq with a condition that the Britain would hold the mandate over Iraq for another 25 years, to assure the autonomous rights of the Kurds. The League Council adopted the recommendation and it decided on 16 December 1925 to award Mosul to Iraq (Kilic: 1959, 60-61).
Although Turkey had accepted the League of Nations arbitration in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, it rejected the League's decision. Nonetheless, Britain, Iraq and Turkey signed a treaty on 5 June 1926 that mostly followed the decision of the League Council and also assigned Mosul to Iraq. However, the Brits, while they were in Iraq until 1958, they never made good on their promise to the League.
Once the Mosul question was put to one side, the visibility of the Kurds in the international relations as a possible emerging nation-state diminished. This had helped Turkey and Iraq to experience a period of some 60 years of cooperation over the Kurdish issue and sharing long existed common perception on the part of both governments that the loyalty of their respective Kurdish populations is dubious, and that the Kurds are easily manipulated by foreign powers to the detriment of the centre (Robins: 1993, 676). Although Persia hold similar attitudes towards its Kurds; however, its relation with Iraq had a turbulent and sometimes violent relation with its Parsian neighbor due to the Kurdish and Shatt al-Arab water access contentions.
With the Kurdish resistance movement been regionalized temporarily, Reza Shah of Persia—who proclaimed Persia a monarch state of Iran and posed himself as the King in 1926—met with Ataturk while visiting Ankara in 1934. On this occasion, Persia and Turkey discussed, among other things, the need to suppress their Kurdish populations under the pretext of “promoting security and territorial integrity.” Such discussions expanded to include Iraq as well as Afghanistan, and served as a catalyst for the emergence of the Saadabad Pact (1959, 71-72).
Eventually, these four countries signed the Saadabad Pact in 1937. Above all, the pact was a sign of good will among the signatories to prevent any Kurdish resistance (Olson: 2001, 39). The goal of the Pact was to limit the potential impact of the Kurdish issue on Turkey, Iraq and Persia. The latter’s name was changed to Iran in 1935.
In addition, the effective participation of Iran in implementing the Saadabad Pact was reinforced by signing a new Boundary Treaty between the Kingdom of Iraq and the Empire of Iran in 1937. This Treaty marked the first major agreement between the two newly established states and specifically sought cooperation in settling border issues, including the Kurdish resistance movement’s activities along their joint frontier (1992, 7). Although both treaties did not last long, however, they were effective in restraining all Kurdish cross-border skirmishes until the onset of World War II.
The Kurds: from World War II to the end of Cold War era
World War II brought significant changes in Iran and Iraq, benefiting the Kurds. Both pro-Nazi governments of Baghdad and Tehran were removed from power by the invading British forces. Kurdistan became a main arms supply road for the Soviets. To eliminate any German backed disruption activities on this road, the Soviets helped the Iranian Azeris and Kurds to establish their own governments. Kurdish nationalists from all parts of Kurdistan were quick to join the Republic of Kurdistan (a.k.a the Republic of Mahabad), established in Northwest of Iran in 1945. This short-lived Kurdish state signed three treaties of friendship and cooperation with its newly established Democratic Republic of West Azerbaijan. However, in similar circumstances, these two Soviet backed republics lasted for less than a year due to the end of the World War II. The significance of the Republic of Kurdistan was two-folded. First, it revived the Kurdish hope once again for an independent nation-state, which all regional powers hate to see it materialized. Second, it became the only Kurdish state in history to draft, ratify and sign treaties in accordance with principles of International Law (2001: 40-43).
The Baghdad Pact and the Kurds.
In 1947, the world entered the Cold War. Regional pacts and alliances were created to either prevent or foster Soviet and United States (U.S.) expansion. Some Middle Eastern powers, with the full backing from the U.S., hosted the Baghdad Pact in February 1955 (known at the time as the Central Treaty Organization). The pact was signed by Iran, Iraq, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Pakistan, and urged its members to “co-operate for their security and defence.” While Iran and Iraq’s entry to the pact was motivated by anti-communist ideology—especially the “threat of a Communist inspired Kurdish uprising” was something within their borders, the U.S. saw more reasons for their entries into the pact: after the security of Israel, Kurdish issue was of most significant (1959, 187-190). However, Iran’s entry to the pact was to become the dominant power in the Middle East. For Iraq, the pact was dismissed a few years later.
The Baghdad Pact was nullified when General Abdul-Karim Qasim, in July 1958, overthrew the ruling monarchy in Iraq. Qasim was under the influence of the Iraqi Communist Party whose ties with the Soviet Union were the strongest in the Middle East. Acting in the interest of the Soviets, Qasim gloriously welcomed the exiled Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani’s return to Iraq. In 1959, Qasim’s new government withdrew from the Baghdad Pact. These two actions were seen by Iran and Turkey as signs for regional hostility (Majeed: 1997, 34).
Understanding the complexity of the situation, and having experienced communism first hand during his decade long stay in the Soviets, Barzani distanced himself and his Kurdish cause from Qasim’s totalitarian regime by asking a democratic solution for the Kurdish question. Having found no reason to continue negotiations with Baghdad, Barzani revolted in 1960, and later solicited Iran’s support in his fight against Qasim’s regime. Support came; however, it was very minimal, due to the U.S. objection (1997, 35).
With the assassination of Qassim in February 1963, Iran-Iraq relations took a turn for the worse. Barzani masterfully used this atmosphere for the benefit of the Kurdish liberation movement. He was able to argue that the new Iraqi Baath Pan-Arab socialists in power are worse than the former ruling pro-communists. Thus, increasingly, shipments of arms and equipment from Iran made their way to Kurdish fighters in order to fight the first Baath regime of Iraq (1997, 36). This is despite the fact that the Baathist Iraqi government, under pressure from the Soviet Union, announced the June 1966 Declaration recognizing the right of the Kurdish people in Iraq to autonomy (1993, 58).
Kurds and the Iraqi Law of Autonomy
Weakened by the increased hostilities, in June 1968, Iraq’s President Adul-Rahman Arif paid a visit to the Shah of Iran trying to urge him not to support the Kurds. However, in July 1968, Arif was overthrown by General Ahmad Hassan Al-Bakr. The hard-line Socialist Baathists joined Al-Bakir in setting up the second Baathist government which fruited in striking a historical deal with the Kurds in March 1970: the Law of Autonomy for (Iraqi) Kurdistan Region (1993, 58).
As soon as the Autonomy Law of 1970 was made public, Turkey, Iran and Syria openly condemned it and all started back-boor diplomacy in order to pressurize Iraq not to implement it. As a matter of fact, the Soviets were the front runners in this. The Soviet-Iraqi Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation of April 1972 deprived the Kurds of important political support.
Following a Kurdish revolt in Iraq in 1974, the balance of power significantly shifted in Iran’s favor in 1975. Seeing the Kurdish revolution as an opportunity to weaken the Iraqi state, Iran provided considerable arms and armaments to the Kurdish rebels. Reza Shah justified these actions by stating that the Kurds should be supported by Iran because “they are of the Aryan race.” Ideology aside, Iran supported the Kurdish uprising to deteriorate the Baath control of Iraq. The United States also supported the Kurds, channeling US$ 16 million through Iran to the resistance efforts (1997: 37).
In early 1975, Iraq’s military capability drastically reduced due to its great loses in battles against the Kurdish Peshmargas (Freedom Fighters). Seeking for a way out of total defeat, Iraqi Baathists reached President Hawari Boumedienne of Algeria for help. Soon thereafter, Boumedienne convinced the Shah of Iran with Iraq’s readiness to relinquish disputed border lands and new Thalweg Line in the Shatt Al-Arab waters. On March 6, 1975, Reza Shah and Saddam Hussein met with Boumedienne in Algiers. There, the two rival heads of state signed the most important concurrence prior to the Iran-Iraq War of 1980—the 1975 Algiers Agreement (1993, 256-257).
The aforementioned agreement concluded with a pleased Shah and irritated Hussein. Hussein was not happy about border bow out, but wanted to end the Kurdish revolution as all cost. Thus, on 13 June 1975, Iran and Iraq signed the Treaty Concerning the Frontier and Neighborly Relations. The treat put an end to the Kurdish revolt and brought a remedy for disaster and genocide in southern Kurdistan.
From 1975 to 1991, Kurds of Iraq faced with massive internal deportations. With Iraq’s Arabization policy, thousands of Kurds were deported to Southern Iraq. Their properties in the provinces of Kirkuk, Mosul and the District of Khanaqin were confiscated by the Baathist regime and given to Iraqi Arabs. Kurds living in the rural areas of Iraqi Kurdistan were confined into Gatos under tied security surveillances. Iraq’s borders with Iran and Turkey, by an inward of twenty kilometers, densely fortified with mostly personal landmines (1993, 257).
With the toppling of the Shah regime by the Iranian Islamic regime in 1979, Saddam Hussein—proclaimed Iraq’s presidency in 1979—nullified the Boundary Treaty of 1937 as well as the 1975 Treaty Concerning the Frontier and Neighborly Relations with Iran. A year later, Iraq invaded Iran. The Kurds ceased this opportunity by joining Iran in its war which lasted eight years.
The western countries, especially the United States government tacitly supported Saddam’s regime, because the new Iranian regime was then viewed as a major threat to their interests in the Middle East. As a matter of fact, the United States barely responded to Saddam’s infamous poison gas attack, in March 1988, against the Kurdish town of Halabja, where at least five thousand civilians, mostly women and children, were killed. Ironically, neither did the United Nations or any of its agencies ever discuss Iraqi Chemical Weapons use from 1978 to 1988 against the Kurds, nor did they protest the heinous genocidal Anfal campaigns which exterminated 182,000 innocent Kurds in 1988 (1993, 257-258).
The first time the United Nation ever passed a resolution referring obliquely to the Kurds was Security Council Resolution 688 in April 1991 (1993, 127). It legitimized the “No Fly Zone” established over northern Iraq by the United States and its allies in the wake of massive international public condemnations of Iraq’s cruel repression of the Kurds, after they rose up against, following its eviction from Kuwait.
Federalism and the road to a state within Iraq!
Saddam’s reprisals forced millions of Kurds to flee toward the Turkish and Iranian border. Television images of those refugees in the mountains in the middle of the winter pushed the United States to initiate Operation “Provide Comfort,” which created the No Fly Zone. This made it possible for the refugees to return to their homes without fear of another Iraqi reprisal. It was originally British Prime Minister John Major’s idea to create a Kurdish enclave. This move was motivated as much by the worldwide outcry at the pictures of stranded refugees in the snow as by Ankara’s fear that refugees would inundate Turkey, which was still battling its own Kurdish radical militants—the Kurdistan Workers Party (known as PKK).
Eventually, the protected Kurdish zone in Iraq gained some international legitimacy. Security Council Resolution 688 sharply criticized Iraq’s repressive policies. Still, this resolution did not mention the Kurds by name and spoke only of repression of “Iraqi citizens” by Saddam’s regime. After that, Kurds were left for the regional diplomacy and secret security treaties between Iran, Turkey and Syria which instigated Kurdish internal fights resulted in the loss of world’s attention until Saddam’s fall in 2003.
However, against all the odds, the Kurds managed to establish fledgling democratic institutions which are functioning highly well for their uniquely westernized Kurdish autonomous state within Iraq. In addition, since the formation of Iraq’s new federal governing system based on its permanent constitution—approved by the Iraqis in the Constitutional Referendum of October 2005, the Kurds have been able to hold some key Iraqi governing posts, legalize their strife over the oil rich contested regions to have them yet join their semi-independent Kurdistan region. Furthermore, their holdings of Iraq’s key governing positions have been productive in deterring any regional policies and treaties which are not in the interest of the Kurds. In his visit to Turkey in July 2007, the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki—a Shia Arab—refused to sign the Turkish drafted regional Terror Treaty with Turkish Prime Minister Receb Tayib Erdogan.
Conclusion
The Kurdish legal claim to the right of a nation-state or autonomy has been well incorporated in treaties as the main source for International Law. The Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 unequivocally states that, so are the Soviet Union’s separate treaties signed with Turkey and Iran in 1921. However, as mentioned in this paper, many bilateral treaties, signed by the regional states appropriating Kurdish homeland, deny this right to the Kurds. It is so ironic see these very nation-states to legitimize oppressing the Kurds with treaties. Kurds, who legally approved beyond reasonable doubt their rights to a state of their own with existing bilateral and multilateral treaties, need not to be denied of their claim. Moreover, self-determination is a recognized international legal principle. It has been incorporated in the United Nations charter; therefore, it has become a positive international law. Kurdish claim in this capacity cannot be excluded from the jurisdiction of the United Nations by claim of domestic jurisdiction. International customary law is binding on all states regardless of consent. The states, as members of the United Nations, have bound themselves under the charter to respect this principle. Therefore, the governments of the states have no inherent rights to deny democratic rights to their subjects.
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Reference:
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Bahadori, Mazi. The History and Geopolitics of the Iran-Iraq War. Berkeley: University of California, 2005. 2.Cusimno, Joseph (1992). An analysis of Iran-Iraq bilateral border treaties. Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 24, Retrieved July 04, 2007, from http://web.macam.ac.il/~arnon/Int-ME/extra/AN%20ANALYSIS%20OF%20IRAN.htm
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Moscow, Treaty of (2007). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved August 15, 2007, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9053890 15.Robins, Philip (Oct., 1993). The Overlord State: Turkish Policy and the Kurdish Issue. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 69, No. 4. pp. 657-676. Retrieved July 18, 2007, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-5850%28199310%2969%3A4%3C657%3ATOSTPA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J
Robins, Philip (Oct., 1993). The Overlord State: Turkish Policy and the Kurdish Issue. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 69, No. 4. pp. 657-676. Retrieved July 18, 2007, from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-5850%28199310%2969%3A4%3C657%3ATOSTPA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-JRelated article:
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