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October 31, 2007
NEWS
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The Turkey Kurdistan Issue
Kurdishaspect.com - By Mirza Bukhari
Recently I was invited to an evening barbeque high in the surrounding mountains of Suleymaniya, one of the three largest cities in the North of Iraq. In the cool of the evening, I met Ahmed, a young man in his thirties who had been in England for the past five years and had returned to help his father build a new house. He spoke perfect English and was clearly an intelligent young man. I took the opportunity to quiz him on a number of current issues. Troop withdrawals by the coalition forces was high on the agenda, so I asked him who he thought posed the greatest threat to stability in the north. Without hesitation, and to my initial surprise, he said, ‘Turkey, never trust Turkey’.
Deep seated mistrust.
On reflection, of course, I realised that this mistrust was well founded. Eastern Turkey is home to at least 12 million Kurds who until 2002 were treated abominably. At that point Turkey began to tidy up on human rights to support its application to join the European Union. Kurds are now technically allowed to use their own language and in most respects have equality with other Turks but discrimination dies hard.
A long standing problem
What the UK media fails to explain is why the Kurds are such a problem to the governments of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria all of whom have Kurdish enclaves. If you were to draw a line in the atlas around the perimeter of these Kurdish areas you would create a nation state of Kurdistan. This is what the Kurds have long hoped and fought for, for decades. When I first went to what is now officially Iraqi Kurdistan in 2002 I smuggled out a specially published map of that nation state knowing that if it was found in my possession as I travelled back through Syria it would be confiscated.
Back to the Ottoman Empire
As BBC Newsnight accurately reported a few days ago, the Kurds are the largest displaced people group in the world. There are an estimated 25 million in the four Middle Eastern countries and a further two million spread across Europe and North America. To understand how this came about you need to look back to the break up of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. The whole of the Middle East went into the melting pot. The Treaty of Versailles in 1917 saw Britain and France effectively take control of the region through a series of mandates. These were designed to be short-lived until nation states were in a position to govern themselves. In 1920 at the Treaty of Sevres, which formally dissolved the Ottoman Empire, the proposal to create an autonomous Kurdish region was abandoned after strong objections led by Attaturk, the founding father of modern Turkey, and supported by Churchill, British Prime Minister at that time.
The irony
The Kurds have never accepted this Treaty. In each of the four countries of the Middle East they have successfully maintained their distinctive culture and language, continuing the struggle for autonomy. The current President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, and the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Ma’sud Barzani, have both been freedom fighters in this struggle. Both these men, at times archenemies, have proved them themselves skilful pragmatists for the sake of their cause. They resolved their differences and dropped their objective of a united Kurdistan as soon as it became clear that Iraqi Kurdistan might well become independent.
Oil, oil, oil!
It almost goes without saying that the agenda behind all the political decisions since the First World War have centred around Iraq’s vast oil resources. As far back as 1925 the League of Nations agreed that the Kurdish region of Mosul, which includes the city of Kirkuk, reputed to sit on the second largest oil field in the world, should be part of Iraq and not Turkey. At that time this conveniently kept Iraq’s oil in British hands. More recently, when the protected region for the Kurds was set up in 1991, after the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was successful in keeping control of this Kurdish region and the oil revenue that it produced. Once in control he set about ‘Arabising’ the city creating an exodus of Kurds who fled to the protected area in the north and ended up in UN camps for displaced people if they were lucky, or in very bad accommodation if they were not.
The current crisis
There is no doubt about the existence of a Kurdish guerrilla group (PKK) operating out of the mountainous border region between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. Neither is there any doubt about its tactics and objective. However, why should Turkey suddenly be making such an issue of the matter? This group has been operating since the 1980’s. Firstly, it must be a source of embarrassment to Talabani and Bazani that this organisation is continuing to operate. At one time they would have been totally sympathetic to the PKK’s cause. Secondly, Turkey has always been suspicious of an emerging autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq. During the period 1991 to 2003, when the Iraqi Kurds were protected by the no fly zone, they opened and closed their border with Iraq at a whim; seemingly for no reason other than to frustrate the movement of Kurds in and out of Iraq. They are, of course, understandably afraid that, should Iraqi Kurdistan become too independent and politically influential, their own Kurdish population will agitate for greater autonomy – exactly what the PKK claim to be fighting for.
Oil again
I cannot help but feel there is a third and may be even bigger reason. Under the present Iraqi Constitution a referendum has to be held in Kirkuk so that the people can decide whether or not they wish to become part of Iraqi Kurdistan. Mosul and Kirkuk are traditionally Kurdish but bearing in mind the recent history of these places, who knows the outcome of such a referendum? My friend Ahmed was of the view that a referendum, already postponed, will never take place because it is too sensitive an issue. Whoever controls Kirkuk controls its oil. Currently Turkey relies heavily on oil from this region. What if Kirkuk fell into the hands of a Kurdish government?
What of the future
There is no doubt that any attack by Turkish forces inside Iraq could destabilise Iraqi Kurdistan. With Western protection from Saddam Hussein since 1991, the Kurds have been able to lay the foundation for a stable society. Democracy in the north may not be perfect but it has helped to ensure that the area is the most secure in the whole of Iraq. So will Turkey heed the warnings of the west? America needs its Turkish bases. Turkey needs Iraqi oil. Turkey is keen to gain entry to the European Union but not all members are so keen to have them. Is it prepared to jeopardise its ambition? Is the PKK only an excuse, and will Turkey go all the way to Kirkuk? There are many imponderables, we can only hope and pray that sanity prevails.
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