Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani (L) meet in Ankara, June 3, 2010. (photo by REUTERS/Umit Bektas)
Summary Print Semih Idiz writes that Turkey’s relationship with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq shows that Ankara can not only live with an independent Kurdistan, but also cooperate with it, despite the PKK factor.
Far from ceasing, PKK attacks .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/pkk-iraq-oil-and-pipeline-attack.html .. have escalated today due to the crisis in Syria and the turmoil in the Middle East. Based on traditional assumptions this should have driven a bigger wedge between the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey. Meanwhile, nationalist Turks still believe the Iraqi Kurdish authorities are providing refuge and logistical support to the PKK lodged in the mountains of Northern Iraq.
However, the official position of Ankara towards the Iraqi Kurds has changed so fundamentally that many are left wondering why Turkey did not come around to its current position much earlier. The change in Ankara’s stance is so significant that Massoud Barzani, in his capacity of Kurdistan Region President, was one of the honored guests at the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Congress .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/10/akp-foreign-policy-congress.html .. in Ankara at the end of September.
In the meantime, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/01/07/turkey-syrian-kurds-are-threaten.html’s March 2011 visit to Erbil, the regional Kurdish capital, was a watershed event amounting to recognition by Ankara of the KRG as a separate political entity, and resulting in the rapid normalizing of ties between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds. So what was the driving force behind this dramatic “volte-face” by Turkey, which once had 200,000 troops on the border threatening to move into Northern Iraq, and in fact going on to do so on a number of occasions?
An irony during the period of high tension between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds is that this tension never prevented individual Turks or Turkish companies from moving into the region and beginning to invest there heavily. One of the masterminds of this economic cooperation, which today is clearly working to mutual advantage, was KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
The volume of trade between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan reached $8 billion — the largest share in trade with Iraq as a whole — as a result of his patient cultivation of the Turkish business community. In addition to this, Turkish construction companies have been engaged for years now in what amounts to the construction of a Northern Iraq, all paid with the region’s growing oil and gas wealth.
Given this situation it is inevitable that Turkish companies should also be interested in the region’s energy sector, which has already attracted major companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Total, and Gazprom. Work is underway for a pipeline .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/turkish-and-iranian-energy-relat.html .. to connect Turkey with the region in what the sides hope will be an alternative source of energy for the energy-hungry Turkish market.
With such interaction it appears that it is the economic interest that is really driving ties. That is how Nechirvan Barzani sees it too. “It’s very simple. Turkey needs something that it doesn’t have. We need certain things that we don’t have. This has been the proper understanding on both sides. And it doesn’t have anything to do with politics. It’s an economic matter,” he said in an interview with Time in November.
While there is an element of truth in this, it is clearly not the whole truth, especially at a time when animosity between the Erdogan government and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/iraqs-energy-imbroglio.html .. is increasing. Baghdad is accusing Ankara of meddling in Iraqi affairs, by backing radical Sunni elements in the country and signing illegal energy deals with the Iraqi Kurds over the head of the Iraqi government.
The fact that Turkey has provided refuge to Iraqi deputy President Tariq al-Hashemi .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/09/iraqi-vps-death-sentence-justice-or-plot.html, accused by Maliki of establishing death squads against Shiites, has not helped the situation. Hashemi currently faces a death sentence in Baghdad. Ankara in turn is accusing the Maliki government of divisive policies that will increase sectarian tensions in the Middle East. The sides are also seriously at odds over the crisis in Syria.
Meanwhile tension is rising between Baghdad and the KRG over oil and gas rights, as well as disputed territories, resulting in a military standoff between the sides earlier this month over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. These factors have clearly combined to force Ankara to look at its ties with Iraqi Kurds from a more strategic perspective.
As for the KRG, it seems to have no illusions as to how important Turkey is for continued stability in Northern Iraq.
“We have a door of hope, which is Turkey. And if that door, that hope is closed, it will be impossible for us to surrender to Baghdad,” Nechirvan Barzani told Time.
He appeared to be suggesting that without Turkey’s counterbalancing influence the Iraqi Kurds would have no choice but to go for independence to free themselves from Bagdad’s yoke.
Looking at the overall picture, one could say that independent Kurdistan is already a fact. Looked at from a traditional Turkish perspective, Turkey should be the country that stands to lose the most from this. But changing circumstances have forced Ankara to look on matters in a different light and tolerate a “de facto” Kurdistan, if not a “de jure” one.
Turkey appears to be saying, “Let’s not name it, but tolerate it and reap the advantages of our ties with what amounts to an independent Kurdistan.” The Kurds still appear committed to the notion of a unified Iraq, of course, mainly due to pressure from Washington, provided they are treated as equal partners. Whether this position can be sustained in the long run remains to be seen.
The bottom line in all this, however, is that Turkey is showing it can not only live with an independent Kurdistan, but also cooperate with it, despite the PKK factor which continues to cause tensions between the sides. This is a momentous change of position. That such a Kurdistan will also need good ties with Turkey, on the other hand, goes without saying and is openly admitted to by Kurdish officials.
Semih Idiz is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse. A journalist who has been covering diplomacy and foreign-policy issues for major Turkish newspapers for 30 years, his opinion pieces can be followed in the English language Hurriyet Daily News. His articles have been published in The Financial Times, the Times, Mediterranean Quarterly and Foreign Policy magazine, and he is a frequent contributor to BBC World, VOA, NPR, Deutche Welle, various Israeli media organizations and Al Jazeera.
UN Envoy Warns Of Possible Massacre In Syrian Border Town Kobani
AP | By LEFTERIS PITARAKIS and JOHN HEILPRIN Posted: 10/10/2014 8:20 am EDT Updated: 5 hours ago
MURSITPINAR, Turkey (AP) — In a dramatic appeal, a U.N. official warned that hundreds of civilians who remain trapped in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani near the border with Turkey were likely to be "massacred" by advancing extremists and called on Ankara to help prevent a catastrophe.
Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. Syria envoy, raised the specter of some of the worst genocides of the 20th century during a news conference in Geneva to underscore concerns as the Islamic State group pushed into Kobani from the south and east.
"You remember Srebrenica? We do. We never forgot. And probably we never forgave ourselves for that," he said, referring to the 1995 slaughter of thousands of Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces.
He spoke to reporters at a press conference in Geneva where he held up a map of Kobani and said a U.N. analysis shows only a small corridor remains open for people to enter or flee the town.
His warning came as the Islamic State group seized the so-called "Kurdish security quarter" — an area where Kurdish militiamen who are struggling to defend the town maintain security buildings and where the police station, the municipality and other local government offices are located.
The onslaught by the Islamic State group on Kobani, which began in mid-September, has forced more than 200,000 to flee across the border into Turkey. Activists say the fighting has already killed more than 500 people.
De Mistura said there were 500 to 700 elderly people and other civilians still trapped there while 10,000 to 13,000 remain stuck in an area nearby, close to the border.
"The city is in danger," said Farhad Shami, a Kurdish activist in Kobani reached by phone from Beirut. He reported heavy fighting on the town's southern and eastern sides and said the Islamic State group was bringing in more reinforcements.
U.S.-led airstrikes against the extremists appear to have failed to blunt the militants' push on Kobani. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that with the new advances, the Islamic State group was now in control of 40 percent of the town.
The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the U.S.-led coalition conducted nine airstrikes in Syria on Thursday and Friday. It said strikes near Kobani destroyed two Islamic State training facilities, as well as vehicles and tanks.
On Friday, the militants shelled Kobani's single border crossing with Turkey in an effort to capture it and seal off the town, a local Kurdish official and Syrian activists said.
The official, Idriss Nassan, said Islamic State fighters aim to seize the crossing in order to close the noose around the town's Kurdish defenders and prevent anyone from entering or leaving Kobani.
Occasional gunfire and explosions that appeared to be rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells could be heard from across the border in Turkey, and plumes of smoke were seen rising in the distance. The Observatory said the militants shelled several areas in Kobani, including the border crossing.
In Geneva, de Mistura invoked the genocides in Srebrenica and Rwanda in 1994 as he appealed to the world to prevent another catastrophe.
The civilians of Kobani "will be most likely massacred," said the Italian-Swedish diplomat, who was appointed to the U.N. post in July. "When there is an imminent threat to civilians, we cannot, we should not be silent."
De Mistura appealed to Turkish authorities to allow volunteers and equipment to flow into Kobani and help its Syrian Kurdish defenders to stop the advance of the militants.
"We need that because otherwise all of us, including Turkey, will be regretting deeply that we have missed an opportunity," he said.
Turkey has deployed troops and tanks across the border, but despite U.S. pressure, Ankara has said it will not join the fight unless its doing so is part of a broader strategic shift by the coalition toward helping Syrian rebels overthrow President Bashar Assad.
Ankara is pushing for a buffer zone and a no-fly zone, and was supported on Friday by France's foreign minister, who called for the creation of a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey to protect refugees and civilians.
Laurent Fabius, who met with his Turkish counterpart Friday, stressed however that such a thing would require "extremely close international coordination." The U.S. has said it is not considering that option.
The U.S. wants access to the Turkish air base at Incirlik and an agreement to help train and equip moderate Syrian forces fighting Assad's government.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, speaking to reporters in Washington, said Turkey "has agreed to support train and equip efforts for the moderate Syrian opposition." She did not mention progress on Kobani.
The fight over Kobani has eclipsed the larger Syrian civil war, where Assad's forces continue to fight rebels seeking to topple him in many parts of the country.
On Friday, activists said at least nine civilians were killed in a government airstrike that targeted the village of Harra in the southern province of Daraa. More than 20 people were also killed a day earlier in government airstrikes in Damascus suburbs, they said.
The Syrian National Coalition, Syria's Western-backed main opposition group, accused Assad of "openly exploiting" the coalition's war against the Islamic State group to continue killing Syrians.
___
Heilprin reported from Geneva. Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Zeina Karam in Beirut and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
If Kobani falls and the remaining inhabitants slaughtered by ISIL it will be yet another utter international travesty. Why is a buffer zone unwise, or too hard?
He's probably right. Yet the statement was somewhat ironic coming from Erdogan, since it's Turkey that's been notably reluctant to assist such an operation. As the fighting around Kobani continued, Turkish troops watched calmly from their side of the border as IS tanks swarmed into the outskirts of the town. (The photo above shows Turkish Kurds watching the attack on Kobani near the Turkey-Syria border on Oct. 9.) The Turks actively prevented Kurdish forces from reinforcing their hard-pressed troops who are now holding out against the IS assault. Turkey's partners in the anti-IS coalition were undoubtedly bemused by the spectacle.
So why is Turkey holding back from unleashing its formidable military against the Islamic State? Until last month, Ankara explained its reluctance by its fear for the safety of the 46 Turkish diplomats held by the Islamic State. But now that the hostages have been released -- apparently, some observers believe, in exchange for the handover of IS militants held by Turkey -- that excuse has fallen away.
The reality is that the roots of Turkish ambivalence toward the Islamic State go much deeper.
To begin with, Turks have for a long time viewed IS militants as relatively less horrible than the regime in Damascus. While other countries tend to see Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as the "lesser of two evils," Turkish officials regard him as the biggest evil, the man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands Syrians (not to mention scores of Turks).
From the very early stages of the Syrian crisis, Erdogan and his colleagues have stated that Ankara intended to stick to "the right side of the history" -- meaning uncompromising opposition to Assad and support for anyone who promised to topple him, up to and including the Islamic State and al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front. Erdogan was not motivated here solely by moral objections to Assad's misdeeds: He was also acting according to hubris, namely his own belief in what he regards as Ankara's capacity to shape the Middle East as it sees fit. Turkey's Sunni bias may also account .. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/19/turkey-takes-in-terrorists-from-the-muslim-brotherhood.html .. for a certain degree of sympathy to IS and other Sunni extremists.
There is another factor, little noted in the West, that looms especially large in Turkish calculations: the Kurdish issue. It plays a major role in defining Turkey's approach to Syria. Turkish officials worry that developments in Syria and Iraq could not only overturn Turkey's peace process with its own Kurdish population but also lead to the emergence of an independent Kurdistan. These scenarios pose a mortal challenge for Ankara. As President Erdogan recently said .. http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014/10/04/erdogan-pkk-isis-same-for-turkey: "For us [Turkey], the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is the same as ISIS. It is wrong to consider them as different from each other." The Turkish government's refusal to differentiate between the Kurds and IS fighters may now be breaking down, though. Some Turkish citizens are now taking to the streets in desperate, even violent protests to demand that the government help Kurdish forces in Syria to fight IS. Rather than acknowledging those demands, however, the Turkish government has chosen to focus on the violence of some of the protests, imposing curfews in several cities.
Another factor that distinguishes Turkish attitudes toward the Islamic State from those of the West is the refugee crisis. Two years ago, then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu famously predicted .. http://www.aa.com.tr/en/s/75592--a .. that Assad would lose power within weeks. He also said that Turkey would be able to accept no more than 100,000 refugees before it would have to take drastic action. Today Assad is still in power, and Turkey is hosting 2 million refugees. The U.S.-led airstrikes have triggered a new influx of people fleeing the war: Almost 100,000 Syrians have fled to Turkey as of Sept. 23. The refugees are not only a huge burden on the Turkish economy, but are also tearing at the country's social fabric. In many towns the influx of Syrian refugees has brought serious demographic changes, triggering conflicts .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/25/syrian-refugee-crisis-tensions-turkey .. between the locals and the refugees.
There's also the question of whether Turkey has been offering more active support to the Islamic State. Critics have blamed the Turkish authorities for allowing foreign fighters to pass through the country on their way to join IS fighters in Syria. Ankara, for its part, accuses .. http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/04/world/europe/isis-gaining-strength-on-syria-turkey-border .. the West -- in particular the European countries -- of hypocrisy. Turkish officials argue that the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Belgium, whose citizens have joined the Islamic State by traveling through Turkey, had declined until recently to give the names of suspected militants to the Turks, citing freedom of travel. The Turks complain that these countries have allowed known IS recruits to fly into Turkey, then ask the Turks to seize them once it's too late.
Yet the reality is that the Islamic State poses a more serious and direct security threat to Turkey than to the West. Despite the current government's sympathy to political Islam, Turkey has never really experienced a significant jihadist presence at home before the group's rise. Now, the Islamic State is not only on the border, its members are becoming increasingly active within Turkey itself. In July, several hundred IS supporters gathered .. http://www.aydinlikdaily.com/Detail/ISIS-Supporters-Make-Call-For-Jihad-In-Istanbul/4070#.VDalYOf85d4 .. for Eid prayers in Istanbul's Omerli district, where they prayed that "all holy warriors engaged in the jihad hit their targets." Everyone in Turkey now realizes the seriousness of the IS threat, and Turkish leaders are moving to join the West. Prime Minister Davutoglu has said Turkey would be willing to send ground troops into Syria if the other allies do their part against the Assad regime and the Islamic State. At the same time, Turkish leaders do not want to be seen as the "servant" of the United States, but want to determine Turkey's own role in the process. And Turkey is insisting that the West offer a comprehensive plan for Syria that targets Assad, not just the Islamic State.
Some Westerners, along with Syrian Kurds, claim .. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ru/originals/2014/06/zaman-salih-muslim-turkey-blind-eye-isis-mosul-syria-iraq.html .. that Turkey has been supporting IS militants more directly. The Turkish government rejects those claims vehemently. Ankara blames the West for failing to develop a proper strategy on Syria, former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for practicing the worst kind of sectarian politics, and the United States for withdrawing its occupation forces from Iraq in a way that has reduced the country to chaos.
The problem with all this is that blaming the West or the sectarian policies of the former Iraqi prime minister will not keep Turkey safe. Even though they may not condone its methods, many Turks -- including, presumably, many of the governing AK Party's voters -- may believe that the Islamic State represents legitimate Sunni grievances. Right now the Turkish government is focused above all on protecting the security of its borders. But the presence of IS militants inside Turkey, and the possibility of deepening sectarian and ethnic conflict, constitute threats of a potentially far more destructive character.
While some Westerners may hype the threats posed by the Islamic State to the United States and Europe, Turkey clearly has not been taking them seriously enough. Ankara may not be willing to pick sides in the fight between ISIS and the Kurds, but eventually it may have to -- even if that means abandoning decades-long state policy on the Kurdish question. The time has come for Turkey to stop scolding its allies and to act to prevent the fall of Kobani.
Berivan Orucoglu is the Turkey blogger for Transitions and a fellow at the McCain Institute's Next Generation Leaders Program.
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