The main problem of course is the relationship between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds.
Kurdistan
World War I saw the end of the Ottoman Empire. Originally, the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) between the victorious European powers and Turkey was to create a Kurdistan. After the Turkish War for Independence, the new Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk rejected the treaty and put down the resulting Kurdish uprisings. In the process, the “Young Turks” created modern Turkey. The result is that a large portion of Turkey and other countries include substantial Kurdish populations. (See map.)
The Kurds are not just concentrated into a single area. Looking at this map, you will note that there is a pocket of Kurds in eastern Iran and they are spread throughout Turkey.
I have not found particularly good population estimates; Global Security’s article gives contradictory statistics. I see something like the following distribution:
| Country | Population | |
|---|---|---|
| Turkey | 12 million | |
| Iraq | 4-5 million | |
| Iran | 4 million | |
| Syria | 1 million |
Prominent in the news has been Saddam Hussein’s murderous suppression of the Kurds, but the Kurds, unfortunately, have met suppression in every country in which they are located. For example, on August 17, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini declared Holy War on them. In 1962, the Syrian government stripped 120,000 Kurds of their citizenship making them stateless. Currently, 300,000 Syrian Kurds are denied citizenship.
Kurds in Iraq
Since 1992, the Kurds have run what is called the Kurdish Regional Government. The two main parties in this government are the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (the KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (the PUK). Both are social democratic parties affiliated with the Socialist International. The KDP is the older of the two founded 1946; the PUK was created in 1975. The two parties have not co-existed easily. They have clashed militarily, and split Iraqi Kurdistan between them geographically. Under their current arrangement, the KDP’s Masoud Barzani runs the autonomous Kurdish provinces and the PUK’s Jalal Talabani serves as Iraqi President.
Kurds in Turkey
Half of all Kurds live in Turkey and 20% of Turkey is Kurdish. Despite this, the Turkish government has a policy of officially denying the existence of a Kurdish nationality within Turkey. Until 1991, it was illegal to even speak Kurdish in Turkey. (Kurdish is a language with many dialects akin to Persian.) Even a Kurdish member of Turkey’s parliament received a fifteen year jail sentence in 1994 for making separatist speeches.
In response, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1978, established the Kurdish Workers’ Party, the PKK, which advocates independence. The PKK is not a friendly Gandhi-like resistance to oppression. They have been murderous. Murderous enough to get specific mention by Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International in 1996 tells us
Political violence has been a serious problem for almost three decades. Recent Turkish history has seen three military coups and, since the 1980s, armed conflict between the security forces and opposition groups based in the mountains of the southeast and the cities of west Turkey. Armed opposition groups have also abused human rights. The largest armed opposition group is the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy reports that Turkish public opinion regards the PKK as their top concern:
In July alone, the PKK killed twenty-three Turks, and the ongoing violence remains the most important domestic issue in Turkey. According to a November poll conducted by TESEV, a Turkish think tank, terrorism ranks among the public’s top concerns, equal to major issues such as high inflation, from which the Turks have suffered for nearly four decades.
More Kurds in Iraq
The KRG, the Kurdistan Regional Government, made it possible for the PKK to shelter in Iraq. According to the Washington Institute on Near East Policy
The PKK has used the four years since the start of the Iraq war to enhance its presence in northern Iraq, setting up a fully functioning enclave (with training camps, storage facilities, and reconnaissance and communications centers) around Qandil Mountain along the Iraq-Iran border, as well as various camps across the area. These bases provide training and coordination for attacks into Turkey. PKK violence emanating from this region, which is under U.S. military supervision but is actually controlled by Iraqi Kurdish parties-the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)-is inciting intense Turkish resentment against both Iraqi Kurds and the United States. As far as the Turks are concerned, both parties are implicitly sanctioning the PKK attacks by not dealing with the terrorist group’s presence in northern Iraq.
Needless to say, Turkey is not happy with this. That’s why they bombed northern Iraq in August.
U.S. Policy
U.S. policy appears to be to turn a blind eye to both Turkish abuses of Kurdish ethnic rights in Turkey and the presence of a terrorist Kurdish organization in Iraq. With an embarassing lack of subtlety, the U.S. government attempts to placate the Turkish government with essentially empty promises about dealing with the PKK’s presence in Iraq.
U.S. policy seems to regard the PKK problem in northern Iraq as a diplomatic problem that should be settled amicably by some sort of consensus of the parties involved. Secretary Rice seems to see this as a border problem rather than a problem with the presence of the PKK. When Condoleezza Rice visited Ankara on April 25, 2006, she was asked about this specifically at the news conference. Her reply emphasized diplomacy only:
Yes, as the Minister and I discussed this, we agreed that obviously we all have an interest in making certain that the borders are as secure as possible so that the Iraqis can be a part of the effort to make sure that Iraqi soil cannot be used as a base for terrorism. We have a trilateral mechanism — the coalition, the United States and Turkey. I think — I’m sorry — the coalition, the Iraqis and Turkey. And we’ve agreed that when there is an Iraqi Government this should be reactivated.
We obviously also are sharing information. The United States was active in helping in the past with the PKK and we will be active in the future in helping with the PKK. But of course we want anything that we do to contribute to stability in Iraq, not to threaten that stability or to make a difficult situation worse. And that is why a cooperative approach on this problem, cooperation between Iraq, Turkey and the coalition, is very important and it’s that cooperation that I think we’re both committed to.
The Iraq Study Group regarded this as a serious problem and points out that diplomacy alone on this problem is insufficient. Turkish newspapers are bitter about the lack of U.S. action on this. Take the Turk.US Daily News:
A statement issued Monday by the Prime Minister’s Office said that the Iraqi constitution does not permit terrorist organizations to seek shelter on its soil. The statement also stressed that Iraq wanted to cooperate with Turkey on security issues.
The Iraqi Council of Ministers had announced similar statements about closing PKK offices in the country before, but never enforced them.
The MERIP report from March 11, 2005 similarly indicates that a chasm exists between the stated intentions of the U.S. and our actions:
DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL
Perhaps the biggest fly in the ointment Rice was peddling in Ankara is the PKK, which fought a bitter separatist war with the Turkish military in the 1990s. On June 1, 2004, the group called off a five-year ceasefire that Turkey had never recognized. The PKK remains on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, as Rice sought to underline when tacitly equating it with al-Qaeda. But the US military has something of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about the several thousand PKK fighters who are living and training in the mountains inside northern Iraq. “If we ran into them, one of the terps [interpreters] would let us know and we would look the other way,” one former US military officer in northern Iraq confided. As long as the PKK was not carrying out terrorist acts in Iraq, he continued, they would not be a priority for the US military.
There is some evidence that the Bush Administration has woken up to the importance of addressing this problem.
Withdrawing from Iraq
These problems do not constitute a reason to stay in Iraq but they do give the U.S. homework assignments that must be completed to make the withdrawal as promising as possible. I understand there to be three assignments:
- The U.S. must pressure the Turkish government to improve its treatment of its sizeable Kurdish population.
- The U.S. must take the presence of the PKK in northern Iraq seriously and dismantle the threat it poses to Turkey.
- Finally, in an issue I have not covered here, the U.S. must arrange protection for Turkic population of Kirkuk against Kurdish predations.
With Turkey’s eagerness to integrate with Europe, leverage can be applied not just by the U.S. but by our allies as well to handle the first point. The second and third points require more action from the U.S. government.
Although I’m still waiting for “Leaving Iraq, Power Vacuums and Ethnic Cleansing”
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I think anyone could agree that getting out of the cities is a good idea (although the surge has started to look more promising lately in light of recent news, I think it’s just a figleaf to enable Bush to withdraw after 6 months and blame it on the Iraqis). But is there really a good reason not to leave 40-50k troops in the desert as a quick reaction force?
I’m looking forward to reading the one on Ethnic Cleansing too!
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The original challenge that got me writing this means I still have to address Iranian intervention (not just meddling) and oil. There’s also weighing the harm a continued U.S. presence causes against the changes that folllow a U.S. absence.
You point out a difficult spot in the American policy toward Iraq — how to maintain good relations with the Kurdish government in Northern Iraq while putting effort into thwarting their allies, the PKK.
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It’s hard enough with the American support for the Turkish government, which has implemented very strict measures in the southeast. Admittedly, the PKK has eased off recently in the wake of Ocalan’s capture and death sentence.
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I would think that the best hope of having Turkey deal with its Kurdish issues constructively would be pressure from the EU, which has made that a requirement of membership talks (along with the resolution of Turkish Cyprus’s status). If the EU smartens up on the issue of Turkey and opens the door wider, and stops being so confrontational about Cyprus, that would do more good than the US could.
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As alluded to in the article, the military has long had a rather…”active” role in democratic politics. The current situation finds the Turkish government more comfortable with the EU, and the Turkish military comfortable with the US. If we still have any competent diplomats left, they should be concentrating on coordinating stances toward Turkey with Germany and other EU members.
for the U.S. in their dealings with the Kurdistan Regional Govt.
is that:
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Whatever else is at stake in Kurdistan, the oil is always a factor.
You have to remember that the PKK stems from a ethnic group that has seen oppression and violence for decades everywhere it is; you can’t expect them to try and peacefully get what they want, namely because peace won’t ever further their cause. I know it’s tough to stomach, but Arabs, historically, do not act because of reasoning and diplomacy…it’s hard to get them to do anything without a gun halfway down their throats. I’m not being racist, I’m just citing the fact that it’s a different culture. We can’t expect them to resolve problems in the Western fashion.
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If the Revolutionary War was happening in 2007, how many foreign newsgroups would label us as Terrorists, Separatists, or Rebels etc…probably most of them.
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The PKK is fighting a government that essentially won’t recognize them and makes their existence a crime. This is the same boat that we were in back in 1776; perhaps they even have it worse off.
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Making promises to dismantle the PKK in order to secure peace with Turkey in our retreat would be a great act of selfishness towards people who are fighting for their freedom against a legitimate source of oppression. The Kurds have been good to us in Iraq. The least we could do is look the other way while they fight in a cause as noble as our own war or independence.
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This summer I went to a university in Europe. To my suprise, when I asked a cute Turkish girl out for a drink, she agreed. She was a educated, beer-drinking Muslim girl, which caught me as a sign of obvious moderation in Turkey. However, she vehemently denied that there was ever a genocide against the Armenians. I didn’t even ask about the Kurds.
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I just get the feeling the Turks may be too stubborn to ever just allow a Kurdistan.
yes, because the white people of Europe and North America so consistently act with reason and diplomacy. (Don’t think about how World War One started! Or the Vietnam War! Or the Thirty Years War! Or… well, I’ve made my point.)
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oh, yeah, and…
Or the Iraq War!
That’s a moot point. People are trying to find diplomatic solutions to a situation where such a solution does not exist.
First, be careful here. Neither the Kurds nor the Turks are. There is no inborn, historical tendency toward intolerance among Muslims, either. Example: the Ottoman Empire was extremely tolerant. If you had to choose between being a Jew in medieval Europe or a Jew in the Ottoman Empire, the choice would have been easy. Move to the Ottoman Empire. The Spannish Inquisition, after all, arose after the Arabs were driven from Spain.
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It just is not the case that oppression is ennobling. Sometimes you get Gandhi; sometimes you get Khomeini. Maybe out of guilt or because they’re our only friends in Iraq, we tend think that the Kurds are “the good guys”, but that’s an oversimplification. There are lots of Kurds, all with different amounts of “goodness”.
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For whatever it’s worth, Turkey has tried very hard to attain a national identity. The result has been brutal. The PKK, though, is not going to “liberate” the Kurds. They’re not strong enough. Some of their attrocities have been against fellow Kurds whom they’ve accused of complicity. With 20% of Turkey Kurdish anyway, you might have expected to see a bigger mess if the PKK were so popular.
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It gets worse: the PKK is also aligned with the Iranian Kurdish resistance. What a mess we’ll have if we get Turkey and Iran united to suppress a Kurdish problem on their Iraqi borders.
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As for diplomacy, my reading of it is that there is enough Kurdish factionalism that the KRG could be weaned from its support of the PKK.
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Finally, what do you say about the Basques? Are you saying it’s okay for the ETA to blow up trains in Madrid because that’s the only way they’ll get independence? Or are Spaniards less expendable than Turks?
That should read
I think for a lot of history, the Muslim Middle East has been an extremely tolerant region. Only recently has the trend moved to intolerance. However, that doesn’t excuse the fact that right now, they are oppressing the Kurds.
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The fact that they re aligned with Iranian Kurds is why we can establish a Kurdistan; the region would totally destabilize…even more.
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However, I’m not against evolving my viewpoint in light of new information. If the PKK is a truly murderous organization, would it not make more sense to instead of dismantling them, give them an avenue to do what they want without killing people (See: IRA, Sinn Fein).
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In your post you say to dismantle the PKK, but you also talk about exerting political pressure. Maybe, the best path would be a happy medium of exerting political pressure for recognition with a guarantee (enforced by our troops in the north of iraq, of course) that the violence would end. Make a Sinn Fein out of them, so to speak.
But the Basque region has autonomy, local government, lingua franca as an official language, and their own political party (frankly, I’ve never been clear why Basques in Spain are so exercised…it’s the ones in France that are being spurned).
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Whereas in southeast Turkey, much of the miliatry has a bit of a shoot first, ask questions later approach.
…frankly, I’ve never been clear why Basques in Spain are so exercised
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Few are. It is a very small minority.
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Actually, Italy handled its “acquisition” of South Tirol(Suedtirol)/Alto Adige from Austria at the end of WWI very well, too. (This is in the Dolomite area of north-eastern Italy). Italy “Italianized” some of the town and street names, but left the majority indigenous German speakers to their own devices, created an “autonomous” province, and it is one of the wealthiest areas (that around Bozen/Bolzano), and most popular vacation destinations, in Italy. Some nut-cases, mostly from the Northern League (which is headquartered out of the area) still talk about seceding and rejoining Austria, but, except for the tax man, most are quite content being part of Italy.
…and, quite frankly, more than a bit of the terrorism conducted in, particularly, Germany in the 1980s was by the PKK in support of an independent Kurdistan.
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Aside from the fact that the PKK is a heavily socialistic (would have been communistic, and hence heavily authoritarian) entity, ann independent Kurdistan would essentially mean that approximately the southeastern one-third of Turkey would be carved off, to unite with the PKKs in Iraq. Would you like to see that happen? Would the US like to see that happen? Turkey is, after all, a NATO ally. Allowing that to happen would be analogous to the southwestern quarter of the US being torn off and re-united with Mexico.
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One of the reasons that Turkey refused Bush’s little adventure in Iraq to get the guy who almost killed his daddy was that they knew that it would embolden the Kurds. The Turks, as part of NATO, were willing to help the US in Afghanistan after the US had been attacked from Afghanistan. If I were a Turk, I would seriously wonder whether the US would help Turkey if they were being attacked by the Kurds.
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BTW, cute quote von der Bismarck. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t explain his politics very well. If you remember, he was the one who initially instituted the German social security system, including old age pensions and medical care. Not out of the goodness of his heart, to be sure, but to forestall the advances of the socialists. In Germany, in around 1870. Having been involved in the current German medical care system, the US could learn a lot from der Bismarck.
In this issue. It’s not like this issue doesn’t affect all of us enormously, but you took it upon yourself to write these detailed posts. Just wondering, in all sincerity.
On a surface level, I’ve been saying for a while that I think that withdrawing is the best thing the U.S. can do. For some folks, I noticed that the usual arguments didn’t cut it. Those arguments were about Bush Administration mismanagement, rules of engagement, Iraqi opinion about the U.S. remaining, and the evidence that the continued occupation was exacerbating the situation. The question I was getting both at home and from Jim Caralis and Central Mass Dad was about the U.S. responsibility not to leave behind something even worse. Certainly we don’t want a withdrawal as reckless as the occupation. So it seemed to me that a careful estimate of the aftermath of a U.S. withdrawal was required. I haven’t seen anyone else work through that, so I thought I’d give it a try. What could we learn from it? I’m grateful that this has led to a useful discussion.
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On another level, I think there’s something about Jeffersonian democracy requiring us all to be informed citizens. 9/11 told me that ignorance about the Muslim world had become incompatible with my patriotic duty as an American, so I’ve been reading somewhat more than I might otherwise about the Middle East.
JC and CMD can be demanding debaters, but they listen to reason in my experience.
I’m active in the college republican circles, so this issue is, of course, discussed with much frequency.
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Everyone agrees that we do need to withdraw. The issue we have, at least us college students with limited real-world experience, is that when we leave…that’s it. The law has left the building. So I would like to pose this solution that our circle thinks would probably work the best, and I would like a well-read democrats response.
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1. We do a phased withdrawal from central Iraq, while moving in Egyptian troops to take our place. Rationale: They are Sunni, know the language, know the culture, and are already incredibly well trained. Plus, next to Israel, Egypt gets the most money from us in the Middle East. They owe us.
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2. At the same time, we phase withdraw out of southern Iraq while moving Iranian troops to keep the peace. This is the trickiest issue because of the bad blood between Iraqis and Iranians. This issue can be overcome because of a few facts: The brass that ordered the war was Sunni, so the south which the vast majority is Shiite would have an easier time cooperating without Sunni leadership. Secondly, the last thing Iran wants to see is the neighbors exploding into a full blown civil war — this would cause a huge refugee crisis Iran doesn’t want to see. Iran has a large incentive to stabilize Iraq. Plus, this issue would be gold for us to open up communications with our former allies.
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3. We maintain a nominal force in north Iraq to assure there are no Turkish incursions, but never allow the formation of an official Kurdistan, simply to keep the peace.
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I understand how difficult the execution of this plan would be, but if you bring enough people to the table, offer the right incentives, apply pressure here and drop a sanction there, you might be able to pull it off. Or we could just ditch and let them kill each other. Heh.
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Anywho, that’s what this Republican and his friends think. KBusch, what do YOU think?
Good god… I mean, what kind of equipment are you gonna justify them bringing? I think if you look back a few decades to the years of pan-arab nationalism, you’d find plenty of evidence of why everyone would be up in arms over the prospect of Egypt occupying Baghdad. I’d rather have the Saudi secret police there than Egypt, at least they’ll be quiet. Egyptian troops A) suck, B) aren’t from Baghdad (all politics are local), C) will receive less of a welcome than American troops and D) have no motivation to die for the Iraqi public.
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And Iran in southern Iraq… you know the way civil disorder is “fixed” in the middle east, right? I appreciate thinking outside the box but you’re just creating 2 mini-states that are much more of a mess than they are now, with the stakes raised for all of the neighbors and a bigger chance at regional war. What we need to do is reconcile the factions to living together, not throw in more factions and more guns.
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I’m actually starting to think the “Surge” (xtreme!) will work. We have Petraeus in charge, Rumsfeld swapped for Gates, plans for 9 battallions in Baghdad occupying forts all over the city at company strength (that’s 27 150-200 man forts across the city), along with 9 Iraqi brigades (3 battallions each) co-locating in those same forts. Apparently we’re doing pretty well at getting our forces inserted so far, we haven’t been ambushed badly except for a couple choppers getting hit and according to iraqthemodel we took Haifa St (which is apparently important) this weekend.
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Politically, Sadr is apparently cooperating to the extent of letting some of his lieutenants be arrested/killed and the Sunni insurgents aren’t strong enough to put up a fight for longer than a month. Lots of them are from out of town, to boot. Throw in the public rebukes of Ahmadenijad by the Supreme Leader and a Grand Ayatollah of Iran coinciding with our very public announcement that we’re ok with killing Iranian intelligence officers if they’re causing trouble and it looks like Iran might cooperate in the interests of a chance of stability. There’s actually a chance here. We could very well stabilize the city for 6 months and then the Iraqis will be operating out of the same exact infrastructure once we scale back, meaning it will be feasible to embed, say, a US officer per platoon when we leave to call in fire support if necessary.
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Public opinion on Iraq has lagged reality by at least a year so far, I’m ok with being alone in saying that this is the best option right now (and if it doesn’t work, nothing we do will, just leave).
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First of all, the only Middle Eastern country that’s militarily better than Egypt is Israel. Egypt has a modern, well-trained, well-equipped and experienced military. While it’s true that Iraqis value local politics above all else, they sure as hell would have a better time accepting Sunni Arabs as police rather than infidels. And while Egyptians have no will to die for the Iraqi public, they’d still do it. 3,000 Americans, with far less to lose over a regional Mideast war already have.
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Splitting Iraq into mini-states is not even a bad idea. It’s far more natural than the arbitrarily drawn lines they currently have.
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You have to figure, these people hold whether you’re Sunni or Shiite over everything. If they’re willing to saw a man’s head off because he’s a Sunni, they’ll accept an Iranian who’s Shiite. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s the culture of those people over there.
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The only way we could let Turkey in is if they guaranteed Kurdish minorities more rights stateside. Otherwise, it will be attrition.
It seems wrong that Turkey wants to send troops into Iraq, and we’re not letting them. What? We want more troops in Iraq!!! After reading KBusch’s entire post, I understand that the purposes are not entirely aligned – Turkey would be more interested in engaging the militant Kurdish factions in the north, which is the last problem on our minds. Fine, that specific action is unacceptable to us; but Turkey still has a desire and willingness to apply military force in Iraq to make sure the situation does not destabilize; we have a desire for the same, and to get as much help with it as we can. We could go to the negotiating table and say to Turkey, “If you really want to keep Iraq from becoming a problem for you, give us some troops to put in Baghdad and Anbar, where we badly need more troops and especially Arab troops. We will then cover the Kurdish north for you and crack down on the PKK. Everyone will get what they want, and the overall stabilization effort in Iraq will be more likely to succeed.”
Why is that not a good idea? (other than the larger question of stay / withdraw; I’m working from the “stay” mindset which appears to be reality at this time.)
Juan Cole today points to an article on Reuters “‘Dividing Iraq means ‘endless war’: Turkey”:
The opinions of those analysts certainly temper the main point of my post; however notice the role Turkish public opionion. The Turkish government seems to think that regional diplomacy would be very helpful.
For one thing, there are Kurdish troops operating in Baghdad now that are basically reconsituted peshmerga units so there’d be a lot of room for trouble there. For another, Turks speak Turkish instead of Arabic and their military, while pretty good and very disciplined according to what I’d read (Iraq could use a Kemal Attaturk) would be pursuing regional Turkish goals instead of Iraqi goals.
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Also, cracking down on the Kurds is not a good idea for us… they’re really not causing very much trouble, considering. It’s probably best to avoid escalating the situation.
The point is not, this is a perfect solution outlined in one paragraph. The point is, there’s an opportunity harness the Turk’s natural objectives to benefit the overall Iraq situation. For just one example, ok so there are Kurdish troops in Baghdad and that’s where I said the Turks should go. Fine, then put the Turks in southern Iraq instead and move somebody else into Baghdad. There are solutions here.
My point is, we need more troops, especially troops from countries in the region; Arab-speaking troops are best but Turkish troops are a heckuva lot more effective with the populace than American troops. If there’s an opportunity, we should be willing to figure out what it takes to make it happen. At this point, the biggest “not a good idea for us” as you put it is to continue on with the same insufficient troops and losing tactics we’ve been using, and keep saying no to every idea that could turn things around.