In northern Iraq, largely unnoticed, a conflict is brewing that, if allowed to boil over, could precipitate civil war, break-up of the country and in a worst-case scenario Turkish intervention. Tensions in the oil-rich Kirkuk region, where the political ambitions, historical claims and economic interests of the principal communities -- Kurds, Arabs, Turkomans and Chaldo-Assyrians -- clash, have been escalating since U.S. forces toppled the Baathist regime in April 2003. Violence is assuming a troubling pattern. Turkey, with its own large Kurdish population, is watching with growing anxiety. The U.S. and EU need to do more to resolve the Kirkuk question and help Ankara protect its vital interests without resort to increasingly hollow but destabilising threats of military intervention. (Complete report).
Here is another outcome of Bush Administration stupidity. Bush pressured the Turks to enter the war against Iraq and invade via the NW border region. They hadn't bothered to do their homework. Both the Turks and Kurds rejected that idea because they are mortal enemies. The Kurds would have joined the insurgency if Turks attacked them. If the Turks crossed the border, both knew that was inevitable. But the US continued to cajole the Turks and Kurds that they could work together until the Turks and Kurds froze out the idea. The Turks opposed the US invasion and only belatedly allowed US aircraft fly-overs and access from airbases in Turkey.
Now the conflict is enflamed over Kurdish and Turkoman attempts to repopulate Kirkuk. Throughout Sadaam's reign, he used ethnic cleansing by moving Kurds and Turkoman out of Kirkuk where they were an overwhelming majority and moving Arabs in. By the time of the US invasion, the Kurds were a minority and ethnicity was effectively balanced. The Kurds are determined to reassert a majority in Kirkuk, going even so far as talking about making Kirkuk the capital of the Kurdish province of Iraq.
Turkey has been concerned about rebellion amongst Turkish Kurds in SE Turkey. The Kurds have aggitated for a homeland comprising of SE Turkey, northern Iraq, and NW Iran for a long time. From 1920 to 1923, they had one. The British dominated the area after the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI. The Ottoman Empire included northern Iraq including Kirkuk. The Brits first gave the Kurds a homeland, but then under local pressure took it back and subdivided Kurdistan among Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Since then, all three countries have been suppressing restive Kurds.
Turkey is convinced that if the Iraqi Kurds control Kirkuk and its oil, the Turkish Kurds will rebel seeking to secede and merge with a new Kurdistan. Then southern Iraq will become even closer to Iran and the exporting of terror among Shiite groups throughout the region will escalate.
So since the US invasion of Iraq which they vigorously opposed as destablizing, they have been forced to establish a presense in northern Iraq. Diplomats say Turkey has 1500-3000 Special Forces troops in Iraq. Recently the Kurds accused these troops of plotting to assasinate one of their leaders.
At home, right-wing politician in Ankara who have a strong influence in the military have created a war fever about the political disadvantage their Turkoman kin in Northern Iraq. It has become a widely held belief among Turkish population that Turkey should occupy northern Iraq to protect their kin and keep the Kurds from controlling Kirkuk. Turkey has made a promise to intervene if the Kurds control Kirkuk. While the Kurds are determined to do just that.
Given this state of affairs, conflict seems more than likely unless the momentum swings towards peace led by those least likely to do so, the Kurds, the Turks, or the Americans. The US is preoccupied with it's own problems and is basically ignoring northern Iraq because it has been largely peaceful.
In 2003, because of the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the US invited Turkey to send troops. Ankara given the new realities of a destablized northern Iraq, did an about face and offered 10,000 troops. The Kurds successfully resisted this move. Since then with The European Union seriously looking at Turkey's membership, intervention seems less likely. But if a Kurdish state including Kirkuk would emerge, all bets are off and Ankara may choose to intervene.
To the players involved, as long as the Shiite south remained secular, the US might be happy with a partition of Iraq. This is an outcome Turkey will not accept.
Executive Summary
Iraq: Allaying Turkey's Fears Over Kurdish Ambitions
Middle East Report N°35
26 January 2005
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In northern Iraq, largely unnoticed, a conflict is brewing that, if allowed to boil over, could precipitate civil war, break-up of the country and in a worst-case scenario Turkish intervention. Tensions in the oil-rich Kirkuk region, where the political ambitions, historical claims and economic interests of the principal communities -- Kurds, Arabs, Turkomans and Chaldo-Assyrians -- clash, have been escalating since U.S. forces toppled the Baathist regime in April 2003. Violence is assuming a troubling pattern. Turkey, with its own large Kurdish population, is watching with growing anxiety. The U.S. and EU need to do more to resolve the Kirkuk question and help Ankara protect its vital interests without resort to increasingly hollow but destabilising threats of military intervention.
The situation has been aggravated by the worsening state of affairs in Iraq and by political actors, especially Kurds, who are seeking to undo the grave injustices that flowed from the ousted regime's policy of Arabisation, returning in numbers and laying claim to Kirkuk as the capital of a future Kurdish region -- or state. Tensions have been contained somewhat by the presence of U.S. troops and a U.S.-engineered interim political arrangement -- a provincial council broadly representative of the four communities -- that, against all odds, has held. But as Washington's attention is increasingly drawn to the instability in the rest of the country, things in Kirkuk might well get out of hand and the communities there find themselves in a violent stand-off.
From Ankara's perspective, chaos or civil war in Iraq, the creation of a Kurdish state in the north with Kirkuk as its capital that would serve as a magnet or model for Turkey's own Kurdish population, or a combination of the above, are nightmare scenarios. At the mercy of forces beyond its control, Turkey is anchoring its strategy in commitment to the political process in Baghdad and, as part of that, a peaceful solution to the Kirkuk question. It also is banking on progress in accession talks with the European Union to reduce any appetite for secession its Kurdish population might still harbour.
But it would be imprudent to rely on these as insurance against the threat of military actions should Turkish national interests seem to be in jeopardy. EU accession is, at best, years away. Public pressures resulting from Ankara's manipulation of the Iraqi Turkoman question and the continued deployment of Turkish troops on Iraqi soil could create a dynamic of their own, possibly precipitating military intervention in Kirkuk. Prospects for success in Iraq's political process are receding in the face of growing Sunni Arab alienation and a spreading insurgency. All in all, heightened threat perceptions could in themselves create an interventionist dynamic that more sober minds in Ankara might be unable to control.
Further improvement of relations between Turkey and Iraq's Kurdish leadership is the best hedge against the risks. Indeed, Turkey has already come a long way, accepting today a federal arrangement for Iraq's Kurds that even two years ago it considered an anathema. Economic ties and trade also have increased. But more steps should be taken, based on mutual interests: Turkey needs good relations with the Kurds to prevent chaos in the north, and the landlocked, vulnerable Kurdish entity, in turn, may have little choice but to rely on Turkey for protection.
Confidence-building measures are required to change the atmosphere, establish mechanisms to head off emerging conflicts and enable Turkey to play a more constructive role in the peaceful solution of the Kirkuk question. These include a mutual halt to inflammatory rhetoric, a lowering of tensions in Kirkuk, in particular through proactive international monitoring, and resolution of the nagging problem of the insurgent Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK (now called Kongra-Gel), remnants of whose forces remain holed up in northern Iraq.
The U.S., which remains Turkey's strategic ally, and the EU have a common interest in encouraging Turkey to play a constructive role. They should work proactively to resolve the Kirkuk question, strengthening relations between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, and promoting investments that would give the Kurdish population in southeastern Turkey evidence of the benefits it would gain from Turkish accession to the EU. Ultimately, the challenge is, through such measures, to give Turkey the means to exert a positive influence over the course of events in northern Iraq generally and Kirkuk in particular.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the Government of Turkey:
1. Halt rhetoric that inflames passions over Kirkuk, the Kurds and Iraq's Turkomans.
2. Cease financial support to the Iraqi Turkoman Front.
3. Commit to the peaceful resolution of the Kirkuk question and respect whatever settlement Iraqis agree upon among themselves.
4. Keep open the border crossings with Iraq and the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline.
5. Encourage trade and investment in northern Iraq, working directly with the Kurdish parties where possible.
6. Consider issuing a broader amnesty for the PKK/Kongra-Gel, which would cover the leadership in northern Iraq and not require returnees to inform on their colleagues.
To the Kurdish Leadership in Iraq:
7. Halt inflammatory rhetoric over Kirkuk.
8. Start conditioning the Kurdish public for a compromise solution on Kurdish national aspirations, including an advanced degree of autonomy within a decentralised Iraq and a special status for the city and governorate of Kirkuk.
9. Relinquish the directorates in Kirkuk over which the Kurdish parties took control at the war's end, and cooperate in an equitable redistribution of power in Kirkuk under the leadership of the governorate council to be elected on 30 January 2005.
10. Support trade and investment with neighbouring countries.
To the United States and European Union:
11. Strengthen relations between the Turkish government and the Iraqi Kurdish leadership.
12. Promote investment in southeastern Turkey.
13. Make the case to the Security Council to:
(a) appoint a U.N. Special Rapporteur to monitor the situation in Kirkuk (city as well as governorate) and report quarterly to the Secretary-General on developments and actions that threaten to destabilise the situation;
(b) consider, in consultation with the elected Iraqi authorities, appointing a UN Supervisor in Kirkuk with power to impose regulations, introduce multi-ethnic police and courts, and establish other services; and
(c) solicit funding from donors to facilitate the Supervisor's task.
Ankara/Amman/Brussels, 26 January 2005
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