Opportunity For Turks And Kurds?
By Richard Holbrooke
Monday, February 12, 2007; A17 The Washington post
IRBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan -- Whatever happens in
Iraq, we must try to limit the terrible fallout from the war. The place to
start should be with our indispensable NATO ally Turkey, the front-line state
of the post-Cold War era, whose relations with the United States have
deteriorated dramatically in the past six years.
The immediate issue is raids by Kurdish
terrorists across Turkey's border with Iraq, which divides an area inhabited
on both sides by Kurds who have long felt that they deserve their own country.
Despite centuries of enmity, rapprochement is in the long-term interests of
both Turkey and the Kurds of northern Iraq. But such an effort would be
controversial and could be undertaken only with strong American encouragement.
First, some essential background from Irbil,
the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, which I am visiting after talks with Turkish
leaders in Ankara. This peaceful city is disorienting: Am I in war-torn Iraq
or booming Kurdistan? Will Irbil eventually become the capital (or part) of an
independent Kurdistan? Or will this region become a battleground for another
war, this one between Kurds and Turks?
You can call this place Kurdistan, as its
citizens do, or northern Iraq, as the Turks do. But either way, the
overwhelming majority (98 percent in a 2005 referendum) of its 4 million
people do not want to remain part of Iraq. Who can blame them? Nothing here
feels like the Middle East. The Iraqi national flag is banned; only the
Kurdistan flag flies. And although the Kurds are sending some of their
famously fierce warriors to Baghdad to support the Americans, they fear that
Gen. David Petraeus's plan to turn the tide in Baghdad will not succeed.
Ever since a nation called Iraq was carved
out of the debris of the Ottoman Empire by Winston Churchill and Gertrude Bell
at the Cairo Conference of 1921, Turkey and Iran have opposed independence for
the Kurds of northern Iraq because both fear that an independent Kurdistan on
their borders would encourage existing separatist movements among their large
Kurdish populations.
This symmetry of fears has led to semi-secret
discussions and even some cooperation between our NATO ally and that charter
member of the "axis of evil" on dealing with the PKK, a terrorist group that
has conducted raids against both Turkey and Iran from bases just inside
northern Iraq for many years. I would not rule out limited Turkish military
action against some of those bases -- especially since Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan is under enormous political pressure to show strong nationalist
credentials against hawkish rivals in an election year.
After years of mishandling relations with
Turkey, last year the administration appointed retired Gen. Joe Ralston, the
universally respected former NATO commander, as special envoy for the PKK
problem. Ralston's intervention helped avoid a Turkish attack in Iraq last
summer, and he is accelerating his efforts to get Irbil to rein in the PKK.
But there is a larger issue: the final status
of Kirkuk, the multiethnic city that sits in the middle of a huge oil field
and lies just outside the official boundaries of Iraqi Kurdistan. The new
Iraqi constitution calls for a referendum this year on whether Kirkuk is to be
incorporated into the Kurdistan region. The Turks -- who refer repeatedly to
the dangers to the Turkmen, their ethnic cousins who live in Kirkuk -- have
said that they will not accept such an event. Avoiding a full-blown crisis
will require intense mediation by the United States; unfortunately, Ralston's
current mandate does not include Kirkuk.
Despite their history, Turkey and Iraqi
Kurdistan need each other. Kurdistan could become a buffer between Turkey and
the chaos to the south, while Turkey could become the protector of a Kurdistan
that, though still technically part of Iraq, is effectively cut loose from a
Baghdad government that may no longer function. In addition, Turkey has a
major economic opportunity in northern Iraq; already, more than 300 Turkish
companies and substantial investment are a primary engine of Kurdish growth.
Rapprochement would require major
undertakings by both sides. The legendary Kurdish leader who is now president
of the Kurdish regional government, Massoud Barzani, needs to rein in the PKK
and pledge not to interfere in Turkey's internal affairs. A compromise that
took into account legitimate Turkish concerns would be necessary on Kirkuk;
while this would be difficult, especially for the Turkish military, I believe
it needs to be attempted, with strong American encouragement.
History and myth make a Turkish-Kurdish deal
extremely difficult. It takes visionary leaders to alter the stream of
history. Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer did it for France and Germany.
Nelson Mandela did it in South Africa. But such people are very, very rare.
Still, the crisis in Iraq requires Turks and Kurds to think of their common
interest. Having just talked to the impressive leaders of both sides, I
believe they understand that they face not just a crisis but an opportunity.
Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, writes a monthly column for The Post.
