America Uses the PKK in
Northern Iraq
observercyprus
23.02.2007
Professor Dogu Ergil: “America is using the PKK, not
against Turkey but against Iran and Syria to destabilize their regimes and in
return the PKK is protected.”
By Yesim Erdem Holland / Istanbul
When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the government may
hold talks with the Kurdish leaders in Northern Iraq it immediately created
tension in the country. The Army took offence and declared it wrong to sit with
people who clearly back the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) as the main opposition
party cynically suggested that Erdogan have talks with Ocalan at Imrali. Turkey
is growing increasingly impatient with the US and Iraqi reluctance to crack down
on the PKK, whose members find refuge in Northern Iraq. Turkish Chief of Staff
General Yasar Buyukanit accused Iraqi Kurds of ‘fully’ supporting the PKK. And
now, an expert on the Kurdish problem, Dogu Ergil tells the Cyprus Observer that
the PKK is more valuable to the US than it appears and that the US rule in Iraq
actually uses the Organization for its own goals and in return grants it
protection.
Ankara and Iraqi Kurds have
long been at loggerheads over the future of Kirkuk. Turkey charges that tens of
thousands of Kurds have been moved into Kirkuk to change its demography ahead of
a referendum on the city’s status, scheduled to be held by the end of this year.
Ankara is worried that Kurdish control of Kirkuk’s oil reserves will lead them
to independence from Baghdad, fuelling the Kurdish insurgency led by the PKK in
the adjoining southeast of Turkey. Massoud Barzani, the President of Iraqi
Kurdistan denied supporting the PKK but said Kirkuk was the “heart of
Kurdistan.”
The Turkish government criticized Barzani harshly for his views on Kirkuk but
said that the government will say the last word about bilateral talks. Before
that last word comes, we talked with Dogu Ergil about what this last word
should, and could, be, i.e. the policies, sensitivities and fears of Turkey over
Northern Iraq. Ergil is a Professor of Political Sociology at Ankara University
and the president of the Foundation for Research of Societal Problems (TOSAV).
One of his research projects in the 1990s, when the Kurdish conflict was at its
peak, entitled ‘The Eastern (Kurdish) Question’, was a formative study of the
fratricidal conflict and created widespread repercussions. The survey showed
that 90% of Kurds do not want to impair Turkey’s territorial integrity. Instead
they want to discuss peaceful solutions, damaging the army’s justifications to
continue its war. He was hastily called a traitor for the findings of this
research, and the war continued.
Question: Does Turkey have a
northern Iraq policy? We know what we don’t want: we don’t want an independent
Kurdish state to be established there. But do we know what we want?
Answer: Turkey does have a
northern Iraq policy, but it is not a policy with any great strategic depth. The
policy is basically to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish state
and to preserve the unity of Iraq - the latter, of course, is only important in
as much as it includes the former: Turkey would not be interested in Iraq’s
unity if it was not concerned about the possibility of an independent Kurdish
state.
Q: Would the establishment
of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq be a real threat for Turkey? Or
is this issue exaggerated to provoke nationalism or enmity towards Kurdish
people?
A: Beyond its nationalist
discourse, Turkey also pursues a Statist approach, and under this approach it
did not recognize the existence of Kurdish people for a long time. When
something does not exist, it cannot have any rights either. So, Turkey did not
think it should give any rights to the Kurds, whom it considered non-existent.
When Turkey had to acknowledge the existence of the Kurds, it was inevitable
that it would grant them some rights. But for Turkey, granting these rights is
seen as a great favour, and one it was compelled to grant, because Turkey does
not see the Kurdish problem as a democratization issue but as a security issue.
This derives from the heterogeneous and unitary nature of the Turkish political
culture. As long as this approach continues, the establishment of an independent
Kurdish state in northern Iraq will be a real threat for Turkey through its own
inertia.
Q: What should Turkey do to
involve the Kurds in the system?
A: Turkey should accept that
it is a pluralist society. It needs a judicial system that will redefine
citizenship that is to say not solely as ‘Turkishness’. And the administrative
structure should be shifted from one central to one more local. When we say
this, people react and accuse us of suggesting separate states with separate
laws like in the US. What we are talking about is not that. The current very
centralized administrative system causes a participation problem in Turkey.
No peace without dialogue
Q: Is it strange for the
Turkish Prime Minister to meet with the northern Iraqi Kurdish leaders? Didn’t
Turkey pursue diplomatic relations with, say, Syria when it was known that they
were sheltering Abdullah Ocalan?
A: Of course it is not
strange to have relations with them and Turkey has always done that and should
do as peace is made with the enemy. If people refused to talk with their enemies
there would be no peace in the world. Not meeting them is an emotional reaction,
not a political one. Nobody has the right to say that. Besides, meeting with
them has practical benefits. Next month, representatives of Iraq and of
neighbouring countries are going to get together in Mosul. Turkey will be at the
same table with the Kurds there anyway. Turkey even tried to present this as its
own plan, which it wasn’t; it was an American plan. And it is significant that
even America will be seated there with representatives from Iran and Syria.
These are the two countries America refuses to negotiate with. You do sit down
with your enemies to achieve peace.
Q: In that case, could the
tension between the government and the generals over meeting Kurdish leaders be
related to the long-lasting conflict between the government and the generals,
rather than an Iraq policy in particular?
A: It may well be. It
wouldn’t be surprising for the army, which is hostile to Erdogan, to display its
opposition to him prior to elections. And it is a good time for them to do that
because they know that the government can’t respond harshly at such a time in
order to avoid raising tensions. If that happened, the media would exploit it as
much as it could, and so would the opposition, which hasn’t been able to perform
any opposition other than hiding behind the army. On top of everything, people
unfortunately trust the army. The public does not favour military rule, but it
does want a measure of control by the army. So the army has a strong hand at the
moment.
PKK handy for US
Q: Do the Kurdish leaders in
northern Iraq support the PKK, as the Turkish army and many diplomats have
claimed?
A: It is normal that when
you show hostility, your target will try and take advantage of your weak points.
Turkey said it cannot accept an autonomous Kurdish administration, and it
happened. And now it says it cannot accept an independent Kurdish state, and it
looks like it is going to happen. As long as Turkey continues to be hostile to
the Iraqi Kurds, it is natural that they will be moderate towards Turkey’s
enemy.
PKK is useful both for Iraqi Kurdish leaders and also for the US government.
America is using the PKK, not against Turkey but against Iran and Syria to
destabilize their regimes. The US sees Syria and Iran as enemies but it cannot
declare war on them. Neither the US congress, nor its allies will let that
happen. So America wants to create trouble, instability in these countries.
Iranian Kurdistan is very strong for example. If there was a government crisis
in Iran, in that turmoil a separate state could be established in the Iranian
Kurdistan. The PKK is more organized than we think. It has connections with
other groups, organizations. The US is using the PKK for its connections to stir
things up there and also in Syria. Syria backed the PKK before and the
Organization had many members of Syrian origin. So the PKK comes in handy to
stir things up in Syria too. And in return it keeps the PKK under its guard.
This relation can be observed from PKK discourse as well. They had a very
anti-American stance before, but not anymore, not in the last year. But of
course America does not use the PKK against Turkey. This is why the PKK declared
a ceasefire with Turkey.
Q: How about Kirkuk. Who has
a right over Kirkuk?
A: Everybody who lives in
Kirkuk. But its demography is a complicated question. Saddam started to make
Kirkuk Arab in the 1980s by paying soldiers to move there and paying others to
move out. Now the Kurds are doing the same in favour of the Kurds. They are
paying large amounts of money to Arabs to persuade them to leave. The latest
records about the population in Kirkuk date back to 1957. It shows that Kurds
had the majority then, Turkmens were second and Arabs third. After 1980, Arabs
were probably a majority because Kurds destroyed the records of households in
2003. After the referendum, Kirkuk will probably be included in the Kurdish
area. But the Arabs will not let Kurds get away with it. Nor will Turkish secret
services and nor will Iran. For everybody, a very unfortunate period will start.
Q: If the referendum takes
place, how will Turkey react?
A: The US will let Turkey
carry out air attacks on the PKK, this has already been talked about. But these
attacks are pointless. Turkey cannot finish off PKK here. How will it finish
them off there? It is a difficult territory. You bomb the mountain but nothing
happens to those hiding in the caves of the mountains. But these are all wrong
and fruitless plans, policies. Turkey does not have any right over Northern
Iraq. We tell them, “We’ll attack your country,” and when they warn us against
it, saying, “You will have to deal with protests from the Iraqi border to Sivas
if you dare,” we flare up and say, “How can they ever possibly threaten us?” But
we say we’ll attack them! How can anything be more hostile than that? This is an
immoral political understanding. And so is saying, “Don’t get any better, any
richer because this will wet the appetites of my Kurds.” Turkey should instead
establish optional policies and seek to benefit from what is happening, and what
will happen in Northern Iraq. They are not excluding Turks. They even give Turks
permission to search for oil. After establishing such economic relations in this
political situation, you go and prevent it by military force if you can. They
proved to be more clever than us.
