KurdistanObserver.com

Turkey Kurdish mayor Osman Baydemir visiting USA

Feb 6, 2006 The New Anatolian

According to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) WebPages, Osman Baydemir, the mayor of Diyarbakir, is scheduled to visit the U.S. accompanied by six businessmen starting yesterday and lasting through Feb. 16.

The webpage reported that Baydemir is going to attend various meetings at United Nations headquarters in New York. In addition Baydemir will visit Nashville, Tennessee for two days, which has the largest Kurdish community in the U.S. known as 'mini Kurdistan'. This visit is planned to develop a sister-city project between Diyarbakir and Nashville. During the last five days of his program Baydemir and the six businessmen will visit Washington D.C.

What makes Baydemir's visit interesting is the timing and the places to be visited. For those who follow the Kurdish issue in Turkey, it's no a secret that there are two key figures who've dominated the Kurdish debate lately: PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and Baydemir.

Unlike other pro-PKK, Democratic Society Party (DTP) mayors, what makes Baydemir hit the headlines in the pro-PKK media is his stubborn and intolerant opposition to Turkish state policies. For instance, against the government's will, Baydemir led the other DTP mayors to write a letter to the Danish government asking that the Danish-based, pro-PKK satellite TV channel Roj-TV not be banned.

In addition, not only did he visit the families of 'Kurdish freedom fighters' who were killed in gun battles between Turkish security forces and the PKK organization, he also sent official ambulances, which belong to the municipality, to pick up the Kurdish rebels bodies. Lately, although the law strictly bans the use of local languages for official purposes, he didn't hesitate to use Kurdish in his official celebration letters.

It's also no secret that on Feb. 15, the seventh anniversary of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan's capture, the PKK, and its extension the DTP, will organize large-scale demonstrations in Diyarbakir, Mersin (Kurdistan-Turkey) and other cities in Turkey to protest the arrest. It's expected that the protest in Diyarbakir will be the largest compared to other cities. It's also expected that the U.S. will be condemned by the demonstrators for the help it provided in the process that led up to to the capture of Ocalan.

These two points make Baydemir's U.S. visit more interesting. As usual, as a vocal leader of the Kurdish "opposition," one would expect Baydemir to lead the demonstration in Diyarbakir. However he chose not to do so and instead decided to travel to the U.S. Experts believe that Baydemir's visit is a strategic move.

After the Iraq liberation, the U.S. has become an active player in regional politics. The Kurdish issue occupies an important part of the agenda of regional politics.

The timing of the visit is also interesting in terms of international political dynamics. If we consider that the U.S. is desperately searching for local allies to support its policies on Iran, Baydemir's visit can be considered a strategic move. From this perspective Baydemir's agenda also gives the impression that he planned this visit for strategic purposes to establish contacts in Washington D.C. For instance, the visit to Nashville, besides the sister-city project, is most likely planned to establish such connections because Nashville is the city with the largest Kurdish community.

In the Nashville Kurdish community there are people, including American professors, who work extensively on the Kurdish issue and advise Iraqi Kurdistan regional government President Massoud Barzani, whom Baydemir is most likely to meet, and are very influential in Washington. After the Nashville visit, the five-day program in Washington D.C. also is an indicator of his aim to establish contacts with influential Washingtonians.

If we take all these factors into consideration, Baydemir's visit could be a turning point for the Kurdish issue, assuming that it wasn't encouraged by Abdullah Ocalan himself to discuss the PKK's possible help to the U.S. in an anticipated strike against Iran.