Turkey’s Bad Export, Damaged Good: The ITF

By: Adil Al-Baghdadi

Mar 2, 2005

Brussels

Adil_al_baghdadi@hotmail.com

In Memory of Musa Antar¹ 

A great Kurdish Writer and Patriot

It is necessary, at various stages, to re-examine and analyze the principles, policies and tactics of a political party or movement and to consolidate and refresh the ideas of basic cadres and its leaders.

But this only holds true if the political party in question is a genuine, bona fide, and most importantly independent entity.

In the light of the very poor showing at the polls - some might even say heavy defeat - by the Turkey’s front, the Iraqi Turkoman Front, ITF, and the shock this has caused to its members after seeing how unpopular their front is among Turkoman electorates, this seems to be a suitable time to re-examine some of its basic conceptions and misconception, regarding its position within Iraq and South Kurdistan.

To the real Turkoman voters, or those who have not voted and other Turkoman groups, the problem is posed in the simplest terms: the policy pursued by Turkey’s proxy have betrayed the Turkomans, therefore an independent new party free of Turkish influence must be immediately built on ashes of the front.

Turkey and its front did not take into account the historical development and momentum which post-Saddam era has ushered in South Kurdistan and Iraq as a whole.

Without flexible tactics it is impossible to win or gain the trust of Turkoman community who understand well the suffering of the Kurds and the real history of Kirkuk, a city that has always been part of Kurdistan region.

Then again, wooing Turkoman votes can’t be attained by waging a hate campaign, incitement to violence against Kurds and by recruiting the service of every self-serving racist Arab and Turkish writers or indeed by importing Turkey’s unique product, Kurdophobia.

Turkey’s ready made export package of hate and racism towards non-Turkic ethnic groups, which was enthusiastically exported and successfully adopted in Azerbaijan², has failed to produce same result among patriotic Turkomans.

The century old racist practice by Turkey against Kurds in North Kurdistan and Armenians, which still gripping Turkish establishments and civil institutions, and sadly academic circles, has been despised by the Turkoman community who lived in solidarity with Kurds for centuries.

The self-declared custodian of the rights of Turkomans in South Kurdistan imposed itself on the true will of Turkomans and did not proceed in a straight line or had a clear objective other than permeating MIT³ sole wish and desire that is to hamper the orderly and natural process of Kurds mastering their own destiny.

Indeed, the lack of vision and tact by members of Turkey’s front, who seem to be quite conversant with reciting anti-Kurdish Ba’thist slogans than making a single campaign pledge, has done little in serving the real interests of the Turkoman community.

Thus, the degeneration of the front and the subsequent disloyalty of Turkomans to Turkey’s ill designs had as its consequence that the anti-Kurds elements disorientated.

Perhaps this was the reason behind one of other interfering Turkish directive to its fallen comrades which was to join the Shiite Alliance in the hope to salvage and repair its damaged good.

However, the victory of Kurdistan Alliance list in Iraq and Brotherhood list in Kirkuk and the failure of Turkey and its front to learn the lessons of the tumultuous events in Iraq and Kurdistan marked the end of this bad Turkish export.

The sudden false rise and quick demise of Turkey’s front in Iraq is a window of opportunity for the Turkomans to join the real democratic political process along with original Arabs and Kurds in Kirkuk, in order work together to achieve their rights within the federalist state of South Kurdistan.

1. Musa Antar, was assassinated by Turkish secret service in Amed, North Kurdistan 1992 as part of Turkey’s the then clandestine campaign to wipe out Kurdish intelligentsia.

2. In a few months leading to the liberation of Iraq and while the world was gripped by news about the war, Azerbaijan, acting on Turkish advice, arrested and put in prison hundreds of Kurds including men, women and children, who were earlier expelled from Armenia because they were Muslims, on unfounded pretext of being members of the PKK.

3. MIT, a Turkish acronym stands for Millet Istihbarat Teskilati, which in fact is made of three Arabic words, literally means: The Association of People’s Intelligence.