The emergence of the Kurdish Workers Party out of this issue has not contributed to reinforcing the recent opening of the Turkish state to the Kurdish cultural and humanitarian demands. As this party moved to North Iraq where a Kurdish majority resides as a result of the decline of the Iraqi state following the war to liberate Kuwait, the security problem imposed by this party has also shifted to Iraqi Kurdistan. The new Kurdish "authority" in this region, the Turkish state, and the Iraqi state, however, have failed to take into consideration the existence of internationally recognized borders and the presence of national sovereignty. They have also failed to recognize that when security-oriented activities exceed the standards of relations between neighboring countries, they turn into violations that create new problems without solving the original problem in the first place.
While previous Turkish incursions are justified and legitimized by several security agreements with Baghdad, have exacerbated the crisis. The previous regime in Baghdad considered the Turkish incursions in the north as a source of power in its confrontation with the Iraqi Kurds who opposed the centralized authority and who were attempting to make the best out of its weakness as a result of the sanctions imposed by the Alliance both in the north and south. To some extent, this situation legitimized the violation of Iraq's national sovereignty and the state's waiving its right to maintain order within its borders.
Almost a similar procedure is repeated in the current crisis. The attitude of the Iraqi state toward this state of affairs is determined in the light of current political interests and not in recognition of clear concepts and regulations that govern the relations between independent and sovereign states. The Iraqi Kurdish leadership, represented at the presidential level, declares its impotence in controlling the Kurdish Workers Party in Iraq. However, it is suspected that this impotence results from the failure of the central authority in Baghdad to recognize its own right to interfere in Kurdish affairs (which explains rejecting the recent agreement between the Iraqi and Turkish ministers of interior in Ankara) on the one hand. On the other hand, there are suspicions about cross-border Kurdish-Kurdish solidarity, even if this solidarity eventually leads to military confrontations and to violating the national sovereignty of Iraq.
The Arab Iraqi parts are not far off from this process. The Shiites express reservation by virtue of their alliance with the Kurdish coalition, the primary constituent of the current government. Moreover, their agreement with the Kurds over the federation recognizes the Kurdish-Turkish nature of the conflict and Kurdish sensitivities. Sunni Arabs, on the other hand, believe that any military Turkish intervention in north Iraq will weaken the Kurdish autonomy and by default, the demand for federalism and the division of power within the centralized government.
Iraq's neighbors, also home to Kurdish minorities, namely Syria and Iran, have a stake in the Kurdish question, and despite their calls for a political and peaceful resolution, justify the Turkish intervention. While Iran insists on such a resolution, it fails to adopt one, but to the contrary, it cannot stop from firing its guns at the Iraqi borders. Syria too, while its efforts to clarify its position, recognizes that Turkey has the right to adopt the appropriate means to strike the Kurdish terrorist threat. In both cases, neighbors overlook Iraq's national sovereignty as an independent state in favor of weakening the Kurdish hinterland which is accused by Teheran and Damascus of supporting the demands for cultural and human rights by the Kurds in both countries.
As for Turkey, the rabble-rouser, it discovered that the "external" Kurdish threat is an entry to reconciliation between the military establishment and the ruling party, and that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - even as a terrorist organization - remains an expression of a Turkish-Kurdish situation, not an Iraqi one. Thus, it requires an internal Turkish solution rather than a further violation of Iraq's sovereignty by a process liable to be used by several sides for their benefit without actually resolving the problem itself.
* Published in London-based DAR AL-HAYAT on September 23, 2007. |
