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Home , Barzani (tribe), Kurds, Kurds in Iraq

Introduction

Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik German Institute for International and Security Affairs Comments

The Return of the Question WP On the Situation of the in , and

Günter Seufert S

For decades, the roughly twenty-nine million Kurds living in Turkey, , Iraq and Syria were regarded primarily as a threat to the territorial integrity of those states and thus to the stability of the . Today the region is marked by state collapse, rampant terrorism, and signs of unravelling in the established system of states. These developments have brought about fundamental changes in the position of the Kurds and the role they play in regional politics.

While the situation is most precarious in the “Islamic State” (IS) and the al-Qaeda Syria and Iraq, whose national unity is offshoot al-Nusra, and the various strands currently largely theoretical, several other of the Kurdish national movement in Iraq, states are also experiencing major political Turkey and Syria. difficulties in regard to the political inte- Thus, alongside a tremendous upsurge of gration of linguistically and confessionally violent Islamism, the region is experiencing diverse populations. In certain quarters, a hitherto unseen renaissance of Kurdish strategists are already drawing a complete- politics. The Iraqi Kurds hope for an oppor- ly new set of frontiers for the Middle East – tunity to declare , which changes that would leave neither , would hasten the of Iraq. In Lebanon, Israel nor even Turkey untouched. Turkey the government’s peace talks with the outlawed Workers’ Party (PKK) have run aground and full-blown war Kurds and Jihadists is bound to restart. In Syria the Kurds will The immediate threat to state unity is not be unable to hold their autonomous regions war between states, but conflicts involving without Western assistance. Any withdraw- non-state armed groups (NSAGs) that build al of the Syrian Kurdish PYD would risk largely on ethnic/linguistic and religious/ another wave of . The hu- confessional identities. In other words, manitarian crisis and associated refugee NSAGs fighting states or other NSAGs. flows from Syria and Iraq, the necessity to The two most important non-state armed reestablish a viable regional order, and its currents in the Middle East are the Salafist/ own energy dependency may force Europe jihadist Sunni Muslim formations, such as to rethink its policy towards the Kurds.

Dr. Günter Seufert is a Senior Fellow in SWP’s EU/Europe Division SWP Comments 38 August 2015

1 The Iraqi Kurds’ Desire for political culture of the Kurdish Regional Statehood Government (KRG) also speak against em- Drawing on US assistance, the Iraqi Kurds barking upon the adventure of statehood. have created an autonomous federal entity In view of the gamut of uncontrollable recognised by , in which Masud variables, Europe cannot simply pick one ’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) option or another. Instead, Europe should is the strongest political force. The military push for maximum compromise between support supplied by Iran when the Kurdish and Baghdad and work with the KRG Regional Government (KRG) came under IS in to bring about long-term attack demonstrates that the Kurdish entity improvements in infrastructure, institutions in Iraq is treated as a legitimate factor in and democracy. With respect to tensions the region today, as does Turkey’s close among the Kurds, the establishment of a cooperation. The US intervention to defend pan-Kurdish public sphere should be en- the Iraqi Kurds against IS advances, and couraged. That is important both for direc- arms deliveries from and the ting the rivalry between the Iraqi Kurdish Czech Republic, both underline the inter- parties into peaceful channels, and for national recognition of Kurdish autonomy keeping ongoing conflicts between the KDP in Iraq. and the PKK in check. In the short term, The Iraqi Kurds have postponed but not additional humanitarian assistance for abandoned their wish for independence. refugees is required. The KRG should also Despite most of the feared consequences continue to receive military support for its having already occurred, Western states fight against IS, with equipment and train- refuse to consider statehood for the Iraqi ing adapted to the circumstances. Disrup- Kurds on the grounds that it would threat- tion of internal Kurdish and Iraqi power en the internal cohesion of Iraq and boost balances should be avoided. Kurdish autonomy movements in neigh- bouring states. At the same time, a series of factors feeds the desire for independence: Turkey’s Policy towards closer diplomatic and military ties between Kurdistan-Iraq Erbil and the West created by the fighting Erbil’s relations with Ankara are still deli- against IS; close economic cooperation cate, despite intense recent economic and between the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey; and energy cooperation serving mutual inter- worsening mutual hostility between Sunnis ests. While Turkey was still presenting itself and Shiites in Iraq. The latter, above all, as Iraqi Kurdistan’s guarantor in June 2014, casts a pall over the future of the Iraqi state. it failed to intervene when IS attacked three Another factor favouring statehood is the months later. Ankara has vacillated in ongoing failure of Baghdad and Erbil to recent years, adopting a series of very differ- reach a final agreement on disputed areas ent attitudes towards Kurdish autonomy in claimed by both (including ) and Iraq – from strict rejection to recognition the sharing of oil and gas reserves. Other and finally declaration of the Kurds’ right factors mitigate against moving towards to independence. Turkey’s policy towards statehood, for instance mistrust and rivalry Kurdish Northern Iraq is strongly influ- between the major political groupings of enced by whatever strategy it is pursuing the Iraqi Kurds: the KDP, the Patriotic towards the PKK at a particular moment, Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Gorran and therefore tends to be unreliable. Where Party. In 1998 the rivalry reached such Ankara once feared that greater self-govern- heights that American mediation was ment for Kurdistan-Iraq would directly required to defuse armed clashes. Tensions boost the autonomy demands of the Turkish between the KDP and the PKK and grave Kurds, today it hopes that Masud Barzani deficits in the institutional structures and might stem the influence of PKK leader

SWP Comments 38 August 2015

2 Abdullah Öcalan. A further element of un- the IS in an operation that demonstrated certainty is Turkish designs on the former the fighting strength of the PYD guerrillas. Ottoman provinces of and Kirkuk. Ultimately it is decisive for the Kurds – and Whether under (1983–1993) or for the Assyrian Christians of northern in Ahmet Davutoğlu’s foreign policy specu- Syria – that there is no alternative to mili- lations: Ankara regards Mosul and Kirkuk tary protection by the PYD and the admin- as potential additions to Turkey. Such istration it dominates. Considering the ideas, like the instrumentalisation of the Syrian Kurds’ legitimate interest in self- Iraqi Kurds against the Turkish, cannot be organisation and security, the demise of the said to contribute to regional stabilisation. moderate Sunni Arab opposition and the Europe should therefore work for a politi- poor prospects for an undivided Syria, the cal consolidation of the KRG’s relations blanket refusal of German politicians to with Baghdad, while also pushing for an deal directly with the PYD can no longer be understanding between the KDP and the justified. Germany’s Western allies have PKK, which would have to involve both long since gone other ways. The United sides. States and the maintain extremely close military cooperation with the YPG guerrilla units of the PYD, whose An Assessment of the political representatives have been received Syrian Kurdish PYD officially in Washington at senior official Although the Democratic Union Party (PYD) level and in Rome and Paris at ministerial occupies a hegemonic position among the and presidential level respectively. Even organisations of Syria’s Kurds, various Turkey, where the president and prime factors have earned it a great deal of criti- minister never tire of equating the PYD cism and led the German government to with the “Islamic State”, the party’s co- refuse contact. The main objections are its leader has been received for talks several very close connections to the PKK, its refusal times. to join the Sunni Arab-dominated opposi- tion to Assad, its at least intermittent co- operation with , and repression The Turkish State’s Negotiations against rival Kurdish parties. But the party’s with the PKK strategic decision to concentrate on defend- The thirty-year armed struggle of the ing Kurdish areas within Syria and estab- Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has forced lishing local self-administration must in the Turkish state to abandon its policy of retrospect be acknowledged as the best denying the existence of a Kurdish nation choice for the . The with its own language and culture. In same applies to its partial cooperation with March 2013, after the PKK ceased fighting Damascus, which must be seen in the con- in 2012, Ankara opened the first official text of a series of pragmatic temporary peace talks with PKK leader Abdullah alliances between opposing forces in the Öcalan, who has been imprisoned since civil war. It must also be emphasised that 1999. However, the two sides were pursuing the PYD is strongly rooted in the Kurdish contradictory goals. The government population of northern Syria, that it pur- wished to negotiate only about disarming sues a progressive policy on women, and the PKK and reintegrating its fighters into that it involves non-Kurds and non- society, and otherwise regarded the Kurdish in its administration. Just how seriously it question as having been resolved through takes the integration of non-Muslim Kurds earlier concessions of a cultural nature. The was demonstrated in summer 2014, when governing Justice and Development Party it saved the Kurdish-speaking in the (AKP) invoked Muslim brotherhood between Iraqi Mountains from the clutches of Turks and Kurds and sought to subsume

SWP Comments 38 August 2015

3 the Kurds in a conservative Sunni religious only to Sunni Kurdish candidates, but also Turkey. The PKK, on the other hand, in- to representatives of the Muslim Alevi sisted on guarantees of political democrati- minority, Christians, Jews, as well as trade sation and decentralisation designed to unionists, environmentalists, gays and open the door to Kurdish self-administra- lesbians. tion within Turkey. It continues to see the The success of this strategy, with which Kurds as an independent, sovereign entity, the Kurds were able to double their vote and itself and its legal arm, the Peoples’ to 13.1 percent for 79 seats in parliament, Democratic Party (HDP), as their authentic stemmed not only from this reorientation, representatives. but was also aided by the line taken by the The Kurds long believed the only way to governing party. Under the influence of force the government to make concessions its former leader, President Recep Tayyip was by threatening to resume the armed Erdoğan, the AKP built its election cam- struggle, and that this route would close paign entirely around the idea of introduc- after the parliamentary elections on 7 June ing a presidential system to legalise and 2015; after that, they feared, they would consolidate an emerging presidential auto- again be at a disadvantage. In the months cracy of steadily growing strength. That leading up to the election, therefore, represented a nightmare not only for liber- matters appeared to be coming to a head. al forces, but also for the Kemalist elite and But in December 2014 the Kurds switched in general for the secular sections of the to a strategy of deescalation, with the PKK population, and turned the Kurdish nation- emphasising that it had turned its back on al movement, which had for decades been the armed struggle. In March 2015, Öcalan regarded as the central threat to the integ- announced that he would call a congress rity of the state, into what growing num- to officially end the PKK’s guerrilla war bers of Turks now regarded as the standard- against the Turkish state. However, he said, bearer of democracy. And indeed, in the the decision was conditional on the estab- 7 June election the HDP received about lishment of a monitoring council, a parlia- 900,000 votes from ethnic Turkish voters, mentary commission, a truth commission, most of whom had previously voted for and a government declaration of intent to the CHP. This accounted for 2 of the HDP’s negotiate over political reforms. 13 percentage points.

The Pro-Kurdish Party as PKK/HDP as Representative of New Beacon of Hope the Kurdish National Movement in In conjunction with this strategic turn by Turkey the PKK towards a peaceful resolution of Ultimately, it was Erdoğan himself who the Kurdish question within the borders of drove voters into the arms of the HDP by Turkey, the closely associated legal pro- alienating the AKP’s Kurdish supporters, Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) who switched their allegiance en masse also altered its programme. On the one (the other main parties, CHP and MHP, had hand, it sent out feelers to left-wing oppo- no base among the Kurds to start with). In sition forces not represented in parliament the campaign, Erdoğan courted extreme and sought to forge electoral alliances. On nationalist, anti-Kurdish sentiments and the other, it declared itself the champion rejected any idea of future negotiations. As of all marginalised groups in Turkey. In line such, he continued a course of confronta- with its demand for recognition of all cul- tion set in autumn 2014, when he offended tural and political identities, the HDP many Kurds by equating the resistance of granted promising places on its list for the the PKK and its Syrian offshoot PYD in the parliamentary elections on 7 June 2015 not Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane with the

SWP Comments 38 August 2015

4 Islamic State. Erdoğan’s unintended assis- quarters in eight of Turkey’s thirteen tance allowed the HDP to attract conserva- biggest cities. tive and religious Kurds on a grand scale, who had until then distanced themselves from the left-wing secular ideology of the The End of the Peace Process PKK. Integrating large numbers of con- In the election, the AKP’s vote dropped from servative Kurds into its voting base has 49.9 to 40.8 percent, losing it its absolute made the HDP the hegemonic party in the majority. The euphoria this triggered among Kurdish areas of eastern and south-eastern the opposition, including the Kurds, was Turkey for the first time. In 2011, its pre- short-lived, however. Ideological differences decessor, the BDP, was the strongest force between the three opposition parties ex- in only seven of the eastern and south- clude them from forming a government eastern provinces. By 2015, the picture had without the AKP, so Erdoğan and the AKP been transformed, with the pro-Kurdish continue to dominate politics. With the party winning in fourteen provinces, thir- President delaying the formation of a gov- teen of them forming a contiguous area ernment and calling for the election to be along the southern and eastern borders. In repeated, the AKP has sharpened its course almost all of these, one can speak of clear against the Kurds in the hope of winning hegemony, with the HDP falling below 50 back Turkish nationalist voters. Erdoğan, percent only in and (31 and thus, continued his pre-election strategy: 45 percent respectively). These latter two already on 28 April he had declared the end provinces lie in the extreme north-east, of negotiations with the PKK and labelled as where Kurds are not a majority. In all the terrorists and separatists all those who still other twelve provinces the HDP gained a put forward Kurdish demands. The hopes of clear absolute majority: Iğdır 57 percent, the Kurds that state and government would 61, Dersim (Tunceli) 61, 66, Mu return to negotiations after the election 72, Batman 73, Van 74, Mardin 74, Ağrı 79, vanished into thin air. Ever since it began ş Diyarbakir 80, ırnak 86, and Hakkari 88 withdrawing its fighters in connection with percent. In two neighbouring provinces, the commencement of talks in 2013, the Ş and Bingöl, the HDP came second with PKK has complained that new military out- 40 and 42 percent respectively. posts and transport routes were being built Another aspect of the election result in the region to secure the Turkish army’s underlines what a great step the HDP has superiority in any future fighting. On taken on the road to becoming the party of 11 July, after new waves of arrests by the all the Kurds: It was also the strongest party police and a growing number of skirmishes in the province of Dersim (Tunceli), which with the military, the PKK on announced is geographically separated from the Sunni it would end the armistice unless ongoing Kurdish area and is largely populated by expansion of military bases ceased and Alevi Kurds. In earlier elections, scepticism mass arrests stopped. The reactions of the towards their Sunni compatriots had led liberal public to this step were divided. On the Alevis of Dersim to vote for the CHP in the one hand there was understanding. large numbers. So the HDP has not only After all it was the president who broke off succeeded – like earlier pro-Kurdish parties the talks without meeting any of the PKK’s – in gaining the votes of left-wing and rela- final, moderate demands, and it was the tively secular Kurds, but also achieved a government that cut every contact between majority among religious Sunni and more PKK leader Öcalan and the HDP negotiation secular Alevi Kurds. And this applies not group after Erdoğan declared the talks only to the provinces of south-eastern ended, now four months ago. On the other, , but also to the majority Kurdish there was great disillusionment. It was, after all, the PKK’s orientation on a longer-

SWP Comments 38 August 2015

5 term process that presented the opportuni- compatible with either the domestic politi- ty to prevent a resumption of the civil war. cal situation in Turkey or the regional Despite the radical rhetoric of both sides, political developments. the cease-fire held until the Islamic State bomb attack in the Turkish-Kurdish border town of Suruç on 20 July that killed thirty- The Role of the Kurds in the two young people. The PKK accused the Middle East government of siding with IS and “retaliat- What role can and should the Kurds play in ed” with attacks on police that left three a Middle East whose future has become so dead. On 24 July Turkish jets began bombing unpredictable? The question arises for both PKK strongholds in Northern Iraq, claiming strands of the Kurdish national movement: to have killed up to two hundred fighters the Kurds of Iraq, today under the by the end of July. At the same time, more of Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party than one thousand people have been de- (KDP); and the Turkish and Syrian Kurds, tained in operations supposedly directed where the formations around the Kurdistan against “terror organisations” including IS, Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Democratic but mainly focussing on Kurdish activists. Union Party (PYD) represent the strongest Fully fledged civil war is thus back in Turkey. force. The Kurdish drive for greater self- This is regrettable, because there is in government has become virtually impossible principle agreement in Turkey that the to ignore – and not simply because these Kurdish question must be resolved and a two Kurdish currents are today partners of new constitution drafted. Will the now the West in the fight against the Islamic defunct Kemalist order be replaced in the State. In this connection it is also relevant long term by an authoritarian system based that the Kurds operate as secular currents, on a conservative majority – on supporters and in comparison to the nation-states in of the AKP and the MHP – and increasingly the region exhibit a greater willingness to legitimised in terms of Islamic morals and concede equal rights to non-Kurdish and terminology? Or can a culturally largely non-Muslim groups and integrate them neutral legal and institutional framework politically. Irrespective of their different for politics be created? characters, their internal rivalries and their Given the choice between these options, obvious democratic deficits, both Kurdish Turkey finds itself facing similar structural groupings are also seeking recognition in challenges to other states in the Middle the and Europe. At the same East, even if a range of factors leave it sig- time they challenge Iraq and Turkey, as nificantly more socially, institutionally and states whose stability is crucial for both the economically integrated than its southern region and the West. To that extent the two neighbours. Nonetheless: Turkey also has strands are today factors promoting both great problems politically integrating a stability and instability. Assessments of the population politicised and organised along direction they will take are contingent upon cultural lines. the future one imagines for the Middle East. In view of this, the future strategy of the It can be said with certainty that there is no PKK will play a central role for the fate of way back to the former state order, for the the political system and the stability of the process that has gripped the system of states country. Germany and Europe should seek in the Middle East continues unabated. ways and means to influence the PKK and strengthen those forces within the organi- sation that wish to return to a peaceful The Uncertain Future of the System long-term strategy. Ignoring the PKK as a of States in the Middle East political force and treating it exclusively The state order in the Middle East dates as a terrorist organisation is no longer from the First World War and was largely

SWP Comments 38 August 2015

6 defined by European powers. On 16 May have to date utterly failed to respond and 1916, and England concluded the integrate the protests. On the contrary, Sykes-Picot Agreement dividing eastern ethnic cleansing, the associated cultural Anatolia and , at that time homogenisation and the establishment of still provinces of the , into new quasi-state structures (for example by British and French dominions and spheres IS) represent worrying harbingers of major of influence. The Russian Revolution and upheavals still to come. This is the back- the successful Turkish war of independence ground to the scenarios of a Middle East prevented the Agreement’s implementation redivided along cultural lines that are in Anatolia. The roots of both the creation today being developed in many quarters. of Syria and the Lebanon under French mandate and the founding of Iraq, Jordan and Israel under British mandate are to Guidelines for European Policy be found in the Agreement of 1916. The towards the Kurds decision of the victorious powers to draw However developments turn out, such © Stiftung Wissenschaft und the borders of the new states – unlike those scenarios certainly lie within the realm of Politik, 2015 in Europe – without heed to the linguistic/ the possible. This alone is an imperative All rights reserved ethnic and religious/confessional allegianc- to involve not only the existing states as These Comments reflect es of the population was to have far-reaching partners in conflict resolution concepts and solely the author’s views. implications. Worse still, the mandate measures, but also the semi-state and non- SWP powers built their administration of the state armed actors with which common Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik new states on confessional minorities: political ground exists – and those include German Institute for France on the Alevis in Syria, England on the Kurds. European engagement in the International and Security Affairs the Sunnis in Iraq. The associated exclusion region should be directed towards resolving of major linguistic and religious groups conflicts through peaceful transformation Ludwigkirchplatz 3­4 contributed to a politicisation of existing and negotiation. Therefore the actions of 10719 Berlin Telephone +49 30 880 07-0 ethnic and confessional identities. The European powers can no longer be restrict- Fax +49 30 880 07-100 same also applies to the Kurds, who never ed to supporting the authoritarian policies www.swp-berlin.org [email protected] became an integral component of the of nation-states against their Kurdish mi- power structures of the modern nation- norities. This strategy has long since lost its ISSN 1861-1761 state, but were marginalised and pressured potential for creating stability. But nor can Translation by Meredith Dale to assimilate in the name of Turkish, Arab European policy towards the Kurds consist and Persian . exclusively of unconditional solidarity with After the end of the Cold War, the major their various political demands. For it is the powers in East and West curtailed their radical solutions on either side that contain support for authoritarian regimes in the the greatest potential for violence. What is region, while global discourses about needed is a de-escalating policy seeking con- equality, political participation and democ- sidered compromise and communication. racy became increasingly relevant. Rising And such a policy can only function if its levels of education, burgeoning informa- protagonists consider multiple alternative tion and communication technologies, and development paths and open channels of the global networking of formerly regional communication with all concerned – in- and local groups enabled by those devel- cluding on the Kurdish side. opments empowered the de facto largely disenfranchised citizens of authoritarian states to become political radicalising actors organising in the name of traditional identities. There is no end in sight to this development and the collapse of state order it engenders. The states of the Middle East

SWP Comments 38 August 2015

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