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Policy Notes E Y H TITUTE FO S R IN N N EA O R T G E A N I S H T S P A O L W I C POLICY NOTES E Y H T Ideas. Action. Impact. ■ ■ 3 The Washington Institute for Near East Policy No. 23 Mar ch 2015 0 ng years stro Turkey’s Kurdish Path Soner Cagaptay RAB SPRING success stories have generally not been easy to come by. One, however, may be Aplaying out in a regional non-Arab state, Turkey, where ties between the Turks and their adver- sary, the Kurds, have been improving. Signs of the thaw were apparent late on February 21, when Turkish troops transited through Kurdish-controlled Kobani, in Syria, to reach Turkey’s Suley- man Shah exclave, deep inside Syrian territory, to evacuate relics and Turkish troops serving as guards. Media reports suggest coordination between Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), in the Suleyman Shah operation. More important still, on February 28, PKK founder politics of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned for life in Turkey but (KRG). Given intra-Kurdish rivalries and external still leading peace talks with Ankara, made his stron- constraints, such as opposition to Kurdish indepen- gest call to date for the PKK to lay down its arms. dence from both the Kurds’ neighbors and Wash- Continuing peace talks between Ankara and the PKK ington, an independent Kurdistan seems unlikely to could improve Turkish-Kurdish ties further, while emerge at this stage. Together, this suggests that the decentralization of both Iraq and Syria—which bodes future holds different degrees of autonomy inside well for Kurdish autonomy in those countries—could each of the three countries involved, a development bring Ankara and Levantine Kurds into an alignment that could serve both Turkish and Kurdish interests. if Turkey plays its hand well. Transformation of Turkish-Kurdish Ties The Kurds in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq have different levels of political and military power. For instance, the As recently as ten years ago, the relationship between Iraqi Kurds have an internationally recognized auton- Turkey and the Kurds was characterized by mis- omous entity, while the Syrian Kurds have declared trust. Ankara opposed Kurdish autonomy in Iraq and autonomy but failed to gain international backing for fought the PKK at home, and the Iraqi Kurds feared the arrangement. The PKK has some support among a Turkish invasion and also tolerated PKK efforts Turkish Kurds and enjoys preeminence among the against Ankara. The PKK, for its part, had long been Syrian Kurds through its armed militia, whereas the carrying out a campaign against the Turkish govern- Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) dominates the ment, including indiscriminate violent attacks against Soner Cagaptay, the Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Rise of Turkey: The Twenty-First Century’s First Muslim Power (Potomac Books), named by the Foreign Policy Association as one of the ten most important books of 2014. ©2015 The Washington Institute for Near East Policy POLICY NOTE 23 civilians. In the early 1990s, the group began engaging represent Turkey’s main nemeses in the Syrian war, in suicide attacks, effectively introducing the tactic to in which Turkey has failed since 2011 to oust the the Middle East. Bashar al-Assad regime. Tehran provides Assad with Today, the situation could not be more different. weapons, fighters, and advisors, while Moscow sup- Turkey’s relationship with the KRG, and especially plies the regime with international protection, using with the KDP, is thriving. Intensive Turkey-PKK its veto power at the UN Security Council to shield peace talks could ultimately lead to greater Turkish Damascus from international intervention and sanc- influence over the PYD in Syria, an outcome strongly tions. The Turks are loath to remain dependent on desired by Turkey. If Ankara prevails, its sway over the Russia and Iran for their supply of natural gas and Kurds at home and abroad in Syria and Iraq could oil. Thus, although the KRG has until now supplied have a tremendous impact, perhaps ultimately lead- just a very small fraction of Turkey’s energy needs, ing to a Turkish-Kurdish commonwealth, a refreshing Ankara sees the wisdom of relying on the Iraqi Kurds development in an otherwise unstable Middle East. for a larger share. A TURKEY-KRG ECONOMIC COMMONWEALTH. On the When in 2007 the KRG offered Turkey to jointly economic front, the stars seem to be especially well explore the region’s hydrocarbon riches, the Turks aligned for Ankara and the Iraqi Kurds. Already in jumped at the opportunity. Ties had hit rock-bottom 2007, at the nadir of Turkish-Kurdish ties during a and were rebounding. Once the KRG was declared period of inflamed violence, a visit to the KRG capi- open for Turkish business, Turkey’s vigorous private tal, Erbil, and meetings with prominent Iraqi Kurd- sector moved in, establishing itself as the KRG’s dom- ish officials indicated the possibility of eventual rap- inant business partner. Since 2007, Turkish compa- prochement. One senior official, who asked to remain nies have built Erbil’s new international airport, the anonymous, answered this way when asked whether main point of entry for visitors into the KRG, major the Kurds would stay in Iraq: “Iraq and Syria will roads, and—last but not least—government buildings always be Arab states, and there will be no room for in Erbil. In other words, the Turks have painstakingly us Kurds in them, except as second-class citizens.” built the infrastructure of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq. He added that “the KRG will be part of Iraq only In the meantime, bilateral trade between Ankara in the theoretical sense.” Such a reply left only Iran and the KRG has boomed, jumping from an estimated and Turkey in the picture as possible partners. When $1.4 billion in 2007 to $8 billion in 2013. Turkish Air- asked which he would prefer, the official said Turkey. lines flies daily from Istanbul to Erbil and the KRG’s He explained: “The Iranians give us either honey with second largest city, Sulaymaniyah. Indeed, Turkey poison, or poison with honey. The Turks offer either and the KRG are increasingly coming together as an honey or poison.” Such conversations indicated that undeclared economic commonwealth: visitors arriving the Iraqi Kurds had decided by 2007 that they wanted to Erbil’s Turkish-built airport with no Iraqi dinars to hitch their wagon to Turkey. will likely find their cab driver into town willing to Shortly after these discussions with Iraqi Kurds, accept Turkish liras. talks with Turkish officials proved equally surprising, Further cementing the Turkey-KRG economic showing their willingness to accept the Kurdish olive commonwealth, in May 2014 Kurdish oil started to branch despite the word Kurdistan being anathema in flow through Turkey en route to international mar- Ankara. This was largely because Kurdish ties came kets. Although the Turkey-KRG relationship is sym- with a perk: access to oil and gas, on which Turkey’s biotic, it is largely uneven. The Iraqi Kurds need Tur- growing economy depends heavily. key more than Turkey needs the Kurds. By picking To begin with, more than half of Turkey’s elec- Turkey as its chief regional patron in 2007, the KRG tricity is generated in turbines driven by natural gas. has become too dependent on the Turks. This is also And Ankara imports more than 95 percent of its oil seen in Ankara’s management of KRG oil sales—all and natural gas, of which some 75 percent comes the proceeds of which are housed at a Turkish bank from Russia and Iran. Notably, these two countries and then shipped to Erbil at Turkey’s whim. KRG 2 The Washington Institute for Near East Policy Turkey’s Kurdish Path . Cagaptay leader Masoud Barzani is keenly aware that to receive will not be simple to enact. Within Turkey, the KDP his oil money he needs to keep Turkey’s all-powerful hardly poses a significant challenge to the PKK. Tur- president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, content. key’s Kurds overwhelmingly vote for two parties, the As for the political component of the Turkey-KRG AKP and People’s Democracy Party (HDP), which commonwealth, Erdogan and Barzani have seen shares the PKK’s Kurdish nationalist vision. If Erdo- each other as best friends in a region where most are gan’s core strategy were to use Barzani to draw vot- enemies. They also have a growing security relation- ers away from the HDP, he would be miscalculating ship: Ankara supplies weapons and trainers to the severely. The PKK and the HDP are leftist, social- Peshmerga, the KRG’s military force, to help defend ist movements—in the past the PKK even espoused against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), Stalinism and Maoism. Neither the KDP’s old-fash- also known as the Islamic State. Both leaders distrust ioned conservativism nor Erdogan’s religious politics the Shiite-majority, Arab nationalist, pro-Iran gov- will find resonance among PKK supporters. And the ernment in Baghdad, with Erdogan taking particular budding Kurdish Islamist alternative inside Turkey, issue with the “Shiite majority” component and Bar- the Free Cause Party (HUDA-PAR), is likely to cre- zani doing so with the “Arab nationalist” part. The ate a backlash as in October 2014, when PKK- and distrust for Iran’s role is more or less equally shared. HDP-organized rallies to defend Kobani against While oil deals and booming trade brought the busi- ISIS aggression sparked violence between PKK and ness-minded Barzani and Erdogan together, former HUDA-PAR supporters, resulting in more than Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s rise in Baghdad forty deaths.
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