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Turkish Foreign Policy and the Kurdistan Regional Government

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Turkish Foreign Policy and the Kurdistan Regional Government Turkish Foreign Policy and the Kurdistan Regional Government Marianna CHAROUNTAKI* Abstract Introduction This paper examines the Kurdistan Region’s This paper analyses Turkish foreign increasing significance for regional politics, including its role in Turkish foreign policy. It policy towards the Kurdistan Regional also discusses Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Government (KRG) and examines Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) since the overall importance of the Kurds of its creation and describes the stages the relations Iraq since the establishment of the first Ankara and Erbil have undergone since the 1991 Gulf War. Four different phases of Turkey’s Kurdish de facto state entity in May 1992 foreign policy practice towards the KRG are in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War pinpointed in this paper. Conclusions are also in 1991.1 A couple of decades earlier, drawn concerning the KRG’s increasing role no one could ever have imagined that in a possible transformed post-Assad political setting and what this means for the regional we would be discussing Turkish foreign balance of power, especially if the Kurds of policy towards the Kurdistan Region or Syria succeed in achieving autonomy. Finally, even a change in favour of the KRG, the study’s theoretical implications are also let alone the current transformation in highlighted, considering its relevance in current international relations literature. the regional balance of power with the Arab Spring and the Syrian crisis which Key Words is currently in progress. The future and the role of Syria are highly important Turkish foreign policy, KRG, Kurds of as they are key factors in the creation Syria, PKK, Baghdad, Sunni-Shia divide. of the post-Assad environment in Syria, and subsequently the entire regional * Dr. Marianna Charountaki is a post-doctoral political setting. Considering the rise fellow at Reading University (UK). Her research interests range from international of sectarianism in the broader Middle relations and foreign policy analysis to the Eastern region, it seems that future international relations of the broader Middle alliances will be framed by the Sunni- East. She is the author of the book The Kurds and US Foreign Policy: International Relations Shia discourse. Within this context, I in the Middle East since 1945, (London, will explain the growing importance of Routledge, 2010). 185 PERCEPTIONS, Winter 2012, Volume XVII, Number 4, pp. 185-208. Marianna Charountaki Turkish relations with the Kurds of Iraq of Iraq.3 Yet there are few up-to-date since the creation of the KRG in 1992. scholarly works on the bilateral relations between Turkey and KRG.4 The future and the role of Syria Consequently, I will demonstrate the are highly important as they changes in this relationship, its regional are key factors in the creation effects as well as the influence of the of the post-Assad environment KRG’s and the PKK’s (Partiya Karkerên in Syria, and subsequently the Kurdistanê, the Kurdistan Workers entire regional political setting. Party) foreign policies on Turkey’s foreign policy, and how these influences have formed the Turkish government’s The contribution of this research is not attitude towards the KRG in particular limited to its empirical findings through and the region in general. Finally, a content analysis of reports and articles on theoretical reflection of the study’s similar subjects- as there are hardly any empirical findings will be also raised. books addressing this case study- as well as newspapers and interviews with both The Genesis: The Origins of Turkish and Kurdish political figures in both the Kurdistan Region and Turkey. Turkish-KRG Relations Furthermore, the dearth of literature on The formation of the KRG as the relations between Turkey and the KRG result of Iraqi withdrawal from the north is a very contemporary matter, and the on account of the “no-fly” zone that subject’s theoretical implications is also of prevented Iraqi air forces from operating great importance as it is situated within above the 36th parallel was an accidental the broader puzzle of the interaction outcome of the US, British, French and between state and non-state actors in Turkish collective humanitarian plan international relations. to protect Iraq’s Kurdish population. The main works on this particular The US-backed UN Security Council topic that have been published so far (UNSC) Resolution 688 (5 April concentrate on Turkish foreign policy 1991) which called on Iraq to end the towards northern Iraq seen through suppression of its Kurdish population, the prism of Turkey’s Iraqi foreign and Turgut Özal’s support for the creation policy perspective, Turkey’s Kurdish of the “Safe Haven” in April 1991 did perspectives,2 or on Turkish-Iraqi not only aim at averting a second refugee relations in connection to the Kurds crisis (following the “Anfal campaign” of 186 Turkish Foreign Policy and the KRG 1988 and the Kurdish uprising of March This very first stage of Turkish- Kurdish 1991) on the Turkish and Iranian borders relations, which came about as a result on the heels of Second Gulf War, but of Turkish support for the creation of also to obtain US permission to operate the KRG in the early 1990s with the in the north of Iraq and to pursue PKK deployment of 100,000 troops along the Iraqi-Turkish border and the approval of rebels in exchange, a Turkish policy in the US’s plans to attack Saddam from place until today.5 Turkey’s İncirlik air base on 18 January 1991,6 along with the closure of the Özal’s Kurdish policy at that Kirkuk Yumurtalık pipeline between time aimed to restore Turkey’s Turkey and Iraq on 8 August 1990, and external relations as the way the Turkish embargo on trade with Iraq out of the country’s isolated reflect Turkish policies towards the Kurds position and to increase of Iraq rather than towards the KRG as Turkey’s economic and cultural an entity, and hence were subsumed 7 domination. within Turkey’s overall Iraqi policy. Likewise, Özal’s Kurdish policy at that time aimed to restore Turkey’s external There is thus a certain irony in Turkish relations as the way out of the country’s foreign policy having contributed to isolated position and to increase Turkey’s the renaissance of Iraq’s Kurds through economic and cultural domination, “Operation Provide Comfort” (renamed which was founded on Özal’s principle “Operation Poised Hammer” in 1997 of “Turkism”, which had the goal of and later “Operation Northern Watch”). preventing any negative impact on the The formation of the KRG not only agenda of Turkey’s Kurds caused by sowed the seeds for the post-Saddam Iraq’s Kurdish claims, and on sustaining era, but also facilitated US plans for a strong US- Turkish partnership given transforming the Middle East through the importance of Turkey’s integration with the West, as well as to maintain the the Greater Middle East Initiative in status quo for fear of the repercussions November 2003, and signalled the that potential regional imbalances might emergence of Iraq’s Kurds as a regional have on the Turkish economy and equaliser in the democratic change which integrity. Turkish policies towards the the Middle East is currently undergoing, Kurds of Iraq should also be examined especially since the KRG’s empowerment within Özal’s foreign policy objectives to after 2005. control his country’s borders with Iraq 187 Marianna Charountaki and to upgrade Turkey’s regional role.8 with Saddam, a process that ended Thus Turkey’s intervention in regional in the “Washington Agreement” (17 politics immediately after the Second September 1998) between Massoud Gulf War as a mediator in a search for Barzani and Jalal Talabani, further a solution to Iraq’s Kurdish refugee confirms this argument and also reveals crisis resulted in the strengthening “Ankara’s fears that the PKK might of the geostrategic importance of the have taken advantage of the vacuum of state, which is at the crossroads of Asia, power”.9 Similarly, Turkey’s interest in the Caucasus and Europe, especially in maximising its regional influence and terms of US foreign policy in the post- exerting control in the north, thereby Cold War system. endangering the political monopoly of the United States in the region and Thus the first phase of the relations finally resolving Iraq’s Kurdish issue for between Turkey and the Kurds of Iraq its own benefit, reveals the importance has as its starting point Turkey’s ad hoc of the Kurdistan Region for Turkish policy of protecting the Kurdish north foreign policy. This benefit could have against Baghdad during the absence been the annexation of the northern of a united Kurdish front in Iraq vis- oil-rich regions of Iraq or a federation à-vis inter and intra Kurdish conflicts with the Turkmen and the Kurds in Iraq that culminated in a four-year civil war under Turkish auspices based on Özal’s between 1994 and 1998. This shows that policy of “neo-Ottomanism”.10 Similarly, we can hardly talk about a structured and Turkey’s first large attack against the institutionalised Turkish foreign policy PKK on 10 October 1992 was said to towards the KRG, at least not until have been encouraged by “Saddam the unification agreement between the supplying the PKK with weapons” and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and by “the KDP and the PUK- Iraq’s main the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Kurdish parties- fearing that Abdullah on 21 January 2006. Öcalan intended to take control of the Ankara’s determination through its Kurdish Region in Iraq”.11 However, unsuccessful reconciliation efforts in this does not imply that all sides were the “Ankara Process” in October 1996 not playing one against the other for the to take on the role of the mediator in facilitation of their own foreign policy the KDP-PUK rivalry between May goals.
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