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US Challenges and Choices in the Gulf: Turkey, Iraq and Regional Security

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US Challenges and Choices in the Gulf: Turkey, Iraq and Regional Security Policy Brief #12 The Atlantic Council of the United States, The Middle East Institute, The Middle East Policy Council, and The Stanley Foundation US Challenges and Choices in the Gulf: Turkey, Iraq and Regional Security This policy brief is based on presentations and discussions at the 13th in a series of jointly sponsored off- the-record congressional staff briefings on "US Challenges and Choices in the Gulf.” The views and opinions expressed in this policy brief do not necessarily represent those of the sponsoring organizations. To receive information on future briefings, please contact Susan Roggendorf, at e-mail address: [email protected]. Though the war in Iraq has created new opportunities for the United States to advance democracy and stability in the Middle East, it has also brought to the fore – or exacerbated – preexisting challenges for regional security. Accordingly, US efforts to create a representative Iraqi government with stable relations with its neighbors will stand a better chance of success if they take account of Turkish concerns regarding volatility in Iraq and the possibility of substantial autonomy for Iraq’s Kurds. In this connection, short-term US strategy could usefully include improved communication with Ankara along with a reiteration of Washington’s vision of a united, peaceful Iraq within its current borders. I. The View from Ankara The refusal of Turkey—a key US ally and an influential regional power—to allow US troops to use its territory to launch a northern front in the war in Iraq disappointed many in the United States. However, close examination of Turkey’s interests and views suggests that this refusal should not have come as a surprise to policymakers. Many Turks consider themselves the true casualties of the 1991 Gulf War, believing that their security and economy were more negatively affected by that conflict than those of any other country. Turkey estimates that its economy suffered losses of between $40 and $65 billion over the past decade due to reduced trade with a sanctioned and relatively impoverished Iraq, its main trading partner before 1990.1 Politically, Turkish leaders were extremely concerned over the post-war creation in northern Iraq of a de facto Kurdish state, which they continue to perceive as a threat to their national security (given Turkey’s own large and often restive Kurdish minority). Since the early 1990s, Turkey has taken particular note of 2 the increasing power of Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) based in Sulaymania, Iraq. Decade-long unease caused by these economic and political challenges led to a sense of increased insecurity in Turkey and widely-held fears about the ramifications of a second war on Iraq. 1 From an article in the Christian Science Monitor entitled, “Turkey Weighs Economic, Political Costs of a Gulf War” by Illene R. Prusher, January 10, 2003. On the internet at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0110/p07s01-woiq.html 2 Founded in 1975 by Jalal Talabani, the PUK has traditionally advocated the creation of a separate Kurdish state, which Turkey perceives as a threat to its security. Among other aims, the PUK “struggles to attain the right of self-determination for the people of Kurdistan.” For more information about the PUK, see: http://www.puk.org/web/htm/about.html The Atlantic Council of the United States, www.acus.org • The Middle East Institute, www.TheMiddleEastInstitute.org The Middle East Policy Council, www.mepc.org • The Stanley Foundation, rapp.stanleyfoundation.org II. US-Turkish Relations and the War in Iraq Turkey considers the United States to be a strategic partner, and the United States views Turkey as a key player in the region. Turkey’s leadership role in establishing relations with Israel, its support of the United States during the first Gulf War and its cooperation in negotiations regarding the future of Cyprus have all been viewed favorably in Washington. However, as elaborated above, differences in views on Iraq arose after the first Gulf War. The initially skeptical Turkish reaction to US plans for a second war were fed by fears that the United States would try to trade support of an autonomous state of Iraqi Kurds for their backing in a war against Saddam Hussein. Furthermore, both the new Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Bush administration seem to have poorly managed the final negotiations that took place prior to the US attacks on Iraq.3 The United States had requested that Turkey permit 165,000 US troops to invade Iraq from Turkish territory, in spite of the fact that a large majority of Turks were against doing so without a UN resolution specifically sanctioning the war. The United States had insisted also that Ankara refrain from intervening in the conflict, though nearly all Turks believed that it would have a direct impact on their security. These points put considerable strain on the Erdogan administration at a time when it was also being pressured to support the United Nations plan for Cyprus, to deal with the terms of accession to the European Union (EU), and to respond to the critiques of the EU’s largest members, France and Germany, who vocally opposed the war on Iraq. Ultimately, the new Turkish government undertook not to repeat what it considered tactical mistakes in 1990. This determination, together with the government’s lack of experience, public opposition to the war (which stood at 83 percent in Turkey4 and at similar levels in other parts of Europe and in the Middle East), the high stakes involved, and ambiguity concerning potential benefits of the war for Turkey made many parliamentarians refuse to support the US request. As a result, the Turkish parliament, by a narrow margin, denied US troops permission to invade Iraq from Turkish territory. Turkey has since begun to adjust its policies to the changed regional security environment, focusing on strategies for dealing with Iran, post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, and Israel. Perceiving continued and renewed threats to its territorial integrity, Ankara is focused on promoting stability in its immediate area – including in the economic arena – and it is actively monitoring any potential upsurge in the momentum or activities of Kurdish autonomy movements in Turkey and northern Iraq. Continuing to share a desire for regional stability and economic growth, Turkey and the United States have begun a process of rapprochement. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s trip to the region in April helped to end the crisis in bilateral relations and to control damage.5 Turkey has made clear that it is more concerned today about the ramifications of the war than about the controversial questions that surrounded the outbreak and conduct of hostilities, though it maintains that Turkey made a significant and difficult compromise before the war by agreeing not to intervene in northern Iraq unless the Kurds were to take control of Kirkuk and Mosul (or if an outbreak of violence occurred in Iraq which would directly threaten Turkish security). The Turks have abided by this agreement, though the role of the Kurds and the 3 Trudy Rubin, columnist for The Philadelphia Enquirer, describes the troubles in resolving US-Turkish differences over Iraq prior to the war in her article, “An ally, and a Pandora’s Box: Mishandling of Turkey Could Lead to Disaster”, February 26, 2003. 4 See: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0110/p07s01-woiq.html 5 The website http://ankara.usembassy.gov/powell/visit03.htm contains further details about Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to Turkey on April 2, 2003. The Atlantic Council of the United States, www.acus.org • The Middle East Institute, www.TheMiddleEastInstitute.org The Middle East Policy Council, www.mepc.org • The Stanley Foundation, rapp.stanleyfoundation.org Turkomans in post-war Iraq still remains to be fully clarified, suggesting that it will be difficult to predict with any confidence the future course of Turkish foreign policy decisions. III. The Internal Iraqi Dynamic Iraq’s Kurds The stability of Iraq – and the ability of the United States to enlist full Turkish cooperation in the creation of a new, independent government in Baghdad – hinges to a large extent on power-sharing arrangements and the domestic interplay of Kurds, Turkomans, Sunni Arabs and Shi’a Arabs within Iraq. The dissolution of the Ottoman empire left the Kurds as the largest ethnic group in the world without its own state: the Kurds found themselves living principally in the mountainous region covering northern Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. In the 1920s, the Kurds constituted about 20% of the total population of Iraq. Because of severe persecution under Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime, the percentage of Kurds living in Iraq has fallen to 13-17 % of the total current Iraqi population.6 Presently, the cities of Duhok, Sulaymania, and Erbil are majority Kurdish. Mosul and other towns have a mixed Arab-Kurd population with significant numbers of Turkomans and Assyro- Chaldeans. In the 1970s, the two dominant Kurdish political parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), were created. Since then, the Kurds have more effectively articulated a vision for their own future, which includes the controversial desire for the city of Kirkuk to be included in a recognized Kurdish autonomous area.7 The government in Baghdad has traditionally refused to allow the Kurds administrative control over Kirkuk, fearing that the oil riches of the city would enable the Kurds to attempt to carve a totally independent state out of northern Iraqi territory. For its part, the Kurdish leadership insists that the issue of Kirkuk is not linked to oil; both the KDP and the PUK have argued – with US support – that Iraq’s oil revenue ought to be disbursed on the basis of population rather than the percentage of national territory inhabited by Iraq’s sundry ethnic groups.
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