Turkey at a crossroads
*** Let us take two extreme scenarios for all cases.
a) The formation of a Kurdish federal state at Turkey’s southern border
(a-i) Turkey finally accepts the reality of a federal Kurdish government in northern Iraq and establishes a friendly relationship with it.
(a-ii) The federal government of Kurdistan in northern Iraq attempts to integrate so-called Turkish Kurdistan into an independent state of Kurdistan.
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b) Membership in the European Union
(b-i) The EU gives Turkey a date for membership negotiations at the end of 2004.
(b-ii) The EU does not give a date for membership negotiations at the end of 2004.
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c) The integration of Islam with democracy
According to mutual developments in (a) and (b):
(c-i) Assuming that both (a-ii) and (b-ii) work together, the ruling AK Party divides into at least two factions and loses the government, and an interim government of bureaucrats is established:
Tyranny of the status quo!
(c-ii) Assuming that both (a-i) and (b-i) work together, the ruling AK Party constitutes a one-party government for the coming eight to 10 years:
Democracy of change!
***
A) The formation of a Kurdish federal state at Turkey’s southeastern border
Assuming that the United States and its allies finally establish law and order in Iraq and that Iraq forms a federal state, then the first scenario may work:
(a-i) Turkey finally accepts the reality of a federal Kurdish government in northern Iraq and establishes a friendly relationship with it.
For a long period of time Turkey stated that it had red lines on its southeastern border and that it would not accept anybody or any country, i.e., meaning the Kurds, to overstep them. The red lines specifically meant the negation of any form of a Kurdish government, as Turkey believed it would in the end attempt to integrate Turkish Kurdistan within its borders. Thus, according to the official view, Kurdish rule of oil-rich Mosul and Kirkuk was impossible to accept.
The official view said that these cities are Turkoman-majority cities that should be ruled by them if need be. But let us look at the reality: The invasion of Iraq and the friendly attitude of the Kurds in northern Iraq towards the American saviors not only ignored the Turkish red lines but also established a loose federal Kurdish government that is expected to be formalized with the final agreements in Iraq.
One would expect that Turkey would react to this very recent development, but it did not.
Why?
First of all, the heavily military-weighted establishment is no longer as active after having lost the U.S. card it previously had. The establishment lost the American favoritism that had been there for years. At the beginning of the Iraq war, the establishment implicitly approved the denial of the so-called March 1 resolution that would have allowed the invasion of Iraq by U.S. soldiers through Turkey. Thus, the long-standing "mutual trust" received a severe blow.
Secondly, the fresh and inexperienced government then also felt very much embarassed with the failed passage of the resolution in Parliament. Thus, the government also kept quiet in the face of the abrupt violation of the years-old policy of red lines. In any case, it had not established the lines itself.
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In my eyes Turkey now has two new red lines at its southeastern border:
a) With oil revenue, the income per capita in northern Iraq may increase to $2,000, whereas income per capita on the Turkish side is at best $400.
b) The Tigris and Euphrates rivers are the real veins pumping "life" into the Middle East. Turkey’s demands from the Tigris River amount to 6.8 billion cubic meters of water/year. Iraq uses 4.5 billion and Syria 2.6 billion cubic meters.
The Tigris can supply only 48.7 billion cubic meters; yet, the total demand is 54.5 billion cubic meters. Thus, there is an 11 percent (5.8/54.5) shortage in the Tigris. Turkey needs 18 billion cubic meters of water/year from the Euphrates as well, with 23 billion cubic meters demanded by Iraq and 11 billion by Syria.
The Euphrates’ yearly capacity is 32-35 billion cubic meters, whereas total demand is 52 billion cubic meters. Therefore, total demand exceeds supply by a factor of 33 percent (17/52) in the Euphrates as well.
So far, the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates have been enjoyed by Turkey according to the doctrine that says water is primarily owned by the country from which it springs. But a new doctrine developed by the United States says water should be equitably shared by the countries through which it flows through until it reaches the sea.
Turkey must digest the idea of a new neighbor and seek the only way of protecting the new red lines, through "cooperation" with the neighbor. That is, Turkey: a) should enter into full-scale economic relations with northern Iraq to balance the economic outcome on both sides. One side will have money but lacks know-how, while the other side has know-how; b) must share water as equally as possible with its neighbors, including the federal Kurdish government in northern Iraq.
Assuming that the United States and its allies leave Iraq on their own — without establishing law and order — and chaos prevails, then the second scenario may work:
(a-ii) The federal government of Kurdistan in northern Iraq attempts to integrate so-called Turkish Kurdistan into an independent Kurdistan.
The second scenario is an extreme one but not totally unrealistic. It depends on the assumption that the United States finally decides that it can no longer face the chaos in Iraq and the country is broken into pieces. It either gives up and leaves or completely loses control although somehow remains there. The Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites will then attempt to build their own independent countries.
Such an uncontrolled development could easily attract some Kurdish elements inside the Turkish border to act together with their brothers in northern Iraq towards the cause of a totally independent Kurdistan.
That is simply a spilling over into Turkey of the fire that is already in Iraq.
This awkward, undesirable and even impossible development according to some is not beyond the imagination of people who are closely following what goes on in Iraq and who also are observing Turkey’s Southeast.
If this scenario works, it will put the Turkish government into a very difficult situation, since after the March 1 "accident" in Parliament it has:
i) backed the United States on every international issue;
ii) later passed the motion through Parliament; and
iii) pursued a very close policy with the United States in Cyprus, which is a very sentimental issue for Turkey.
The AK Party may not loose the government yet, but it may have to accept a return to the old days that we could label "governance under military surveillance." The military, despite the very democratic posture of Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, would then certainly take a very active role in the name of rescuing the country from possible division and would encourage anti-American sentiments.
The overall establishment would then openly declare how correct it was in its suspicions towards the United States in the Iraq war, blaming it for occasioning the possible split of Turkey, and would more openly condemn "U.S. collaborators" within the country that would obviously also include the government, if not directly, through clearly understandable implications.
I myself cannot imagine the actual split of Turkey and the establishment of an independent Kurdistan regardless of what happens across the border. My imagination in the second scenario can only go as far as foreseeing the establishment of an independent Kurdistan within Iraq.
But it is not impossible for me to foresee a Turkey that will once again fall into the hands of terror.
In this new case it is also possible to see Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, i.e., various factions of al-Qaeda, fighting together with the old Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In the eyes of al-Qaeda Turkey is a traitor to the same extent as the ruling Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In this scenario Turkey will close its eyes to the Western world and will concentrate only on "how to save the country from Kurdish separatists and their terrorist Islamist allies."
This scenario is more pessimistic than scenario (b-ii) but is still more optimistic than (c-i).
Tomorrow: Membership in the European Union
