Turkish-Kurdish rapproachment despite the Americans
They, the Iraqi Kurds, are the only Iraqi party, still call the war as "liberation" and express their gratitude for the Americans.
Under such circumstances, it had been a very difficult fine-tuning act for the U.S. policymakers to overcome the mutual suspicions and distrust surrounding Turkey and its immediate neighbors next door, in Iraq. Recently, a change of heart on both sides was felt. A change of heart that would relieve the Americans from the unpleasant choice of alienating the either side, their indispensable Turkish allies and their loyal partners in Iraq, the Kurds. The Iraqi Kurds, apparently worried of a Shiite-Islamist or in general an Arab domination of Iraq that would be reminiscent of Saddam’s days that deprived Kurds of their basic rights, above all the chance of a self-rule and that could threaten the gains that they have achieved during the course of the last 12 years in the wake of the Gulf War, thanks to Turco-American security umbrella that they have enjoyed with their self-rule, decided to move closer to Turkey. Turkey, in turn, gradually moved to perceive the benefits of a rapproachment with the Kurds, in order to have a certain weight in determining the future of Iraq.
Compliments and nice messages were exchanged. Turkey offered its medical assistance to those who were gravely wounded in the Al-Qaida inspired attack to Erbil that took the lives of some prominent leaders of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democrat Party and brought the victims to be hospitalized in Ankara. These gestures won the heart of the KDP leader Masoud Barzani, who started to praise Turkey, being always a reliable friend.
On the other side of the Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq, Jalal Talabani had already a "strategic vision" vis-a-vis Turkey. Perceiving the Iranian and Iraqi Shiite and Iraqi Sunni Arabs’ with the rest of the Arab world having a strategic dimension that could be detrimental for the fortunes of the Iraqi Kurds, he is ambitious to promote similar relationship between themselves and the reliable, powerful neighbor on the North, Turkey.
The possibility of the resurgence of PKK insurgency, whose armed elements were camped in a few thousands in the remote mountain-mass Qandil, with half of it in the Iranian territory that stands at the northeastern tip of Iraq-Iran border, the ground to come closer on the common interest lied for both Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds. All these developments paved the way for Talabani’s visit to Ankara where he would be received by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. The visit could be a first step in realizing a "strategic vision" in terms of a joint Turkish-Kurdish planning of the future, in synchronizing their policies in order to bring a very significant Turkish-Kurdish synergy that could also be determinant on the future of Iraq.
Good news for the Americans?
Well, ironically, now, not the Administration itself but the American sources are doing their utmost to undermine the amelioration of Turkish-Iraqi Kurdish relations. A day before Jalal Talabani arrived in Ankara, The New York Times carried a first- page story on "Kurdification of the areas around Kirkuk" which has always been a very sensitive issue for Turkey, especially for its powerful military establishment. The day he reached Ankara, The New Yorker claimed an intense Israeli military involvement, training the Kurds etc. in North Iraq. The signature over the controversial news item carried the prestigious signature of Seymour Hersh. His name recently had appeared on the spectacular story on the Abu Ghraib prisoners abuse scandal. Thus, the Pulitzer-winner journalist’s new story had a certain weight and reflected in some Turkish dailies headlines on the day Talabani would start his contacts in Ankara, stirring passions of discontent and distrust towards the Kurds. In the substance of The New York Times news, nothing was new. Since the fall of the Baath regime, the thousands of Kurds who were forcefully removed in Saddam’s genocidal campaigns were returning back to their former lands. This is not exclusive to the Kurds. Turkmens around Kirkuk had also been subjected to Saddam’s deportation policies under the guise of "Arabization", so they, also, were among those to claim back their usurped properties around Kirkuk.
The validity of Seymour Hersh’s The New Yorker story is denied by Talabani in Ankara. Masoud Barzani’s second-in-command, Nechirvan Barzani had disclosed to me in Erbil about three weeks ago, that "Kurds are, apart from Turkey, surrounded by Syria, Iran and the Iraqi Arabs who are extremely sensitive for any sort and level of contacts with Israel and the last thing that the Kurds would think of is to take steps that could create fatal troubles for themselves." For Nechirvan Barzani, "The geopolitical realities are not permitting any relations with Israel."
In the unlikelihood of the truth of Hersh’s piece, no matter how a careful journalist he is, it seems his story is a product of an unending interagency fights of Washington. This time, it is most probably, a Pentagon-Pentagon fight, in order to embarrass further the civilian authorities of Pentagon, those architects of America’s war on Iraq. No matter what the background and the intentions of The New York Times and The New Yorker reporting, those fell upon Talabani’s visit to Ankara. Especially, since these stories coincided with that of the reports of the resurgence of PKK’s armed actions within Turkey, the possibility of an "anti-Kurdish climate" to prevail over the territory on which Turkish-Kurdish rapproachment is not out of question.
Nonetheless, we should count on the clairvoyance of Turkey’s and the Iraqi Kurdish leadership to resist those infectious winds coming from the other end of the Atlantic to spoil the emerging warm weather between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds that would be a win-win situation for both sides and ultimately for the United States.
