Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti
November 9, 2007 UPI - Bv Ben Lando
The protest sign was plain enough, black ink on white poster board.
But the message Jamel Numan was carrying amidst 200 of Ame¬
rica's Iraqi Kurds rallying outside the White House Monday was both
simply blunt and highlighted the overlooked complexity of Turkey's
beef with the Kurdistan Workers' Party guerrillas: "Is this really about
PKK? Or is this about Kirkuk?"
Numan, a 53-year-old now living in Nashville, a hub of American
Kurds, echoed the fears of Kurds ~ that Turkey is amassing troops on
their border "so they can take over the Kurdish region of Iraq."
Inside the White House Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
and President Bush discussed Turkey's threats to take military action
against the Turkish Kurd separatist strongholds in Iraqi mountains on
the other side of the Turkish border.
An estimated 3,000 PKK guerrillas are based in the Qandil Moun¬
tains, where Turkey alleges the most recent of the PKK's decades-old
campaign has been planned. Eight kidnapped Turkish troops were
released Sunday in a brief slowdown of bluster between the sides.
But the PKK, which the United States and Turkey recognize as a
terrorist group, has killed dozens of troops and citizens in attacks in
recent months.
The separatist group's original goal was for an independent country of
Kurdistan - and tens of thousands of innocent people were killed in
their fight in the 1 980s - but now it wants more autonomy and cultural
recognition by Turkey.
Turkey has made numerous limited incursions into northern Iraq in the
past, but the PKK remains. Meanwhile, Iraq's Kurdistan Regional
Government has capitalized on its own semi-autonomy since 2003,
creating a rare zone in Iraq of relative security, political evolution and
economic success. The KRG, which contains only 0.5 percent of
Iraq's 115 billion barrels of proven reserves, announced Tuesday it
signed seven new exploration and development oil deals with foreign
companies and formed its own KRG-owned oil company.
Kirkuk is the city Iraqi Kurds want to make their capital, drenched in oil
but cut from Iraq's Kurdish provinces when Saddam Hussein redrew
the boundaries. He forced out Kurds, as well as Turkomen and resi¬
dents of other ethnicities, replacing them with Sunni Arabs.
The city is an increasing hotbed of violence as a controversial refe¬
rendum draws near. Voters in Kirkuk and other disputed territories
currently outside the KRG's authority will decide whether to join it. The
referendum, called for in the 2005 constitution - an inclusion that's an
example of the power Iraq's Kurds wield throughout Iraq - is behind
schedule.
It's likely to miss the year-end deadline and increase tensions bet¬
ween Iraq's Kurdish and Arab leaders. Turkey has already weighed
in, fearing adding Kirkuk's estimated 1 1 billion barrels of proven re¬
serves to KRG control would bolster the northern Iraq region's auto¬
nomy and empower its own Kurdish population. Iran ~ which along
with Syria, Iraq and Turkey is home to more than 22 million Kurds,
according to the CIA's World Factbook - has called for delaying the
referendum.
Kirkuk is also the starting point of two pipelines that export oil to Tur¬
key. The pipelines have a total capacity of 1.6 million barrels per day,
but attacks from Sunni insurgents have kept them offline more than
online since the start of the U.S. -led war in March 2003.
Turkish companies are the biggest investor in the KRG, though the
Turkish government channels all official diplomatic and economic
dialogue through Baghdad.
Turkey demands Washington, Baghdad and the KRG do more to
Analysis: Kurds say Kirkuk is
Turkey's aim
prevent the PKK from operating and accuse KRG officials of aiding
the "terrorist organization which has deployed itself in northern Iraq,"
Erdogan said at a joint, albeit brief, news conference with Bush follo¬
wing their meeting Tuesday.
The two talked of the increased importance of sharing intelligence,
"and it is important that we fight jointly against the leaders, the murde¬
rers of this organization," Erdogan said. U.S. and Turkish military
leaders will communicate more, but Bush and Erdogan didn't weigh in
on any specific actions. Erdogan said he would delay any military
decisions until after the meeting.
The United States is stuck between Turkey and the Kurds, U.S. allies
in their own right, and is having trouble satisfying both.
This year is the war's deadliest for U.S. troops, and Washington's
hawk talk over Iran is increasing, so another war front, especially one
inside the Iraq adventure's only empirical success story, will have long
legs and leave heavy footprints.
"Clearly the Turks got themselves into a pickle by pressing for change
when clearly the Americans weren't going to give them the green light
to go into Iraq," said Joost Hiltermann, director of the International
Crisis Group's Middle East Project. Now the United States must "help
Turkey down without alienating the Kurds in Iraq."
Turkey sees the KRG position as "a situation where they're depending
on Turkey and depending on the central government and need to be
reminded every so often not to let the PKK roam freely," Hiltermann
said. "It's PKK and its Kirkuk, those are the two issues. Everything
else, it can be resolved."
"Of course, (Turkey) should be finding a political solution to the Kurds
in Turkey and not a military one," he said, but Turkey's civilian and
military leadership are at loggerheads in Ankara and the PKK is a
flashpoint.
The Turkish Parliament last month authorized military action - to what
extent remains to be seen. There are an estimated 100,000 or more
troops on the border. Airstrikes, however, have been tossed out as
the best way to combat the PKK, who are more familiar with the
mountainous terrain.
"You don't send 100,000 troops to fight 3,000 guerrillas," 22-year-old
Kovan Morat of Nashville said just after the throng of his fellow Kur¬
dish protestors approached a dozen pro-Turkish flag-wavers across
from the White House. Police and Kurdish leaders made a human
barrier preventing any physical interaction.
"Kirkuk is Kurdistan and would ensure Kurdish people of an identity
ci, and economically stabilize Kurdistan and the move to indepen¬
dence," Morat said. "They don't want to let this happen. "Iraq's Kurdish
population may feel the wrath of Turkey's response to the PKK, but
they by and large feel it's a problem of Turkey's making.
"It's (Turkey's) failure to deal with the PKK problem," said 28-year-old
Fatima Sindy of Manassas, Va., one of the leaders of Monday's pro¬
test, "to deal with its internal problems."
"Turkey is not afraid of the PKK," she said. "It's afraid of an indepen¬
dent Kurdish state." KRG President Massoud Barzani, co-leader of
Iraqi Kurds along with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, agrees.
"Honestly, I am about to be convinced that the PKK is only an excuse
and that part of the real target is the Kurdistan region itself," Barzani
told Time Magazine.
"If they invade and enter the Iraqi Kurdistan region and they attack us,
of course we have to defend ourselves," Barzani said. "If they attack
our people, our interests, our territories, then there will be no limit."
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