Kuwaiti Girl
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Regional Implications of an Independent Kurdistan
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1452.html
Full report: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1400/RR1452/RAND_RR1452.pdf
---------------------
A few interesting parts for the Turkish members:
CHAPTER FOUR
Turkey’s Reaction to an Independent Kurdistan
Turkey’s Change of Heart
In the mid-2000s, Ankara’s approach to Kurdish independence
changed fairly rapidly. A decade after suggesting that vital Turkish
interests would be threatened by Kurdish rule in Kirkuk, senior Turkish
officials expressed only tepid affirmations of Iraqi territorial integrity
when Kurdish peshmerga actually moved into Kirkuk in June 2014
in the face of a threatened ISIL assault and in the context of the headlong
flight of the defending ISF forces.17 A ruling party spokesperson
asserted that Kurdish independence would no longer be a casus belli.
18
Turkey is not, however, standing by passively while the KRG strengthens
its case for independence; it appears to be actively empowering
the KRG to be more politically and economically assertive. Indeed,
Nathalie Tocci, of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, argues, “Relations
between Turkey and Northern Iraq have evolved at a breathtaking
pace, with Turkish policies currently bolstering the KRG’s drift
towards independence, a prospect considered unthinkable in Ankara
only a few years ago.”19 After years of close interactions to advance
mutual interests, KRG President Masoud Barzani expressed his belief
that although Turkey might not assist the emergence of an independent
Kurdistan, neither would Ankara oppose it.20
Ankara’s change of heart stemmed from changes to both its
domestic and foreign policies. Domestically, the government’s decision
to seek a resolution of the internal conflict with the PKK, along with
the PKK’s decision to pursue greater political and cultural rights within
the Turkish political system, mitigated the threat of irredentist nationalism
from northern Iraq. Although the Turkish government brought
an end to the peace process and resumed the military conflict with the
PKK after the June 2015 elections, this policy change is widely seen as
an attempt to bolster the AKP’s nationalist credentials, demonstrate
that Erdoğan is sufficiently strong to protect Turks from instability and
chaos, and undermine (if not eliminate) the HDP’s representation in
parliament through the calling of new elections21—during which the
party met the 10 percent threshold for parliamentary representation
but won 25 percent fewer seats22—not as a decision that Kurdish separatism
is once again something to fear.
Ankara and Erbil also sought closer relations as a result of a confluence
of foreign policy interests, particularly their mutual desire to
insulate themselves from the political dysfunction and violence caused
by Iraq’s increasing sectarianism, contain instability created by the
Syrian civil war, exploit the KRG’s oil resources, and undermine competing
Kurdish groups in both Turkey and Syria. Moreover, Turkish
leaders appear to have concluded, according to University of Exeter
professor Gareth Stansfield, that being an active partner in the KRG’s
path to independence will enable Ankara to shape and influence its
emerging neighbor in ways that advance Turkey’s interests.23
Syria
Turkey has also seen the KRG as a potential partner in an effort to
prevent the PKK’s Syrian affiliate from establishing an autonomous
zone on the Turkish border. The Assad regime effectively ceded control
over the predominantly Kurdish regions in the north to the Democratic
Union Party (PYD), the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, so it could con-
centrate its efforts elsewhere. Even while professing a desire to preserve
Syrian unity (perhaps in part to avoid antagonizing Ankara), the PYD
has sought to administer Kurdish areas as a semi-autonomous enclave;
it established parallel ministries and legislative institutions, provided
utility services independently, and even switched signs and school textbooks
to Latin (rather than Arabic) letters.53 These steps to promote
administrative and cultural autonomy in Syrian Kurdish areas resemble
the ways in which the KRG gradually established a bureaucracy
and a Kurdish political/cultural identity that was distinct from that of
the rest of Iraq.
Turkey has come to fear the PYD’s administration of these
Kurdish-led areas,54 which could serve as a safe haven from which
PKK forces could attack Turkey and resume the Kurdish insurgency.55
Indeed, when Assad’s forces withdrew from northeastern Syria in July
2012, “Ankara feared that it was witnessing the birth of a PKK-led
state on its doorstep,” according to Soner Çağaptay.56 As the conflict
in northern Syria heated up in 2015 and 2016, Turkey has attacked
PYD positions in Syria57 and is believed to have provided support to
ISIS fighters combating the group. As Amberin Zaman writes, “Fears
of a PKK-led Kurdish entity [in Syria] are so deeply engrained that the
AKP may feel more comfortable co-habiting with ISIS than with the
people best equipped to beat them.”58
Although Turkey has actively fought the PYD’s ability to establish
an autonomous Kurdish zone along the Syrian-Turkish border, it
has taken steps to demonstrate that its anti-PYD actions should not be
interpreted as anti-Kurdish hostility. Amberin Zaman notes that “on
August 23, a day before Turkish troops entered Syria for the first time
to fight ISIS—and the YPG—Barzani traveled to Ankara to meet with
Erdoğan and other Turkish leaders, thus allowing Turkey to show that
its actions against the YPG did not target all Kurds.”59 A week later,
Erdoğan foreign policy advisor İbrahim Kalın went to great pains to
emphasize that Turkey’s military intervention was not aimed at Kurds:
The Euphrates Shield Operation is against the presence of the
DAESH and other terror organizations [such as the PYD]. We
strongly condemn efforts to present this operation as being
against Syrian Kurds and their achievements. Turkey has no
problem with the Syrian Kurds. Turkey has no problems with
Kurds in Turkey, Kurds in Iraq, Kurds in Iran, and Kurds in the
region or in any part of the world.60
The Erdoğan-Barzani meeting and related statements appear intended
to reassure the KRG that Turkey’s intervention to prevent the establishment
of a Kurdish enclave in Syria does not reflect a change of heart
regarding the status of the Kurdish enclave in Iraq.
Indeed, Iraqi Kurds remain a crucial partner for Turkey as
it attempts to undermine the PYD and its PKK allies. Even before
Turkey took military action in Syria, it sought to pull northern Syria
into Ankara’s political and economic orbit, as it did over time with
Iraqi Kurds, to minimize the ability of the PKK to maintain a potential
base of operations in a PYD-dominated zone along the Turkish frontier.61
To assist with these efforts, Ankara has looked to Erbil, which
similarly views the PYD—a Kurdish group with an independent political
base and an armed militia—as a potential rival.62 Stephen Larrabee
notes that KRG President Barzani is working to bolster alternatives to
the PYD in Syria, who would then become dependent on Erbil and
thereby subject to Turkey’s influence:
In northern Iraq, Barzani is training Kurdish fighters from Syria
who he hopes will return home and form the nucleus of a force
that will rival the PYD’s popular protection units. The force is
intended to help secure the autonomy of the Kurdish areas of
Syria, much as the peshmerga have done in northern Iraq. Barzani’s
efforts represent a more moderate solution to the Kurdish
problem. They seek to establish an autonomous Kurdish entity
similar to KRG-controlled Iraq by fostering economic interdependence,
developing cross-border trade and investment, and
building energy links with Turkey. They are viewed positively
by Ankara because they do not support an assertive, destabilizing
Kurdish entity seeking full independence. The PKK, by contrast,
views Barzani’s increasing influence among the Kurds with
concern.63
Although Turkey has opposed any form of pan-Kurdish
irredentism,64 it appears to be encouraging (or at least tolerating) a
form of Kurdish nationalism in which the KRG is able to offer protection
and support to its Syrian brethren. Rather than promote Kurdish
identity, of course, Turkey is interested principally in ensuring that if
northern Syria is, in fact, to be a semi-autonomous Kurdish zone, its
leaders should have close ties to Ankara’s allies in Erbil and include as
few PKK-aligned figures as possible. “With Syria ablaze,” writes Tocci,
“the KRG is the most critical partner to ensure that Syria’s centrifugal
forces are brought into Turkey’s orbit, that the PKK ceasefire holds
and that Kurdish secessionism in Turkey’s southeast is kept at bay.”65
Ankara would not tolerate an internationally recognized Kurdish
region in Syria, but it is apparently willing to accept a de facto Syrian
Kurdish self-governing area that is calm but not dominated by any particular
faction—least of all the PYD. Currently, the PYD-dominated
areas along the Turkish border are fragmented (see Figure 4.1), which
limits the ability of Syrian Kurds to consolidate their control and forces
them to expend resources on supplying and supporting noncontiguous
territories. Turkey is unlikely to accept a consolidated YPG-dominated
area along the length of its border. Thus, as long as Syrian Kurds are
able to administer a semi-autonomous territory along Turkey’s borders,
Ankara will remain reliant on Erbil to advance its interests there
by supporting groups outside the PYD umbrella. If Erbil decides to
pursue independence, it will likely use its influence in Syria as a point
of leverage to secure Turkish recognition of its sovereignty.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1452.html
Full report: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1400/RR1452/RAND_RR1452.pdf
---------------------
A few interesting parts for the Turkish members:
CHAPTER FOUR
Turkey’s Reaction to an Independent Kurdistan
Turkey’s Change of Heart
In the mid-2000s, Ankara’s approach to Kurdish independence
changed fairly rapidly. A decade after suggesting that vital Turkish
interests would be threatened by Kurdish rule in Kirkuk, senior Turkish
officials expressed only tepid affirmations of Iraqi territorial integrity
when Kurdish peshmerga actually moved into Kirkuk in June 2014
in the face of a threatened ISIL assault and in the context of the headlong
flight of the defending ISF forces.17 A ruling party spokesperson
asserted that Kurdish independence would no longer be a casus belli.
18
Turkey is not, however, standing by passively while the KRG strengthens
its case for independence; it appears to be actively empowering
the KRG to be more politically and economically assertive. Indeed,
Nathalie Tocci, of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, argues, “Relations
between Turkey and Northern Iraq have evolved at a breathtaking
pace, with Turkish policies currently bolstering the KRG’s drift
towards independence, a prospect considered unthinkable in Ankara
only a few years ago.”19 After years of close interactions to advance
mutual interests, KRG President Masoud Barzani expressed his belief
that although Turkey might not assist the emergence of an independent
Kurdistan, neither would Ankara oppose it.20
Ankara’s change of heart stemmed from changes to both its
domestic and foreign policies. Domestically, the government’s decision
to seek a resolution of the internal conflict with the PKK, along with
the PKK’s decision to pursue greater political and cultural rights within
the Turkish political system, mitigated the threat of irredentist nationalism
from northern Iraq. Although the Turkish government brought
an end to the peace process and resumed the military conflict with the
PKK after the June 2015 elections, this policy change is widely seen as
an attempt to bolster the AKP’s nationalist credentials, demonstrate
that Erdoğan is sufficiently strong to protect Turks from instability and
chaos, and undermine (if not eliminate) the HDP’s representation in
parliament through the calling of new elections21—during which the
party met the 10 percent threshold for parliamentary representation
but won 25 percent fewer seats22—not as a decision that Kurdish separatism
is once again something to fear.
Ankara and Erbil also sought closer relations as a result of a confluence
of foreign policy interests, particularly their mutual desire to
insulate themselves from the political dysfunction and violence caused
by Iraq’s increasing sectarianism, contain instability created by the
Syrian civil war, exploit the KRG’s oil resources, and undermine competing
Kurdish groups in both Turkey and Syria. Moreover, Turkish
leaders appear to have concluded, according to University of Exeter
professor Gareth Stansfield, that being an active partner in the KRG’s
path to independence will enable Ankara to shape and influence its
emerging neighbor in ways that advance Turkey’s interests.23
Syria
Turkey has also seen the KRG as a potential partner in an effort to
prevent the PKK’s Syrian affiliate from establishing an autonomous
zone on the Turkish border. The Assad regime effectively ceded control
over the predominantly Kurdish regions in the north to the Democratic
Union Party (PYD), the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, so it could con-
centrate its efforts elsewhere. Even while professing a desire to preserve
Syrian unity (perhaps in part to avoid antagonizing Ankara), the PYD
has sought to administer Kurdish areas as a semi-autonomous enclave;
it established parallel ministries and legislative institutions, provided
utility services independently, and even switched signs and school textbooks
to Latin (rather than Arabic) letters.53 These steps to promote
administrative and cultural autonomy in Syrian Kurdish areas resemble
the ways in which the KRG gradually established a bureaucracy
and a Kurdish political/cultural identity that was distinct from that of
the rest of Iraq.
Turkey has come to fear the PYD’s administration of these
Kurdish-led areas,54 which could serve as a safe haven from which
PKK forces could attack Turkey and resume the Kurdish insurgency.55
Indeed, when Assad’s forces withdrew from northeastern Syria in July
2012, “Ankara feared that it was witnessing the birth of a PKK-led
state on its doorstep,” according to Soner Çağaptay.56 As the conflict
in northern Syria heated up in 2015 and 2016, Turkey has attacked
PYD positions in Syria57 and is believed to have provided support to
ISIS fighters combating the group. As Amberin Zaman writes, “Fears
of a PKK-led Kurdish entity [in Syria] are so deeply engrained that the
AKP may feel more comfortable co-habiting with ISIS than with the
people best equipped to beat them.”58
Although Turkey has actively fought the PYD’s ability to establish
an autonomous Kurdish zone along the Syrian-Turkish border, it
has taken steps to demonstrate that its anti-PYD actions should not be
interpreted as anti-Kurdish hostility. Amberin Zaman notes that “on
August 23, a day before Turkish troops entered Syria for the first time
to fight ISIS—and the YPG—Barzani traveled to Ankara to meet with
Erdoğan and other Turkish leaders, thus allowing Turkey to show that
its actions against the YPG did not target all Kurds.”59 A week later,
Erdoğan foreign policy advisor İbrahim Kalın went to great pains to
emphasize that Turkey’s military intervention was not aimed at Kurds:
The Euphrates Shield Operation is against the presence of the
DAESH and other terror organizations [such as the PYD]. We
strongly condemn efforts to present this operation as being
against Syrian Kurds and their achievements. Turkey has no
problem with the Syrian Kurds. Turkey has no problems with
Kurds in Turkey, Kurds in Iraq, Kurds in Iran, and Kurds in the
region or in any part of the world.60
The Erdoğan-Barzani meeting and related statements appear intended
to reassure the KRG that Turkey’s intervention to prevent the establishment
of a Kurdish enclave in Syria does not reflect a change of heart
regarding the status of the Kurdish enclave in Iraq.
Indeed, Iraqi Kurds remain a crucial partner for Turkey as
it attempts to undermine the PYD and its PKK allies. Even before
Turkey took military action in Syria, it sought to pull northern Syria
into Ankara’s political and economic orbit, as it did over time with
Iraqi Kurds, to minimize the ability of the PKK to maintain a potential
base of operations in a PYD-dominated zone along the Turkish frontier.61
To assist with these efforts, Ankara has looked to Erbil, which
similarly views the PYD—a Kurdish group with an independent political
base and an armed militia—as a potential rival.62 Stephen Larrabee
notes that KRG President Barzani is working to bolster alternatives to
the PYD in Syria, who would then become dependent on Erbil and
thereby subject to Turkey’s influence:
In northern Iraq, Barzani is training Kurdish fighters from Syria
who he hopes will return home and form the nucleus of a force
that will rival the PYD’s popular protection units. The force is
intended to help secure the autonomy of the Kurdish areas of
Syria, much as the peshmerga have done in northern Iraq. Barzani’s
efforts represent a more moderate solution to the Kurdish
problem. They seek to establish an autonomous Kurdish entity
similar to KRG-controlled Iraq by fostering economic interdependence,
developing cross-border trade and investment, and
building energy links with Turkey. They are viewed positively
by Ankara because they do not support an assertive, destabilizing
Kurdish entity seeking full independence. The PKK, by contrast,
views Barzani’s increasing influence among the Kurds with
concern.63
Although Turkey has opposed any form of pan-Kurdish
irredentism,64 it appears to be encouraging (or at least tolerating) a
form of Kurdish nationalism in which the KRG is able to offer protection
and support to its Syrian brethren. Rather than promote Kurdish
identity, of course, Turkey is interested principally in ensuring that if
northern Syria is, in fact, to be a semi-autonomous Kurdish zone, its
leaders should have close ties to Ankara’s allies in Erbil and include as
few PKK-aligned figures as possible. “With Syria ablaze,” writes Tocci,
“the KRG is the most critical partner to ensure that Syria’s centrifugal
forces are brought into Turkey’s orbit, that the PKK ceasefire holds
and that Kurdish secessionism in Turkey’s southeast is kept at bay.”65
Ankara would not tolerate an internationally recognized Kurdish
region in Syria, but it is apparently willing to accept a de facto Syrian
Kurdish self-governing area that is calm but not dominated by any particular
faction—least of all the PYD. Currently, the PYD-dominated
areas along the Turkish border are fragmented (see Figure 4.1), which
limits the ability of Syrian Kurds to consolidate their control and forces
them to expend resources on supplying and supporting noncontiguous
territories. Turkey is unlikely to accept a consolidated YPG-dominated
area along the length of its border. Thus, as long as Syrian Kurds are
able to administer a semi-autonomous territory along Turkey’s borders,
Ankara will remain reliant on Erbil to advance its interests there
by supporting groups outside the PYD umbrella. If Erbil decides to
pursue independence, it will likely use its influence in Syria as a point
of leverage to secure Turkish recognition of its sovereignty.
