As the United States and Turkey have been inching closer to a deal on basing American troops on Turkish soil this week, Kurdish leaders have been crying foul, hoping someone in Washington is listening. The Turkish proposal to send soldiers across the Iraqi border - ostensibly for ‘humanitarian’ missions – has sparked intense criticism from a wide range of Kurdish and even Assyrian and Turkoman leaders in northern Iraq.
The pas de deux playing out between U.S. diplomats and Turkish officials, with reports of all-night bargaining sessions in recent days, seems to have largely ignored the interests of the Kurds, America’s forgotten partner. In preparation for its planned assault on Iraq, the U.S. badly wants access to Turkish soil, as a staging ground for, the BBC reports, 62,000 troops and 255 warplanes.
But Turkey has been holding out for more economic aid than the U.S. has been willing to give, and for assurances that its Kurdish neighbors will have no opportunity to cement their progress towards self-determination. Its proposal to send in thousands of Turkish troops to manage potential refugee floods is accompanied by an outright threat to act on its own to ensure that Iraqi Kurds are denied any form of self-government in a post-war Iraq.
As the only Iraqi opposition groups with standing armies (the famous pesh merga fighters), and experience with the Iraqi military, the Kurds are an important ally to the U.S. On February 27 the New York Times quoted Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy to Iraqi opposition groups, as saying that Kurdish worries have been “fully factored into our discussions with Turkey.” Speaking at a conference of Iraqi opposition leaders in Salaheddin, Iraq, he suggested that the U.S. would insist on controlling and coordinating any Turkish military actions in Kurdistan, and on seeing Turkey leave after a war.
In light of recent hawkish, interventionist comments from Turkish officials, it is doubtful that this will placate the Kurds. This week the Kurdish parliament voted almost unanimously to reject the entry of foreign troops into Iraqi Kurdistan. The declaration came on Tuesday, in response to a Turkish resolution allowing troops to be posted outside of the country in the event of a war. Coupled with pledges from Kurdish parliamentarians of armed resistance against any Turkish incursion, the vote was designed to send a strong message to American war planners.
It appears that such protests, and objections from Kurdish Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, have fallen on deaf ears. Recent reports quote Turkish officials as saying that a deal is all but sealed, and that the U.S. has agreed to allow Turkish troops to penetrate at least 100 miles into Kurdistan, to ensure “stability” in the region. It has also guaranteed that it will not allow an independent Kurdish state to emerge, or an autonomous Kurdistan within a federal Iraq.
The Kurdish people have deep distrust of Turkish intentions, and say they will not sit idly by when the Turks come. Kurdish activists have called for an international day of protest against Turkish intervention, and for Kurdish self-determination and protection from the U.S. against chemical and other attacks, invoking memories of the massacre of thousands of Kurds at Halabja in 1988.
Other ethnic groups in northern Iraq have lined up in support of the Kurds’ defiant stance. KurdishMedia.com reports that Turkoman, Assyrian and Chaldean political leaders held a news conference last week, in which they rejected any argument for Turkish intervention. The Turks’ have claimed protection of the Turkomen as a rationale for intervention in the past; Jawdat Najjar of the Turkoman Cultural Association dismissed such reasoning. “The Turkomans are not under threat,” he said. “Whenever our situation comes under threat, then it is up to us to ask for help and assistance.”
The sad irony is that Kurdistan is now enjoying an almost unprecedented level of stability and prosperity, which a Turkish military adventure, far from providing security, is almost certain to shatter. Critics have assailed the Bush administration for ignoring international opinion and flouting international law in its march towards war in Iraq. The administration has based much of its moral case for war on the immense suffering, and potential liberation, of the Iraqi people.
Quite apart from their inherent and legitimate right to self-determination, the Kurds’ practiced success in democratic self-government would seem to be a model that the U.S. would be eager to promote and support in the region. But its recent promises to Turkey suggest that extinguishing Kurdish autonomy is a fair price to pay for a slightly easier, expedient road, via Turkey, to its goal of “regime change”. If its impending betrayal of the Kurds is any indication, the rest of the Iraqi population shouldn’t get their hopes up. It would appear that American liberation is an ideal selectively applied.
