Al-Itihad, United Arab Emirates, Originally posted in Arabic on February 12
What is the relationship between the Kurdish regions of southeastern Turkey, and the Caucasus region in southwestern Russia? Both have Kurdish populations terrorized by their respective governments.
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Turkey recently launched an aggressive campaign aimed at containing the Kurdish rebellion within its territory, especially after rebel leaders announced their demand for autonomy. There is no doubt that the Kurds’ struggle has been encouraged by the success marked by their peers in Iraq and in Syria.
But Erdogan’s Turkey is not al-Maliki’s Iraq or Assad’s Syria, and the Turkish president will do whatever it takes to preserve the territorial integrity of his country.
This equation, however, began to change since the relations between Moscow and Ankara deteriorated, following the downing of the Russian fighter jet by Turkish forces. In retaliation, Moscow publicly supported the Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey, and called on Turkish authorities to “take the necessary steps to ensure an immediate halt of hostilities against the Kurdish population”. The Kremlin called on Turkish authorities to solve the problem through “political negotiations and frameworks”.
Russia’s hypocrisy could not be more blatant.
In fact, the Kurds of Turkey could have easily been replaced with the Kurds of Chechnya, whom Russia has been subjugating and targeting for years. Putin simply doesn’t seem to see the Kurdish issue beyond the lens of embarrassing Erdogan. He is forgetting that before violence broke out in the region – in Syria, in Iraq, in Turkey, or in Iran – it was Moscow that made use of brutal force to silence its Kurdish population.
No “political framework” was used to solve tensions between the central government in Moscow and that in Grozny. Now, with tensions between Russia and Turkey mounting, the Kurds have become players on each leader’s chessboard. Both leaders could not care less about the Kurdish cause. But both will continue manipulating them to achieve their political ends. – Muhammad al-Sammak