[Ankara] Turkey is putting a brave face on the new U.S.-Iraqi security pact, but is seriously worried that the U.S. withdrawal will make it much more difficult to attack the Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.
The change in the balance of power in Iraq is unsettling for Turkey as it is already wrestling with its Kurdish problem on three fronts. Turkish security forces suffered two attacks in Hakkari and Diyarbakir last month when guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) demonstrated far more prowess than they had been credited with.
In the Constitutional Court, judges are considering the legality of the sole Kurdish party in parliament, the DTP. And in local elections due in March, the party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is campaigning to unseat the DTP from the town halls of five provincial capitals.
On Nov. 27, Iraq’s parliament approved a pact which provides for Baghdad taking control of Iraqi airspace as of January 1 and for all U.S. forces leaving the country by the end of 2011. The withdrawal could be expedited if president-elect Barrack Obama honors his pledge to pull out by May 2010.
"The United States is the de facto ruler of Iraq,’’ Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek told the Zaman newspaper group after the pact was signed by the U.S. ambassador and the Iraqi foreign minister.
“It should assess very carefully the steps it will take in the future. You can’t solve problems by simply saying ‘I’m pulling out my troops.’
“What will happen after the troops withdraw? How will peace and stability remain? Are we going to see more clashes?”
While Cicek spoke of the potential for violence across Iraq, Turkey’s fears were actually focused on northern Iraq, where guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) base themselves in their campaign to create an autonomous Kurdish zone in southeastern Turkey.
With a nod from Washington, Turkey has carried out some 30 air strikes on PKK bases in northern Iraq during the past 12 months, as well as an eight-day ground offensive in February. The impact of the attacks has been greatly enhanced by the provision of real-time intelligence from U.S. satellites.
Istanbul-based analyst Gareth Jenkins pointed out that the U.S.-Iraqi agreement means that from January Turkey will be obliged to seek permission for air strikes from Baghdad, which is likely to be less cooperative. It also means that U.S. interest in Iraq will decline as the GIs go home, and that may affect the supply of satellite intelligence to Turkey, he said.
“As Iraq is going to shift down the U.S. list of priorities once the troops pull out, [the Americans] may choose not to be monitoring things quite so closely in Iraq,” said Jenkins, who reports on Turkey for the Jamestown Foundation.
The need for Baghdad’s permission for air strikes would not appear to pose a big problem for Ankara. Turkey has violated Iraqi sovereignty many times, and believes it has the right to do so if Iraq fails to stop the PKK from taking refuge on its soil.
As the Ankara political scientist Ihsan Dagi wrote before the pact was signed, “the territory of northern Iraq will be treated as a no-man’s land without a legitimate authority.”
However, air strikes have only a short-term effect, as proved by the frequency with which they are repeated. To curtail the PKK in the long-term, Turkey needs the support of the Kurdish Regional Government, the authority in northern Iraq. And it is unlikely to get that support if it treats the KRG zone as a “no-man’s land.”
With a view to the future, Turkey began talks with the KRG in mid-October, despite a history of bad blood between the two sides. For years, Turkey accused the KRG of allowing the PKK to operate from its territory. But in a sense Turkey was also opposed to the very existence of the KRG as it saw the creation of an autonomous Kurdish government in northern Iraq as a halfway station towards an independent Kurdish state, which would inspire separatists among Turkey’s Kurdish population.
KRG Prime Minister Massoud Barzani infuriated Ankara by declaring that the PKK was not a “terrorist” group, and arguing the solution was for Turkey to negotiate with the Kurds inside its borders. His administration also found it convenient to blame Turkey for its shortcomings.
So Turkish columnists applauded the government’s decision to break the ice and send Turkish diplomat Murat Ozcelik to meet Barzani in Baghdad to start long-term negotiations. But the question is will these talks produce an accord that will rein in the PKK?
“I’m fairly optimistic because both sides need each other more than ever,” said Ihsan Bal of the International Strategic Research Institute (USAK), an Ankara think-tank.
“The Kurds in northern Iraq realize that the Americans are leaving, and they have to seriously seek new allies. Turkey is one of the best options,” Bal told The Media Line.
He also believes that Turks are coming to realize that a semi-independent state in northern Iraq will not lead to the secession of southeastern Turkey – the region where most Turkish Kurds live.
“A prosperous northern Iraq is a means to a prosperous southern Turkey,” Bal added, an idea that fits with Ankara’s plans to spend $12 billion on developing the southeast, whose scarce resources and job opportunities have long contributed to PKK recruitment.
However, other analysts are pessimistic about the chances of Ankara’s striking a deal with the KRG against the PKK.
“The Iraqi Kurds complain that they don’t have the resources to go up into the Kandil Mountains (of northeastern Iraq) and eradicate the PKK, and to a large extent that’s true,” said Jenkins. “But they do have the ability to squeeze the PKK by cutting off its supply routes in northern Iraq.”
That they have not squeezed the PKK is politically motivated. Unlike Bal, Jenkins sees very little change in the political gap between Ankara and the KRG administration in Erbil. And the gap endures despite huge economic incentives to bridge it.
Turkey is the KRG’s No. 1 trading partner. Hundreds of trucks cross the Turkey-Northern Iraq frontier every day. Turkish merchandise and construction companies are found all over the KRG zone. Turkey supplies electricity to northern Iraq, and could provide millions of dollars of development aid.
“It should be a win-win situation,” Jenkins said. “Both Turkey and the KRG have so much to gain from having a good relationship.”
When Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan reacted to the U.S.-Iraqi pact last week – three days after it was signed – he said it meant Baghdad would be more involved in Iraqi security.
"There is nothing more natural than Iraq’s further involvement in the efforts that have been exerted so far. We will see a more intense Iraqi presence in efforts against the PKK," Babacan said.
The minister also pointed to the creation in Baghdad of a tripartite commission – Iraqi, Turkish and U.S. – whose sole purpose will be to crack down on the PKK. The Iraqi representatives on the commission will include KRG officials.
Babacan highlighted the fact that at the talks that set up the commission the parties affirmed that the PKK was a “terrorist organization.”
The Iraqi state minister who flew to Ankara to explain the pact to premier Erdogan made a similar point, saying that Baghdad had “obliged” the KRG to declare the PKK as terrorist. National Dialogue Minister Akram al-Hakim also said that Turkey’s talks with the KRG were occurring within the framework of Turkey-Iraq negotiations.
However, all these statements may be window-dressing. A previous attempt to combat the PKK through a U.S.-Iraq-Turkey committee failed. Barzani has a record of defying the central government in Baghdad. Whether the new initiatives work will be revealed in what happens to the PKK campaign.
That campaign has been in winter recess since early October when PKK guerrillas attacked a military garrison in Aktutun, Hakkari, killing 17 soldiers and then, four days later, a police personnel bus in Diyarbakir, killing five police officers.
The boldness of the daylight attacks provoked a storm of criticism of the military, whose high command had boasted that with U.S. intelligence it could monitor the PKK rebels as if they were in a “Reality TV show.”
The PKK can hit “whenever and wherever it wants to,” wrote Turkey’s best-known columnist, Mehmet Ali Birand. “Some of us might not like it, but the PKK has thrown many of us off balance and unhinged the public mood.”
The Turkish prime minister responded to the PKK by making a tour of the southeastern cities to drum up support for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the municipal election campaign. Last year the AKP did remarkably well in the legislative elections, scoring higher than the DTP in the southeast, and in March the party hopes to capture the city councils in Diyarbakir, Tunceli, Hakkari, Batman and Sirnak.
However on November 1–2, thousands took to the streets of Van, Hakkari, Yuksekova and Diyarbakir to protest Erdogan’s visit. A populist orator, the prime minister drew large crowds but, in the case of Hakkari, riot police had to hold off the demonstrators.
In a speech to AKP workers in Hakkari, Erdogan lambasted the DTP for pushing for recognition of Kurdish identity. He said: “We have said ‘one nation, one flag, one motherland and one state.’ They are opposed to this. Those who oppose this should leave (the country).”
DTP leader Ahmet Turk and other Kurdish politicians condemned the “one nation” remark, which they saw as a denial of the Kurdish nation. Eight days earlier Turk had sent Erdogan a copy of the DTP manifesto, calling for greater powers for provincial and city authorities, acceptance of the Kurdish language in public offices and schools and the replacement of the concept of “the Turkish nation” with “the nation of Turkey.”
DTP campaigners hope that Erdogan has thoroughly disenchanted southeastern voters and that, with the economic slowdown, the AKP will not fare well in the March polls. But there is a wild card in these elections: the ability of the PKK to detonate bombs in cities.
The analyst Bal believes a bombing campaign is likely, particularly as, in his opinion, the DTP is failing to win votes by introducing new policies.
The rationale is that bombs provoke a response – such as police breaking up a DTP rally or a mob trashing Kurdish shops – which polarizes the society and makes ethnic Kurds vote for the Kurdish party rather than a mainstream one.
"The PKK thrives on polarisation," Hugh Pope of the International Crisis Group was quoted as saying.
However, bombings can backfire, as happened in January when the PKK detonated a bomb in Diyarbakir. Aimed at a bus carrying military personnel, the bomb killed six pedestrians, all of them of Kurdish origin. The DTP, which denies any formal link with the PKK, condemned the attack.
Asked whether the PKK was likely to resort to bombs during the election campaign, the analyst Jenkins said, “If the PKK feels under a lot of pressure, I fear we may see something happening in the cites during the winter.”
But, Jenkins qualified, “it’s a very risky strategy” and one where the effect on voters cannot be predicted.