Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan 11/13/2009
For anyone who follows Turkey, this image is shocking.
Developments between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan have been moving at unbelievable speed.
On Friday Oct 31, in the evening (Bush's preferred time slot for making news disappear), Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Erbil and held a joint news conference with Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Massoud Barzani is despised by mainstream Turks.
In 2007, the the military scuttled attempts by the AKP to setup a meeting between then Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and then Kurdish PM Nechirvan Barzani.
But since that time, the AKP has scored successive blows against the military, both by appointing Gul president in 2007 and then by defeating attempts by the military to shut down the AKP in the summer of 2008.
The AKP government agreed to let the military launch an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan in February 2008, perhaps in hindsight to placate the Turkish military and prepare for a rapprochement.
In conjunction with Davutoglu's visit, the AKP has been issuing amnesties for Kurdish PKK members without blood on their hands and relaxing restrictions on the Kurdish language. But by implicitly acknowledging Iraqi Kurdistan as a separate entity from the rest of Iraq, and agreeing to open a consulate in Erbil, the AKP is really entering untested waters. Many Turks deeply fear Kurdish separatist ambitions, and for them, the increasingly independent Kurds of Iraq are a nightmare.
For Turkey, this new Iraqi Kurdistan policy fits in well with Davutoglu's vision for Turkey as a new Middle Eastern power. For Turkish business, it means a windfall of profits in the underdeveloped but oil-rich Kurdistan. For Barzani, the Iraqi Arabs are the real foes, followed by the Persians and Syrians. Turkey is the least antipathetic of Iraqi Kurdistan's neighbors and has good ties with the West, which has traditionally been the Kurds' protector.
But the Turkish public is way behind Davutoglu and the Turkish business community on this one. After 80 years of denying that the Kurds even existed, and a brutal 20 year war against the PKK in Turkey's southeast, the AKP has to do more to encourage reconciliation in society. Otherwise, prepare for an ugly backlash.
On Friday Oct 31, in the evening (Bush's preferred time slot for making news disappear), Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu visited Erbil and held a joint news conference with Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Massoud Barzani is despised by mainstream Turks.
In 2007, the the military scuttled attempts by the AKP to setup a meeting between then Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and then Kurdish PM Nechirvan Barzani.
But since that time, the AKP has scored successive blows against the military, both by appointing Gul president in 2007 and then by defeating attempts by the military to shut down the AKP in the summer of 2008.
The AKP government agreed to let the military launch an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan in February 2008, perhaps in hindsight to placate the Turkish military and prepare for a rapprochement.
In conjunction with Davutoglu's visit, the AKP has been issuing amnesties for Kurdish PKK members without blood on their hands and relaxing restrictions on the Kurdish language. But by implicitly acknowledging Iraqi Kurdistan as a separate entity from the rest of Iraq, and agreeing to open a consulate in Erbil, the AKP is really entering untested waters. Many Turks deeply fear Kurdish separatist ambitions, and for them, the increasingly independent Kurds of Iraq are a nightmare.
For Turkey, this new Iraqi Kurdistan policy fits in well with Davutoglu's vision for Turkey as a new Middle Eastern power. For Turkish business, it means a windfall of profits in the underdeveloped but oil-rich Kurdistan. For Barzani, the Iraqi Arabs are the real foes, followed by the Persians and Syrians. Turkey is the least antipathetic of Iraqi Kurdistan's neighbors and has good ties with the West, which has traditionally been the Kurds' protector.
But the Turkish public is way behind Davutoglu and the Turkish business community on this one. After 80 years of denying that the Kurds even existed, and a brutal 20 year war against the PKK in Turkey's southeast, the AKP has to do more to encourage reconciliation in society. Otherwise, prepare for an ugly backlash.
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