As we speak, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has made pronouncement on how his country would take further actions into Iraq in the coming days as nearly 100,000 Turkish troops have already been deployed near the border it shares with Iraq—-reinforced by attack helicopters and warplanes.
Just about a week after the Turkish parliament had authorized military incursion into northern Iraq, PM Erdogan has not been satisfied by merely bombarding Kurdish rebel positions from within its own field down south and now plans to actually march its troops into another country’s territory, breaking sovereignty in the process. Some 3,000 Kurdish militants are suspected to be holed-up in the northern Iraq and are mainly blamed for a spate of deadly attacks in several locations in Turkey; the most recent and bloodiest of which was the death of 13 Turkish soldiers in one of the southeast regions there.
Prime Minister Erdogan wants to crush the Kurdish insurrection once and for all and wants to decimate the entire PKK (or the Kurdish Workers’ Party) by intruding into Iraq and sending its troops across the border.
This is purported to be the military solution.
However, the Kurdish problem is far from just being a military-conflict problem; it is in fact a very circuitous political and social issue that had been contented to and rooted to through decades and even through the centuries—-a problem more in-depth than what is viewed from initial observations. Therefore, the military solution being presented by Turkey would not be the mightiest solution after all and it could merely be futile and could prove to be too costly, searing up relations with the United States and provoking a nascent government in Iraq.
Turkey is not the only one trying to resolve Kurdish rebellion but also Iran, and most prominently Iraq, where Saddam Hussein was convicted and meted the death sentence through the charge (among others) of vicious persecution of the Kurds minority in the northern Iraq, highlighted by the incident of mustard gassing of an entire community of Kurds in 1988, where pictures of that harrowing episode had appeared so memorably in the pages of widely popular publications such as Time and Newsweek.
In 1982, the Kurds was granted a form of autonomy through the Kurdish Regional Government, in an agreement with the Iraqi government then. After the end First Gulf War in 1992, the United Nations had instituted a safe haven in the northern region in order to protect the Kurds from increasing persecution from Baghdad.
Despite that it is not considered as a state or sovereignty, the place called “Kurdistan” had been in known not only in most recent times but also in the past. Without a fixed territory to show, Kurdistan is theoretically seen as encompassing a contiguous land area that spans through southeastern part of Turkey, a northern portion of Iraq, and some areas in Iran and Syria (see the map images). Meaning to say, a certain unseen nation is hiding somewhere in this region (south of Turkey and north of Iraq) that time and history had forgotten. There is in fact a people so distinct and unique from the rest that is not having its own nation. The might of the Ottoman Empire in the past had ceded part of Kurdistan to Turkey. The British Mandates after World War I had encumbered the rest of it in favor of Iraq, Iran and Syria that now it had become a lost nation without it’s own territory. The Jews were more fortunate to have declared their own state and reclaimed Israel after the British Mandate had abandoned control on the old Palestine in favor of United Nations control. One could infer from this very unique situation (where the Kurds had been left out entirely) as a result of the haphazard partitions made by colonial powers (particularly Great Britain and France) after they had decided to let go of their full control over territories in the Middle East—-partitioning and dividing without knowing fully the social and racial make-up of the population involved, leading to the disenfranchisement of the Kurdish people. In fact, Iraq is in such a situation now where it’s northern part and southern part is so distinct and separate from the Sunni controlled Baghdad in the middle; a nation mandated by powerful western forces while in reality, it is a cornucopia of different peoples. Many now in fact fears that in the event that the United States pull out of Iraq, a civil war might ensue among the Sunnis, the Shiites in the south and the Kurds up north.
Perhaps, the Kurdistan issue should be resolved now, in parallel to resolving the Iraqi problem. The Iraqi solution should be held in consonance with the Kurdistan solution. Otherwise, if the situation would be left as it is, Iraq would become or remain a state of at least two nations forced to bond together, when in fact, they could not and do not intend to. In this setup, a fragile bond holds and would always threaten to untie any time
Turkey may have to be involved in the compromise, upon realizing that holding a region populated by a different people may not in any manner inure to its best interest. Why would a nation like Turkey hold on to a nearly barren region with no Turkish identity to it whatsoever?
The answer lies in the rich oil fields located in the area populated by the Kurds. Most of Iraq’s oil revenues are coming from oil fields in Kirkuk and Mosul, two areas within the theoretical Kurdistan territory. Turkey had even pronounced in recent years about its sentiment on Kirkuk and Mosul, claiming them to be within Turkish territory historically, citing the Ottoman Empire’s grasp of Kurd’s areas in the past.
The Kurdistan issue had now complicated the Iraq Situation with this recent move by Turkey to traverse border in order to resolve Kurdish rebellion in the south.
That now, the Kurdistan issue had to be resolved together with the present U.S. campaign in Iraq. To be clear, I do not confrom to the violence exhibited by the Kurdish rebels against Turkey—-it is not a solution by any means. Diplomacy and compromises should be the best (and only) means of all.
Otherwise, the problem would go on and on as long as the Kurds remain a distinct people without a nation.
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