| |
Turks threaten: 10,000 fighters in
Kirkuk
By Hooman Peimani
As
the international community's attention has focused on
the Iraqi opposition's efforts to take charge of the
post-Saddam era, uncertainty about the nature and
direction of a liberated Iraq has provoked anxiety in
the regional countries, including and especially Turkey.
In particular, Turkey, fearing post-Saddam
Hussein instability (and possibly sensing the
opportunity of achieving a long-desired strategic
objective) has been provoked into issuing a recent
warning to Iraqi Kurds: should armed Kurdish groups
based in northern Iraq attempt to take control of
oil-rich Kirkuk in the aftermath of regime change, the
Turkish government will consider it grounds for an
attack by Turkish forces on the Iraqi Kurds. Kirkuk is
an Iraqi city under the current control of the Iraqi
government and one to which both Turkey and the Iraqi
Kurds have arguable claim.
As a northern
neighbor of Iraq sharing a long border with that
country, in the contemporary era Turkey has always been
concerned about political developments in Iraq -
especially in its Kurdish region. Being located along
the southern part of Turkey housing its rebellious
Kurds, Turkey has been fearful of the aggravating impact
of an autonomous or, even worse, of an independent
Kurdish region in the northern part of Iraq. Without a
doubt, such developments have had an encouraging effect
on Turkey's dissatisfied Kurds, whose armed or unarmed
political groups have long sought autonomy or
independence from Turkey.
Such political
activities have been Turkey's major source of internal
instability, while posing a serious threat to its
territorial integrity. Ankara has had to deploy about
200,000 troops in its eastern region mainly dominated by
Kurds to ensure its control over that region and to
prevent its secession from the country.
Since
the emergence of the Kurdish-run region in the northern
part of Iraq in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf
War, fear of the latter scenarios have justified the
concentration of the Turkish military forces along the
Turkish-Iraqi joint border. Accusing the Iraqi Kurds'
political groups of giving a safe haven in their
territories to Turkey's main armed Kurdish group, the
PKK, on many occasions, the Turkish military has since
crossed the border into northern Iraq for the declared
purposes of destroying the PKK bases there or of chasing
its militants escaping Turkey into Iraq.
While
there has been an element of truth in Ankara's
justifications, it is no secret that it has also sought
to increase its influence in Iraq's Kurdish region by
having a degree of military presence in that region or
in its close proximity. This objective has also been
evident in Ankara's parallel efforts to pit against each
other the two major Iraqi Kurdish groups, the Patriotic
Union and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, by backing
the latter in its rivalry with the former.
Yet,
beside the mentioned reasons, Ankara's military
activities have also sought to prepare grounds for
possible "unification" of Kirkuk with Turkey, should the
opportunity arise. The Turks have had a territorial
claim to that city since the fall of the Ottoman Empire
in the early 1920s. Undoubtedly, the heavy financial
burden of imported fuel has made the Turks interested in
oil-rich Kirkuk located in the vicinity of the
Iraqi-Turkish border. Turkey has based its claims to
Kirkuk on "historical" and "ethnic" grounds: After the
fall of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I,
the division of its vast territory in the Middle East by
Britain and France led to an intentional "historical
injustice". According to the Turks, Kirkuk was part of
Turkey proper, but the two victorious European powers
intentionally included Kirkuk in the newly-created Iraq
in order to deny Turkey, a losing power of World Ware I,
access to fuel to create a major handicap for its
economy. The existence in that city and its proximity of
Turkmens, whom the Turks consider as their kin, has
provided an ethnic ground for their claim.
Against this background, Ankara is concerned
about a post-Saddam Iraq run by the Iraqi opposition,
including its Kurdish faction, which may well lead to
the dissolution of the country and the rise of an
independent Kurdish state in its northern part. Despite
their claimed consensus over the future of Iraq as
declared at the end of the recent London conference, the
ideological, political, ethnic and religious
incompatibility of the various Iraqi opposition groups
create a realistic, although not necessarily inevitable,
ground for division of their country along ethnic,
religious and/or political lines.
Given the fact
that the two Kurdish groups running the Iraqi Kurdish
region form two out of the three militarily significant
Iraqi opposition groups, they are in a position to
consider the establishment of an independent state
should the situation become suitable for that option.
That military capability would also enable them to
expand their control over Kirkuk, formerly a city with a
significant Kurdish population, and even over Mosul,
another oil-rich Iraqi city close to Kirkuk. Being
located near the Kurdish-controlled region, the two
cities are well within the reach of the armed Kurdish
groups.
The rise of a strong autonomous or
independent Kurdish region with a potentially strong
oil-driven economy, which could help it form a
significant military force, would be a threat to the
territorial integrity of all its neighbors with Kurdish
minorities (Iran, Syria and Turkey). Particularly, this
would be a serious threat to Turkey, a country with a
rebellious Kurdish population of about 15 million.
Moreover, a feasible inclusion of Kirkuk into an
independent Kurdistan would make its "unification" with
Turkey an impossible scenario.
Hence the
increasing possibility of an American-assisted regime
change in Iraq is not a source of jubilation in Turkey.
This will remain the case so long as it is not clear
whether a post-Saddam Iraq will create a chaotic
situation to help Turkey justify its putting a hand on
Kirkuk and deploying its troops inside Iraqi Kurdistan
along its border to contain any undesirable developments
there.
Another possibility is a resulting power
vacuum that would help Iraqi Kurds include the
strategically important Kirkuk in their territory - only
to endanger Turkey's territorial integrity with their
independent state.
Dr Hooman Peimani
works as an independent consultant with international
organizations in Geneva and does research in
international relations.
(©2002 Asia Times
Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies,
or to submit a letter to the editor.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
