Page 2 of 2 THE ROVING
EYE The Turks are
coming By Pepe Escobar
leader Abdullah Ocalan, captured
with inside information by Israeli intelligence in
1999 and jailed for perpetuity in Turkey. For the
Turks, Ocalan is similar to what Osama bin Laden
is for the US.
As Middle East expert Juan
Cole succinctly put it, "Bush's special greatness
is that his coddling of Kurdish separatism and
terrorism has brought together the Sunni Turks and
the Shi'ite
Iranians, traditional
enemies."
Syria's President Bashar
al-Assad - no friend of Kurdish nationalism
himself - has recently been to Ankara. Turkey and
Iran always discuss and conduct joint operations
against both the PKK and PJAK. Washington wanted
Ankara to isolate both Damascus and Tehran. It did
not, and it will not, happen.
Worse,
Turkish intelligence knows all about Israel
training the peshmerga in Iraqi Kurdistan.
This particular blowback would be comic if it were
not tragic: instead of US/Israeli-trained Kurds
plunging Iran into chaos, now we have irate Turks
itching to invade US-protected Iraqi Kurdistan
(or, as a matter of fact, to invade US-occupied
Iraq).
Ask Barzani and
Talabani The PJAK's leader, Rahman
Haj-Ahmadi, who lives in exile in Germany, has
already been to the US this past summer (he got a
visa because the PJAK is not considered a
terrorist group). His avowed agenda is for Kurds
to be part of a "secular, democratic" regime in
Iran. Washington neo-conservatives sit up every
time someone says "regime change in Iran". But
what they don't seem to accept is that Ahmadi's
real agenda, similar to that of the overwhelming
majority of Kurds, is the establishment of a
greater Kurdistan.
An Iraqi Kurdistan
embassy will soon open in Ankara - and will have
to try its best to counter widespread, visceral
anti-Kurdish sentiment in Turkey. Ankara has
identified that the only way to subdue dreams of a
greater Kurdistan is to offer a better life for
Kurds in southeast Anatolia - or at least the
illusion of better opportunities. This is above
all connected to the greater water wars in the
Middle East. The Turkish military wants to build
the Ilisu dam on the Tigris River. With this, not
only could they control the destiny of Iraqi
Kurdistan, but they could also erase dozens of
Kurdish towns and villages and thus local support
for the PKK.
Anti-Kurdish prejudice in
Turkey - or fear of the pan-Kurdish dream - is
exemplified, for instance, by the editor-in-chief
of the popular Istanbul daily, Hurriyet, an avowed
disciple of Bush-style "either you're with us, or
you're with the terrorists" logic. For him the
single culprit in this whole mess is Massoud
Barzani, the leader of the KRG. Barzani does
harbor a pan-Kurdish dream. The Turkish editor
would rather transform the Kurdish dream into a
Kurdish nightmare.
Beyond all the
hysteria, he does have a point: what are the two
Iraqi Kurdish historical leaders, and former
fierce enemies - Jalal Talabani (today Iraq's
president) and Barzani (president of the KRG)
really up to? Barzani rejects outright any
possibility of a Turkish invasion. He does not
even consider the PKK as terrorists; he and his
peshmerga actually protect the PKK.
Talabani for his part says he understands
Turkey's pain. He offered the prospect of the PKK
announcing one more unilateral ceasefire. But he
also told Kurdish TV, "we will not hand over any
Kurd to Turkey, not even a Kurdish cat".
Talabani in fact does not care about
Ankara; what he cares about is his American
protectors. Take the words of Qubad Talabani,
dad's son in Washington, when he told United Press
International in May, "Kurds want the sort of
'strategic and institutional relationship' that
Israel and Taiwan have with the United States ...
We are seeking the same protection."
Only
Barzani could actually do something about the PKK;
the Green Zone government in Baghdad is irrelevant
and ignored by the KRG. But Ankara refuses any
meaningful dialogue with the KRG; partly because
of anti-Kurdish sentiment, partly out of fear of
an imminent, independent Iraqi Kurdistan
mini-state. Barzani, not by accident, is itching
for the Kirkuk referendum to happen as soon as
possible.
All about Kirkuk The
PKK is so relaxed in the middle of all this frenzy
it even organized a press conference in the
spectacular Qandil mountains, 10 kilometers from
the Iranian border, attended by Le Monde's Patrice
Claude and The Independent's Patrick Cockburn.
Claude and Cockburn were left with the impression
that the PKK - although insisting it is just
defending itself against the Turkish drive to
exterminate it - is indeed rooting for a Turkish
invasion; that would pit Turkey against Iraqi
Kurds en masse, especially Barzani's
peshmerga, and the PKK structure would
suffer barely a scratch.
After all, the
PKK believes nobody could dislodge its up to 3,500
warriors ensconced in dozens of mobile camps in
the mountains, "not even Alexander the Great". The
Turks know it; they tried twice in 1995 and 1997,
with 50,000 troops, with zero success.
As
the PKK leadership reads it, it's all about Turkey
trying to smash the inevitable independence of
Iraqi Kurdistan - or 5 million Iraqi Kurds about
to live the dream of 12 million Turkish Kurds. The
major plot is the future of Iraq, no less, with or
without a Barzani-led independent Kurdistan flush
with Kirkuk's oil.
Bush was so obsessed with his
"surge" in Iraq that he and the administration
forgot about Kirkuk. Turkey against "evil
terrorists"? Not really; looks like the preview
screening of the Battle of Kirkuk.
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