Friendly relations and then some

This Article was originally published by Kurdistan Tribune. Here is the Link.  @RaberYAziz

I was a junior undergrad student in 2007 when a journalist from a Dutch radio station who worked on a report about Kurds and Kurdistan asked me as a Kurd what I thought about an independent Kurdish state. My answer was as follows: having a Kurdish state without the blessings of the neighboring countries, even if the whole world recognizes it, is like sitting in a room with no windows, doors or exits. That Kurdistan – and I mean both the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and the greater Kurdistan as well – is a landlocked enclave and all of its interactions and trade with the outside world had to be either through airspaces, or across the soils of Turkey, Syria, Iraq or Iran. I told the journalist that an independent Kurdish state was the dream of every Kurd. However, I didn’t want us to rush into a declaration of independence without first building friendly relations with the neighboring nations through mutual understanding and interests.

 For a long time after the Kurdistan Region gained self-rule in northern Iraq, the neighboring countries were not happy with this. They all tried to meddle in its internal affairs, and maybe still do. Saddam Hussein was a permanent threat and there was the Turkish military’s continued transgression on its soil ostensibly to attack the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). But, in 2004, Kurdistan Region was officially recognized by the Iraqi Constitution which made it irreversible. Saddam Hussein was gone, but Turkish officials still referred to Kurdistan as “Northern Iraq” and continued denying a Kurdistan Region and the Kurdish identity.

With the Justice and Development Party (AKP) coming to power in Turkey, that Turkish attitude changed too. Kurdish classes are now offered and a state-run Kurdish language TV is operational, Recep Teyyip Erdogan has tried to introduce more reforms, which are not huge but better than nothing. And Turkey is a major trade partner of the Kurdistan Region today. Erdogan officially invited the President of the Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani, to Diyarbakir, the largest predominantly Kurdish city in Turkey, where they spoke about friendly relations and “Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood.”

It was a historical moment to see Barzani in Diyarbakir. No one should deny that – not even those who looked at the intertwined politics that Barzani needed Erdogan’s support in his own ambitions to push oil deals with the neighboring country without going back to Baghdad, or that Erdogan needed Barzani to gain votes from the Kurdish southeast of the country as parliamentary elections are expected to be held in March. Barzani was received by Erdogan as more than just an ally to his AKP party in the Middle East. He was received as an equal counterpart and that has its significance.

Also, Erdogan for the first time referred to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as “Iraqi Kurdistan” which I am not suggesting, as some enthusiasts have suggested, it is a sign that Kurdistan is on the right track towards becoming a fully independent country. Rather, the denial policy practiced by the Turkish governments in the past is gradually vanishing and friendly relations are becoming stronger and stronger. It is for that very reason that Turkish hardline nationalists now call Erdogan a traitor. Some have gone so far as accusing Erdogan of splitting Turkey and helping Kurds establish the Greater Kurdistan.

After six years, I still hold the same view that an independent Kurdistan, without friendly relations with its neighbors, is unimaginable because Kurdistan is surrounded by those countries that can literally impose sanctions on it and cut it off from the rest of the world if they so wished. However, I would like to add one more line to it now: besides friendly relations with neighboring countries, Kurdish leaders and their fans need to overcome their own denial attitudes towards other Kurdish leaders, parties and factions.

In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Erbil is recognized by its leaders as the capital of the Kurdistan Region, and of the greater Kurdistan. In Turkey’s Kurdistan, and in particular by the PKK and its sympathizers, Diyarbakir is. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq describes Barzani as the supreme leader of the Kurdish nation, PKK and its sympathizers give Abdullah Ocalan the same titles, while many Iranian Kurds constantly refer to Qasemlu, leader of the KDP-Iran who was assassinated by Iranian intelligence in Austria, as the leader of the Kurds despite his being dead.

While Barzani’s KDP media, in addition to the Turkish media close to Erdogan’s AKP party, praised both leaders and their friendly relations and achievements, the PKK media, and the PKK sympathizer Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) of Turkey harshly criticized Barzani for refuting the PKK-affiliate Democratic Union Party (PYD)’s recent interim administration in Syria. An object of criticism by the BDP leaders was also the fact that Barzani responded to Erdogan’s call to visit Diyarbakir when hundreds of the city’s sons are still in jail on charges of working with the PKK, while he turned down an invitation from the BDP to participate in the Nawroz (Kurdish New Year) celebrations in Diyarbakir.

At the heart of the competition is the Barzani-Ocalan rivalry.

Everybody is partly to blame for this rivalry and lack of unity among Kurds. The PYD/PKK accuse Barzani and his KDP party of family rule and having a monopoly of power, politics and trade in Kurdistan, yet they are doing the same in Syria. I know that the PYD is the most popular force on the ground in Syria, and I know that as the first power there it has the right to be the one dominating politics and administration. But they have no excuse for marginalizing all other Kurdish parties that seem to disagree with the PYD, however small – at least not until elections are held to see which party has a popular base and deserves to be called a political party and deserves to be part of the administration and how much power each party should have. The same is true of the KDP and Barzani as well. Barzani has done everything in his power to put pressure on the PYD in Syria, from blocking the border crossings and banning Saleh Muslim, the PYD leader, from entering Kurdistan, to adopting political attitudes that show enmity for the PYD, including refuting the recent interim administration announced by the PYD to carve out a Kurdish region in Syria.

One more issue is that, in his recent visit, Barzani failed to consider the frustration it would cause to the BDP/PKK and other independent Kurdish leaders in the country – that they would feel marginalized and excluded. Erdogan and his government did not take PKK and its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan for granted, so why should Barzani do that? Erdogan accepted Ocalan as an interlocutor in the peace process and has been holding talks and striking deals with them, so why shouldn’t Barzani do the same? This is not to suggest that he has never tried to hold talks with Turkey’s Kurdish leaders, rather Barzani – as an iconic Kurdish leader – should try harder to bring all Kurdish leaders together especially in compliance with his own ambitions to become the supreme leader of the Kurds everywhere.

The BDP is a popular party and its views should matter a lot to Barzani. It garnered about 2.8 million votes in the Turkish parliamentary elections in 2011, which is more than twice the votes Barzani’s KDP received in the Kurdistan Region elections this year. I am not forgetting the number of Kurdish voters in Kurdistan of Iraq and Turkey and therefore this should not mean that they are more popular than Barzani in the Kurdish world, but it should certainly mean that they are a popular force with massive support and a huge fan base in Turkey and the Kurdish world. This should testify that the BDP leaders should not be taken for granted, nor should the PKK. Just a few days ago 20,000 Kurds marched in Germany calling on the German government to reconsider its ban on the PKK.

What angered the Kurdish leaders of Turkey was that Barzani’s visit seemed to send the message that Erdogan and Barzani can bring about peace in the region without going back to the BDP or PKK. This may not have been the intention of Barzani, but it certainly did send this message and this was clear from the BDP and PKK leaders’ reactions.

Salahattin Demirtas said that “those who say they went to Diyarbakir to deliver some messages to the Kurdish people should respect the sacrifices of this land (Diyarbakir) they have stepped on. “ He also said, in what appeared to be a response to Barzani’s comment that he wouldn’t be able to go and speak in Turkey some 15 years ago but is now able to do so thanks to Erdogan: “If children and mothers of Diyarbakir had not turned each and every neighborhood of the city into an uprising and resistance field, nobody would be able today to deliver any messages here. Everybody should know on what soil they stand before speaking”

Here is why Demirtas and other BDP and PKK leaders are frustrated: Barzani went to Turkey and talked about Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood when the BDP and PKK leaders were sidelined, when the BDP/PKK still strongly disapprove of Erdogan’s reform packages and are highly dissatisfied with it and want to press for more. But the Barzani visit seems to legitimize what Erdogan has given so far. How would Barzani feel if Turkey’s Kurdish leaders visited the disputed city of Kirkuk in Iraq and talked about Arab-Kurdish brotherhood and said that it was time for peace and, whether intentionally or unintentionally, sent the message that what is there for Kurds in the city is enough and they should be content with what they have? I know that I would be angry if a Kurd from Turkey, Syria or Iran told me that Iraqi Kurds should stop whining about Kirkuk, move on and be content with what is already there. I know that we Kurds are one nation, but we did not all fight as one nation for Kirkuk, only Iraqi Kurds did and therefore it is not up to Turkey’s Kurds or Iranian Kurds to decide what’s best for Kirkuk, it is up to us Iraqi Kurds.

As long as we are looking at having Kurdistan regions with autonomous powers within their states rather than one independent Kurdistan, I think the same is true for Turkey’s Kurds, and Syria’s Kurds. They know better what is best for them and only they should have the right to decide that because, in the same way, only they fought for Kurdish rights in Turkey and not the whole of the Kurdish nation as one. One might say Mustafa Barzani, Massoud Barzani’s father, fought alongside Qazi Mohammed during the Mahabad Republic in 1946. But I am not talking about that long ago, I am talking about recent years, and besides, when Barzani joined Qazi Mohammed, the Kurdish regions in the four countries had not become as distinctive as they are today and Kurds still strived for one independent Kurdistan state rather than Kurdistan regions with autonomous powers.

I see Barzani’s recent Turkey visit as a positive event for Kurds in general, and the Kurdistan Region in particular. Kurds need to build friendly relations with Turks, Arabs and Persians if they ever want to have their own independent state. However, Kurdish leaders and their supporters should stop denying each other because they do not agree. Differences are not bad, they are just differences. And a supreme Kurdish leader is a matter of relativity as long as there is not an independent Greater Kurdistan where polls can be held to determine this.