President Barzani’s speech on attacks to KRG’s borders: not enough

An interview with Mesud Barzani, president of Kurdistan Regional Government of South Kurdistan / Northern Iraq has recently been published at the Peyamner News Agency’s website. Peyamner is the official news agency of Mesud Barzani’s PDK (Partiya Demokratika Kurdistan).

Please click here for the interview.

Mr president puts forward in this interview the first time the right for self determination for all the Kurds throughout Kurdistan which is very good news for the leadership in the south since we are used hear from the South only for the Kurds in the south. Mr President also addresses in highlights the issue of Syrian Kurds which makes sense. It was mentioned in this blog as well that the driving reason behind Persian and Turkish offensives to PKK / PJAK on Qandils was actually to prevent the Kurds in Syria (Southwest Kurdistan) to gain political rights; an autonomy of their own.

A remark: against the criticism that the Southern leaders are regional leaders and not truly national has been falsified by the president with this interview. A big thanks to him for this. We have learnt now that the leadership in South Kurdistan proposes self determination rights for the Kurds in the North (Turkey), East (Iran) and Southwest (Syria). It will be commented accordingly in the future.

One other issue to mention in this interview is the postponement of the popularly demanded Kurdistan National Conference. It was announced for the end of 2011 and was expected to gather all the political parties throughout Kurdistan. Shame on us that with about 40 million population we have no guts to come together.

WHY IS THE INTERVIEW NOT ENOUGH
Mr President says a fight between Kurds (in this matter between KRG and PKK / PJAK) is out of question. This is against the Brakuji era between various Kurdish factions during the 20th century and was one of the main reasons for Kurds to not to gain rights anywhere in Kurdistan (one was being used against the other). Mr President does not say however that a Turkish attack to Qandil’s would be answered by similar means. It also falls very extremely short of what Turks are planning for the KRG governed South. According to an article published at Today’s Zaman, a daily of Turkey and one which can be considered a reliable source from the Turkish government;

Turkey is preparing to take the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to northern Iraq by turning outposts it has maintained for intelligence gathering there since 1995 into operational front garrisons, Today’s Zaman has learned.

If Mr President was to say that any such activity to the KRG governed soil would be considered hostile, then Turkey would hesitate in the level of its hostilities inside Iraqi soil, since it would turn the theatre of its never-declared-ever-continuing war against the Kurds into an international conflict. By not mentioning it, which makes the commentator think that by indirectly accepting it by keeping mute, KRG helps the Turks to continue on keeping their ever continuing identity genocide against Northern Kurds an internal issue.

Although not precise this map tells itself for Kurds and Kurdistan

Kurdistan and the Kurds and the unjust rule imposed on them needs to be made an internationally defende issue. The problem itself occurred when Kurdistan and the whole Kurdish nation was one day decided by the British and the French to be erased from existence. It was not the architecture of the Turks or Persians or Arabs. They merely defend since then their benefits they are having by controlling it. These regional neighbouring people had no power in their arms to create this mess when it was being engineered by the above mentioned after the World War I. The issue was international in the beginning and a solution will be so.

Kurds needs wisdom from their leaders to manage this long fought struggle. Yet we have seen only the mentioning of the rights Kurds should have: self determination. How is it going to be achieved is the question political leaders are supposed to answer?

Turkey’s attack to Qandil mountains: what for?

The Kurdish poet / philosopher Ehmedé Xanî from centuries before wrote:

Whenever the Turkish or the Persian seas rise
Why is it always my dear homeland Kurdistan flooded?

Now, almost only days after the Persian flood on Qandil Mountains of South Kurdistan, it is the time for the Turkish flood. Air bombardments continue day and night.

For the ones who are not familiar with the unjust partitioning of Kurdistan and the Kurdish people to and under the control of four non-Kurd states, it is also not possible to understand the driving reasons of the offensives of Persians and Turks to Qandil mountains. Because of this lack of understanding, almost any small article on Kurdish matter or Kurdistan starts with an ever repeating, thus boring narrative of the Kurdish history. I will try to do this as little as possible in this article.

As I have tried to emphasize on my previous articles (link 1, link 2), the real agenda both for Turks and the Persians is to stop a new KRG-like establishment / authority in Southwest Kurdistan, or the Syrian Kurdistan if you prefer to name with these words. KRG, the Kurdistan Regional Government in the North of Iraq has been the beginning of the end of the status quo for the miserable Kurds in their homeland. Prosperous in wealth and strengthening muscles in Iraq whenever possible, developing international relations of its own, KRG is setting an example of a viable state for the rest of the Kurds. Another KRG like authority in any other part of Kurdistan (i.e. Syria) will be a few steps ahead at once compared to KRG itself.

KRG Parliament building in South Kurdistan

KRG EXAMPLE
First of all, and to put the matter honestly, KRG has been a difficult and challenging example in the nation building of the Kurds. Since the Kurdish nation is about five times more than the population in Iraqi South Kurdistan, the local parties and leaders were and to a large extent still are regional leaders limited to their own controlled area. The effect of the KRG in Kurdistan however, has been truly national. Kurds have witnessed success of their own and the establishment of a modern state that belonged to themselves, governed by fellow Kurds. So have observed the Kurdistan occupant states.

One has to remember the so called Islamist bombings of Ezidi Kurds around Mosul town. It was clear to almost everyone in the region that the Mosul consulate of Syria was behind these attacks and orchestrating together with the Turks. The famous “Hood Event” in South Kurdistan is another incident. The Turks officially present in Sulaymaniah of South Kurdistan were planning to assassinate high ranked Kurds and were arrested by the Americans. Iran was a bit more careful in regards to its bitter relationship with the US but would not do less if found the opportunity. All this is to prevent the Kurds from having their own political governing entity.

The current Turkish president Abdullah Gul famously said when he was a prime minister “anything that happens related to Kurds is a problem of Turkey even if it happens in Argentine”. He said this in his protest of VoA’s Kurdish broadcast.

Kurds, so famously quoted in the beginning of any scholarly study on themselves are “the biggest nation / people without a state”. This is in regards to Kurdish national sentiments, not about population. If it was being a people and having a population one could easily mention the Punjabis, which is not the case.

A map of Kurdistan

THE END OF THE CURSE AND THE STATUS QUO
Kurdistan is a very unjustly parted land. Kurds never accepted this partitioning of their land and fought back since the beginning. Simko, Sheikh Ahmed Barzani, Sheikh Mahmud Berzenci, Sheikh Said, Seyid Riza and the famous Bedirxans and the Xoybun are the examples of early Kurdish nationalist insurgencies for an independent state. The occupants together with their global lords fought the Kurds back in their demands.

Things changed with the American intervention to Saddam’s Iraq after the first and then the second Gulf Wars. Kurds in one part of their country gained a ‘defended’ autonomy of their own: KRG. Currently under American defence umbrella, Turks and Persians dare not be hostile to Northern Iraq’s KRG. But, what if the same example followed by the Kurds in Syria? What if this makes the autonomy seeking movements in other parts unstoppable?

These questions are most probably what the Turkish and Persian strategists ask themselves since the Syrian uprising for more democracy. One must think the answers to these questions together with the global acceptance of new states such as Kosovo, South Sudan, East Timor, etc.

Kurds and Kurdistan are only a victim of being unprepared before, during and after the World War I era, and do not want to be caught the same. It is a real battle in a sense between the states controlling / governing Kurdistan and the Kurdish people. The fight was won for Kurds in Iraq, and the Turks and the Persians do their best to prevent a similar victory elsewhere in Kurdistan.

PKK AND THE SOUTHWEST KURDISTAN
PKK is one organization which has strong ties with the Kurds in Syria. Many of its militants and high ranked guerrilla leaders are from the Southwest. Recently declared and an autonomous seeking congress in North Kurdistan, Democratic People’s Congress, PKK scares Turkey on its control of Kurds. Votes show about 60% support for PKK in North Kurdistan. PKK also proposes the same for Syrian Southwest Kurdistan.

Imagine if the turmoil in Syria led to a similar autonomy like the KRG where the defence, judicial system and the rest of governmental affairs were under control of an independent Kurdish federative state. What would stop the Kurds in Northern Kurdistan of Turkey? Why would the Kurds in Iran not ask for the same? And, why would not these federative states come together to correct the wrongdoing of the British and the French after the World War I?

Has this not been the effect of the American invasion of Iraq after all? Is this not in line with the American president Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points?

American made Turkish aircrafts bomb today the Kurdish villages and guerrilla bases on Qandil Mountains. In exchange PKK is fighting back in Northern Kurdistan against the Turkish security forces. The whole fight seems to be sitting on an undealed peace agreement between Ocalan and the state. What lie beneath however is a very objective reason for the Turks. Kurdistan is strategic for them if they want to keep themselves important for the west. Say the pimp and prostitute relationship. By gaining more rights and establishing their own bodies, Kurds free themselves from the chains, not all at once, but rather one by one. Those who control Kurdistan and sell its geopolitical location to the global powers do not want the Kurds to become free and be the lords of Kurdistan.

Syrian Kurds celebrating Newroz, the Kurdish new year

It is all about the Syrian Kurds in short. Battle ground may be the high Qandil Mountains, the fight however is for Syrian Kurdistan. Turkey will try to weaken PKK guerrillas on Qandils. They may even start a new arrest campaign of the prominent Kurdish figures to demoralize the Kurds. They will aim to defocus PKK on Syrian Southwest Kurdistan.

All this to be seen. Erdogan said ‘Syria was Turkey’s internal affair’. None other than the Kurds in Syria concern the Turks. What will the world have to say against the Turks if they try to oppress the Kurds in Syria? More importantly what will the Kurds do if it comes to this?