A Century of Kurdish Politics: Citizenship, Statehood and Diplomacy by Gunes Murat Tezcur

Author:Gunes Murat Tezcur [Tezcur, Gunes Murat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367236717
Google: 4oHDwQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 43878542
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-04-08T06:58:33+00:00

What Future for Turkey–KRG Relations?

In seeking to compartmentalise its close relationship with Erbil from the oft-repeated independence aspirations of Barzani, Turkey’s position had been shot through with contradiction and risk. That the referendum had isolated the Kurds and had led to the loss of their hold over Kirkuk perhaps represented a desired outcome for Ankara, but Turkey now found itself more directly facing a still-sectarian Iraqi government that seemed determined to force Kurdish dependency on Baghdad, was strongly in debt to Tehran, that had long been unhappy with Turkey’s military presence in and attacks on Iraqi territory, that was unhappy with Ankara’s role in facilitating Erbil’s energy exports, and that is yet to eradicate IS. Barzani, Turkey’s leading Iraqi Kurdish ally, was chastened and the KRG weakened. Discord within the KRG mounted in the referendum’s aftermath, and in the immediate wake of Iraq’s highly controversial May 2018 federal elections, during which the KDP and PUK were widely suspected of tampering with the votes. Erbil’s future relationship with Baghdad had yet to take shape. It is hard at the time of writing to foretell how this will pan out, but what follows are some considerations that might be taken into account. Although the KDP’s patronage networks and the divisions amongst the Kurdish opposition will combine to ensure that the KDP will remain the major Iraqi Kurdish political actor for the foreseeable future, any erosion of Massoud Barzani’s or the KDP’s dominance of the political scene in the KRG could pose serious challenges to Ankara’s influence in Iraqi Kurdistan. A possible foretaste was offered by the expulsion of the PUK’s Ankara representative in August 2017 following the detention of Turkish intelligence officers by the PKK in the PUK-controlled Sulaimani area.20 Then, in March 2018 the PUK owned Kurdsat media station withdrew Turkish programmes from its schedule in protest at Ankara’s incursion into Afrin. There were informal boycotts of Turkish goods. For its part, Ankara refused to resume flights to Suleymaniya in March 2018, alleging PUK collusion with the PKK. The PUK, Gorran, the KIG and other Iraqi Kurdish political parties are more sympathetic to the PKK and the PYD than is the KDP, and between them have mounted a number of demonstrations in the KRG against the Turkish attacks on the YPG in Syria, notably Afrin. In the wake of a special session in the KRG’s parliament on the Turkish attack on the Kurdish canton of Afrin in northwest Syria, a KRG parliamentary delegation visited Afrin in February 2018 to express solidarity with the YPG’s resistance. Tellingly, it included a KDP MP and seemed to have been supported by Masrour Barzani (Zaman, 2018). Indeed, should he emerge victorious in any future struggle for power against the president’s nephew Nechirvan, the KDP’s ties to Ankara could loosen further (Rasheed, 2018). For the time being though, Nechirvan remains committed to the resurrection of the Erbil–Ankara axis.

In economic terms, it is unlikely that the Iraqi Kurdistan will be as lucrative for Turkish business as has been the case in the past.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.