Fréderike Geerdink
Iraq has ‘banned PKK activities’ and considers the presence of the PKK as a ‘violation of the constitution’, the latest news is. It’s interesting how the flash news of the day once again overshadows what’s really at stake, and that is Erdoğan’s intention to redraw the borders.
I was alerted to the news of the ‘banning of PKK by Iraq’ via an article from news agency Reuters. Also, Al-Monitor had an article making the ban the headline. What I need to point out, is that both these outlets didn’t bother to include PKK’s Murat Karayılan’s comments on the matter, which were easily available. Luckily, Medya News did include them, and this site also made a separate article about Karayılan’s statement. I think it’s a major journalistic flaw to only include the statement distributed by those in power, and not include a senior commander of the organisation that is targeted.
Kurdish soil
What all the articles mention, is that Erdoğan will be visiting Iraq next month, after the holy month of Ramadan has ended and Eid al-Fitr has been celebrated. He will not only visit Baghdad though, but is expected to touch Kurdish soil as well, in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region. To be honest, picturing Erdoğan in Erbil is rather terrifying. I don’t know what the plans are of course, maybe it’s only a visit to the palace of the KDP (the party that holds power in Erbil) and a ‘full Barzani’ but I can’t get the picture out of my head of Erdoğan visiting the ancient Citadel and the square and markets at the foot of it in the heart of the city. Horrendous. Why? Because that picture explains very accurately what is at stake here.
A trip down memory lane is useful here. In 2011, Erdoğan was the first Turkish leader (prime minister at the time) to visit the Kurdistan Region. He opened the airport built by a Turkish construction firm and opened the Turkish consulate in the city. A piece at E-Kurd mentions how ‘the main streets of the capital Erbil were adorned with flags, Turkish ones visibly outnumbering those of Kurdistan or Iraq’. Erdoğan couldn’t utter the K-word, as this Reuters piece quoted Erdoğan as saying: “We have an historic relationship with Iraq and with this beautiful region.”
Beautiful region
Those were the days that the Kurdistan Region was ‘booming’ economically. The boom was mainly driven by Turkish investments. The piece at E-Kurd linked above was originally published at Rudaw (but can’t be found there anymore), the media channel of the Barzanis, and was echoing the ruling elites’ happiness about the new established cooperation between their ‘beautiful region’ and Turkey. With Turkish investments, they would expand their wealth too. The political recognition made their survival as ruling clan more likely as well, despite the nepotism and the corruption.
A year later, Erdoğan visited Baghdad and he hasn’t visited Baghdad or Erbil ever since. A tremendous lot has changed since 2011, both in Turkey and in the Kurdistan Region. The ‘boom’ is over; instead, the Kurdistan Region has sunk into a deep economic and political crisis, unable to pay the salaries of its civil servants and at odds with Baghdad over oil revenues and assorted legal issues, also concerning the Kurdistani elections.
Turkish lands
And what’s more: Erdoğan’s Turkey has not only fully abandoned the quest to democratically resolve the Kurdish issue at home (a matter about which optimism was still very much alive in the early 2010s), it has been on a mission to annex parts of the Kurdistan Region and of Iraq. He, and possibly a majority of Turks with him, consider parts of Kurdistan and for example Kirkuk (outside the Kurdistan Region) and Mosul historically as Turkish lands. Same goes for parts of Syria. Since 2016, Turkey has occupied parts of Syria and has not only committed serious human rights violations ever since, it has also Turkified those lands.
Erdoğan plans a new incursion into Kurdistan in Iraq in spring and vows to eradicate the PKK from the mountains before summer. It’s absurd: Turkey has been saying that since the 1980s and knows very well it can only unarm the guerrilla movement via political negotiations. What Turkey is after, is land. Baghdad knows that – it may have ‘banned’ the PKK, but in the joint statement with Ankara, the ‘importance attached to Iraq’s political unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity was emphasized’. Baghdad did also not, as Turkey demands, designate the PKK as a terrorist organisation.
Kurdish brothers
But the Barzani’s are in Ankara’s pocket already. Ever since the economic boom of 10, 15 years ago, the Kurdistan Region has come to economically depend on Ankara. And with that dependency, political submission was created as well. The KDP fully cooperates with the Turkish army and intelligence agency MIT to fight against the Kurdish brothers of the PKK already. If the Barzani’s were brave, really really brave, they’d side with the PKK against Turkish fascism, but the chances of that happening, are zero. Let’s say, close to zero, because we need to keep hope.
Keep that in mind next month, when you see Erdoğan on Kurdish soil, and when you see the Turkish flags everywhere. That’s not a sign of brotherhood between Turks and Kurds, that’s fascist aggression aiming to occupy and annex. It’s as if Putin is being welcomed in Kyiv, or as if Gaza welcomes Netanyahu with Israeli flags all over the place. That’s not a friendly president visiting a neighbour, that’s a fascist leader on lands he considers his and is planning to grasp.
*Fréderike Geerdink is an independent journalist. Follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her acclaimed weekly newsletter Expert Kurdistan.
