Ögmundur Jónasson, a former Minister of the Interior for Iceland with a long career in domestic and European politics, was among those who participated in a recent EU Turkey Civic Commission meeting in Brussels addressing the continued detention of Kurdish political leader Abdullah Öcalan, as well as joining a recent delegation to Iraqi Kurdistan.
Jónasson has also spent many years advocating for Kurdish autonomy and a peaceful and democratic resolution to the crisis in the region, including as a spokesman for the Freedom for Öcalan campaign. He spoke to Medya News’ Matt Broomfield to analyse the regional crisis in the Middle East, and the crucial role which can be played by the Kurds and their jailed leader.
What role does the crisis in Kurdistan play in broader Middle East tensions?
We put forward something I would call the domino theory. You said at the beginning there was no sign the fighting or war in the Middle East was abating; this poses a danger for the whole region, for the whole world, indeed. So we must unite in finding ways to direct this into a more peaceful direction. You must start somewhere. The domino theory was used in the 60s and 70s to say that if one country falls to communism, the next will fall. War leads to war. We want to turn this around, and say peace here may lead to peace there. If we can start in Turkey, this will eventually have a good effect throughout the whole region.
To this end, what role can Öcalan play?
Are we certain this will happen? Of course we aren’t. But the likelihood is there, because experience tells us we can safely say that. In the years 2013-2015, there were peace negotiations going on between the Kurds and the Turkish authorities. At that time, Abdullah Öcalan was at the table, indeed, from his prison cell in Imrali, but he was at at the table. And there was optimism in the air. I came to Amed at this time, in 2014. I remember the message from Öcalan, read out at the huge rally of a million people. He said, “We’ve shown that we can handle war. But we’ve also shown – and this we are longing to do – that we can also handle peace.” I have come to the conclusion that he is the only man who’s to be relied on in this respect, the unequivocal leader that everybody looks to. In this respect, he’s a key person to conduct peace talks.
Conversely, is there a risk the Kurds will be pulled into this conflict as proxies?
North of the [Syrian-Turkish] border, the NATO state Turkey is supported against the Kurds. Terrible atrocities have been committed there, and I refer especially to what happened in the years 2016 and 2017, where the People’s Tribunal in Paris termed what happened there as crimes against humanity, without a word from the United States. The great powers operating from afar are never to be relied on. That applies to all of these international forces – they’re always asking ‘what suits me’. The Kurds try to stick together, but they’re having difficulties in the border regions. That was the purpose of our [delegation] – finding ways to have these attacks on Kurds in the border regions. And we found, as we met with people from all peoples, that the general feeling is very much to this effect.
At the conference, was there a sense the present crisis could throw up unexpected opportunities for Öcalan and the Kurds?
Who were [Öcalan’s] abductors? The Turkish intelligence, Mossad, the Israeli secret service, and of course the CIA. I mentioned this at the conference, and I mention it here as well, to remind ourselves that this is the context we’re dealing with. It’s not just Erdoğan, and whether he wants to come to a negotiating table. It’s those who have supported him, and created the situation we’re in. Here of course, I look to the Americans in particular, but also to NATO.
Nothing will happen if these forces aren’t touched, somehow. Who are we? I’m talking about the public. This was very much the spirit of this seminar. What we need is a general awareness-raising among the public, to move these dinosaurs of the past still living with us, the EU, NATO and the United States. These are all responsible, and they will do nothing unless we, the public, make them do it.
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