A new era as Turks and Kurds learn to co-operate

By David Phillips

Iraqis have stepped back from the brink by agreeing on a law that will allow elections to go forward in January. While this averts postponement of the ballot, which would have required the US to recalibrate its withdrawal from Iraq, the contentious process is a harbinger of difficulties to come. Once elections are held, Iraqis still have to establish a coalition government and overcome deep divisions on issues such as hydrocarbons, revenue-sharing and the status of Kirkuk, a city claimed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen. Given these flashpoints, Iraqi Kurds are placing as much importance on relations with Ankara as with Baghdad. Turkey is also hedging her bets in case Iraq’s elections trigger sustained violence that polarises Iraqis and destabilises the region.

It was only in February last year that Turkey massed 100,000 troops for a major cross-border operation to root out the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) from its hide-out in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq. In a dramatic reversal, Ahmet Davudoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, made a historic visit to Iraqi Kurdistan just two weeks ago to sign landmark deals opening a Turkish consulate in Erbil and border-crossings for travel and trade. Both sides have made the strategic decision that their interests are better served through co-operation than confrontation.

The rapprochement is born from pragmatism and geographic necessity. Kurds know that their future lies to the west, not as a landlocked rump state in the Middle East. Their access to Europe goes through Turkey. Conversely, Iraqi Kurdistan is Turkey’s gate to Iraq and lucrative relations with the Gulf states. Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan are natural economic partners. Their annual trade has jumped to $5bn (€3.3bn, £3bn) since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It will rise to $10bn this year and $20bn in 2010. There are 1,200 foreign companies in Iraqi Kurdistan, half of which are Turkish; 90 per cent of goods sold in Iraqi Kurdistan are made in Turkey.

In addition, Iraqi Kurdistan has 45bn barrels in estimated oil reserves and huge natural gas fields that Turkey needs to fuel its economy and to fill the Nabucco pipeline with supplies for Europe. A Turkish energy company, Genel Enerjy, has signed production-sharing agreements for the Tak Tak and Tawke oilfields in Iraqi Kurdistan that will produce 1m barrels per day – more than 20 times Turkey’s current domestic production.

There is an old adage that, “Kurds have no friends but the mountains”. Yet they increasingly see Turkey as a prudent power and protector. They recall it was a haven to almost a million Iraqi Kurds who fled to the mountains after the Gulf war in 1991. However, they know Turkey will not act out of the goodness of her heart. It will guarantee security in Iraqi Kurdistan because it enables her to influence the balance of power in Iraq.

Turkey’s security establishment is obsessed with Iraq’s territorial integrity. It fears the emergence of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan would inspire Kurds in Turkey to seek greater self-rule. Recent statements by Masoud Barzani, Iraqi Kurdistan’s president, have helped calm Turkish anxieties; Mr Barzani affirms that Iraqi Kurds accept their fate as part of a democratic, federal republic of Iraq in which political power and control of natural resources are decentralised.

In the 1990s, Ankara denied the very existence of Turkish Kurds, calling them “mountain Turks”. It declared a state of emergency and launched a scorched earth policy that devastated the country’s south-east where Kurds reside. Recently, however, it has taken a more conciliatory approach.

While maintaining security, the government of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expanded cultural rights and invested heavily in social services and infrastructure in Kurdish areas. Building on Turkey’s repentance law, it is also beginning to explore some kind of PKK amnesty. It has turned to the Kurdish Regional Government to accelerate the PKK’s demobilisation by more vigorously disrupting cash flow, weapons supplies and the organisation’s logistics.

The interests of Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan currently converge, but co-operation could founder unless both sides accommodate the core interests of the other. Without progress on Turkey’s PKK problem, neither side will realise the full scope of benefits from today’s positive trends.