Turks see big problems ahead re Kurdish separatists

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=3010


Iraqi Kurds Seeks Kirkuk for an Independent Kurdish State
After Turkey's warning about Kirkuk (Northern Iraq city),


Kurdish KDP official Nechirvan Barzani said that Kurds opposed to any kind of compromise over Kirkuk. Barzani, the leader of the local administration of KDP, said that the United States (U.S.) and the Iraqi Interim Administration were in mistake expecting that the Kirkuk problem will be resolved in time.

"We saw that neither Baghdad nor Washington understood the deep sensitivity and feelings on Kirkuk. This is not an issue which Kurds will make any concessions," he said.

<snip>

Iraqi Kurds are Separatist; Dr. Nilgun Gulcan from ISRO said the Iraqi Kurdish groups aimed separation of Iraq:

"Their only aim is an independent Kurdish State. It is understandable, all nations have the right to establish their own state. However the problem is that the Iraqi Kurds ignore all the balance in the region. All significant nations are against separation of Iraq. In addition, the Kurdish groups claim the Turkomans and Arab territories as part of the so-called 'Kurdistan'. For example they want Kirkuk, an oil-rich city in order to finance a Kurdish state. The armed Kurdish gangs attack Turkoman and Arab houses. Many Turkoman were killed by the Kurds. The tension has been increasing between Kurds, Turkomans and Arabs. The Iraqi Kurds should understand that they cannot establish a state on Turkoman and Arab territories. Second, they cannot establish a state without regional support."

Some of the experts in the past argued that separation of Iraq is Israel's and the US' 'secret Iraq plan'. However both states refused the claims.

Compiled by JTW staff. 29 January 2005

Kurds and Iraq
2005-01-29 15:57:07

I have problems with the "balkanization of Iraq is the goal" theory.
True it weakens Iraq as a force in the region, but it strengthens
Iran. It would probably weaken and/or distract Turkey as well, and
thus further enhance Iran's sway. The resulting area hegemon is Iran,
and this would not seem to me to be a good result from the US/Israeli
perspective. Machievelli would suggest something like trying to
balance them off fighting each other as was done in the 80s, rather
than destroy one while leaving the other to fill the vacuum.

Of course trying to be rational can lead one astray with these loons ...

PLAN B
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
As June 30th approaches, Israel looks to the Kurds.
Issue of 2004-06-28

http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040628fa_fact

<snip>

Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel’s view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel’s clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports.

<snip>

A senior C.I.A. official acknowledged in an interview last week that the Israelis were indeed operating in Kurdistan. He told me that the Israelis felt that they had little choice: “They think they have to be there.” Asked whether the Israelis had sought approval from Washington, the official laughed and said, “Do you know anybody who can tell the Israelis what to do? They’re always going to do what is in their best interest.” The C.I.A. official added that the Israeli presence was widely known in the American intelligence community.

The Israeli decision to seek a bigger foothold in Kurdistan—characterized by the former Israeli intelligence officer as “Plan B”—has also raised tensions between Israel and Turkey. It has provoked bitter statements from Turkish politicians and, in a major regional shift, a new alliance among Iran, Syria, and Turkey, all of which have significant Kurdish minorities. In early June, Intel Brief, a privately circulated intelligence newsletter produced by Vincent Cannistraro, a retired C.I.A. counterterrorism chief, and Philip Giraldi, who served as the C.I.A.’s deputy chief of base in Istanbul in the late nineteen-eighties, said:

"Turkish sources confidentially report that the Turks are increasingly concerned by the expanding Israeli presence in Kurdistan and alleged encouragement of Kurdish ambitions to create an independent state. . . . The Turks note that the large Israeli intelligence operations in Northern Iraq incorporate anti-Syrian and anti-Iranian activity, including support to Iranian and Syrian Kurds who are in opposition to their respective governments."

<snip>

"Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war"

You will note some other effects I pointed out are described too, the
alienation of Turkey, etc.

Edit: One may speculate that the renewed blather about Iran coming from
some quarters is based on a dawning awarenesss of the situation that is
going to result after the "elections" in Iraq vis-a-vis Iran's increasing
regional dominance.

Jewish folks in Israel have had decent relations with Turkey back since the times of Attaturk before World War II, when he gave safe haven to many Jewish scientists/intellectuals from Germany in exchange for their help in building up a well educated Democratic Turkish state. It would be a shame to rip that all apart, which might be happening now.

The Kurds shouldn't be forced into a state where they've faced the historical discrimination that they've faced, but they also have to recognize that to do so, they need to be more of a participant in building stable relationships with other ethnic groups of the region, not remain hostile to them and demanding their own state in the process. That may or may not be as part of the existing nation states in the region, but what they are brewing now is destabilizing. Turkomans and other minorities in their regions should also have fair treatment too, or else the Kurds' cause is made to look hollow. Maybe a visit from Nelson Mandela or his government folks might help them sort out their priorities.

...Turkey has been the ONLY Islamic country in the middle east that has normal relations with Israel, going back to it's very beginning. Israel is now jeapordizing that, and it's going to cause them enormous long term problems if they alienate the Turks. Turkey has been adamant that they will NOT allow an independent Kurdistan, especially one that incorporates 1/3 of Iraq's oil reserves.

(like me) predicted domination of Democratic Iraq by Iran. (But we anti-war folks were just a "focus group" so no need for the Bush crowd to listen to those warnings).

It's interesting that some hypothesize that Chalabi was an Iranian agent. If he is working for Iran, it has been a nifty plan-- America gets rid of Saddam, which Iran had tried without success to do with the 10 year Iran/Iraq war. With Saddam gone and a new majority Shiite nation, Iraq could just vote itself into being an Iranian satellite.