Former PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, pictured in 1992.

The PKK as a burden on Iraqi Kurds

by IHSAN DAÄžI, Today’s Zaman, October 14, 2008

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) attacks from northern Iraq on Turkish targets have turned the Kurdish region in Iraq into a primary target of Turkey.

It is time for the regional Kurdish administration to stop using the PKK as a bargaining chip against Turkey; it is not a time for the Kurdish people of Iraq to side with the PKK out of Kurdish sentimentality. While the former produces no advantages and incites the animosity of Turkey and pressures of the US, the latter ignores the fact that the PKK threatens to undo the gains Iraqi Kurds have made through their long struggle.

What Iraqi Kurds have today, after decades of struggle, is certainly worth preserving and consolidating, and those gains should not be risked by protecting the PKK.

The Iraqi Kurdish administration and Kurdish people need to understand what the PKK is up to. The objective of the PKK is clear: to keep the Iraqi Kurdish administration under the assault and pressure of Turkey. By doing so the PKK calculates that Iraqi Kurds will be unable to develop a polity which has full sovereignty over northern Iraq and is powerful enough to exclude the PKK from the region.

The PKK is aware that once Turkey and the northern Iraqi Kurdish administration establish mutual trust and cooperation, the PKK’s power in the region will disappear. Thus it does everything possible to block the development of understanding and cooperation between Turkey and northern Iraq. The PKK is pleased that Turkey has launched cross-border operations into northern Iraq, that it threatens the Kurdish administration and that it exerts pressure on the US to turn against the Kurds of Iraq.

Iraqi Kurds should not be naïve: the PKK does not want the Iraqi Kurdish administration to consolidate its power in the region. A powerful and consolidated Iraqi Kurdish administration would mean that the PKK would no longer have a free hand in northern Iraq, nor would it any longer be a force to be reckoned with.

Personalities should not be forgotten when analyzing the objectives of the PKK. Do the Iraqi Kurds and the regional administration really think that the PKK and its leader Abdullah Öcalan care about the fate, success and future of Iraqi Kurds? Just think of the current positions of three Kurdish leaders in the region: Jalal Talabani, Massoud Barzani and Öcalan. Talabani is the respected president of Iraq; Barzani is the recognized head of the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq. What about Öcalan? He is regarded by the world as a terrorist sitting in a Turkish jail! Do you think he could care less about the success of the Iraqi Kurds? I bet Öcalan is sitting in his jail hating Talabani and Barzani out of jealousy over being defeated while the other two leaders are enjoying success and international legitimacy.

It is crystal clear that northern Iraq will not exercise full sovereignty in the region as long as the PKK is present there. As long as northern Iraq is used as a base for the PKK’s attack on Turkey, Turkey’s cross-border operations will be legitimate. The territory of northern Iraq will treated as no-man’s land without a legitimate authority.

The PKK presence in northern Iraq means that the Iraqi Kurdish authority shares its territorial sovereignty with the PKK. In the past Iraqi Kurds and their leaders at times fought against the PKK and at times aligned with it. Now the situation is different. Iraqi Kurds who recognize the historical significance of the federal state they now control within Iraq should act accordingly and forget about the simple politicking of the past.

The PKK is their enemy of as well as Turkey’s. It is the single most important hurdle in the consolidation of their power in northern Iraq and the establishment of a peaceful relationship with Turkey, a relationship which is necessary for the consolidation of their administration.

If Iraqi Kurds want enemies in the region they should tolerate, turn a blind eye to or support the PKK on their soil. Iraqi Kurds should recognize that the PKK has become a burden for them.

It is obvious that the PKK launched an attack on Turkey just to provoke a reaction that would show disregard for the Iraqi authority. The Iraqi Kurdish administration should reflect on the situation and decide its priorities: Will it take the current historic opportunity to consolidate its power, or will it continue to see the PKK in a sympathetic light and be treated like the PKK in the region?