Sunday, September 08, 2002

Turkey eager for spoils

pv vivekanand

TURKEY seems to be preparing to claim its spoils of war even before the first shot is fired in the possible US military strike against Iraq. Its deputy speaker of parliament has suggested that the government should declare autonomy for the Turkmen community living in northern Iraq, inlcuding the oil-rich Kirkuk area.
Murat Sokmenoglu's demand was described as a response to Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani's comment that his people would "never allow Turks to take over even a millimetre" of their soil if Turkey move in to destroy a possible Kurdish state in northern Iraq, but the assertions are ominous and are signalling the shape of events to come.
Seen coupled with Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu's recent assertions that Turkey had "historic rights" to parts of northern Iraq -- including Kirkuk and Mosul -- and his demand that the US deal with the supposedly 2.5 million strong Turkmen community in northern Iraq, it would seem a certainty that Ankara would move in to make good its claims as and when the US launches military action against Iraq.
There is more to the Turkish posture. Many nationalist Turks maintain that parts of northen Iraq, including Kirkuk and Mosul, were taken away form their country (along with other areas controlled by the Ottoman empire) when Britain and France redrew the map of the region after the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of World War I.
The 1924 Lausanne Treaty signed by Britan, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania and when subsequently became Yugoslavia on the one hand and Turkey on the other laid out the new borders of the remnants of the Ottoman empire. While the provisions of the treaty laid out the new borders and territories of Turkey without major dispute -- except in the case of Greece -- the Turkish-Iraqi frontiers posed a problem.
The treaty put off the issue and said that the frontier between Turkey and Iraq shall be laid down in friendly arrangement to be concluded between Turkey and Great Britain within nine months from the signing of the treaty on July 23, 1924.
In the event of no agreement being reached between the two Governments within the time mentioned, the dispute shall be referred to the Council of the League of Nations, it said.
Under the treaty, the Turkish and British governments reciprocally undertook that, pending the decision to be reached on the subject of the frontier, no military or other movement shall take place which might modify in any way the present state of the territories of which the final fate will depend upon that decision.
The issue was subsequently resolved with Turkey getting little of northern Iraq and the Kirkuk-Mosul becoming part of Iraq. Turkey had no option but to accept the deal.
However, as the latest comments indicate, Turks see the potential conflict in Iraq expected to be triggered by US military strikes as an opportunity to go back in history and reclaim what they believe as theirs.
Turkey is a vehement opponent of the Kurdish dream of creating an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq bordering Turkey, Syria and Iran. Ankara fears that the entity would be the forerunner of an expanded Kurdistan that could dig deep into what is Turkish soil today and destablise Turkey, which has a sizeable Kurdish minority.
Northern Iraqi Kurds led by the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan had already set up a de facto state in the region which has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf war.
Against the common Turkish threats, KDP leader Masoud Barzani and PUK leader Jalal Talabani were reported to have met on Saturday in the Kurdish-held region for the first time in almost two years.
The two were believed to have discussed the growing tension with Turkey and agreed to send an Iraqi Kurdish delegation to Ankara to discuss the issue and receive a similar Turkish team.
Indeed, urgency was added to the moves by the comments made by Sokmenoglu, the deputy speaker of Turkey, who lambasted Barzani as an "imprudent clan leader."
Noting that the Iraqi Kurdish groups have already a de facto state, Sokmenoglu said that "the time has come for Ankara to announce an autonomous Turkmen region" which also includes the Kirkuk area.
The war of words between Turkey and the Kurdish groups were sparked when it became clear that the US was determined to bring about a "regime change" in Baghdad, opening up the way for unpredictable consequences in the region.
Obviously, Ankara wants to pull the rug from under the feet of the Kurdish plans to set up an independent state by taking over Kirkuk, the most important oil-producing centre in northern Iraq.
Confidential reports say that Turkey has told Washington that it would not oppose an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq if it excluded Kirkuk, which would brought under Ankara's control.
The message, say the reports, was conveyed by Hussein Qifriq Aughlu, a hig -ranking officer in Turkish army, to US Assistant Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Aughlu, who was reportedly armed with maps from the turn of the century, stated clearly that Turkey would interfere directly if a Kurdish state was established including Kirkuk, "If a condition not acceptable to us developed in north Iraq, especially in Kirkuk, as the consequences of your military operations that would be very sensitive to us and I would like to inform you that we shall interfere directly in the region in case a Kurdish state with Kirkuk is established,” he was reported to have told Wolfowitz.
Washington has not made any public comment on the Turkish posture, but is is known that the US opposes most of Turkey's demands in return for support for the possible US military action in Iraq, and hence the uncertainty and latent tension between Ankara and Washington over President George W Bush's avowed goal of a "regime change" in Baghdad.
Kirkuk is the largest city in northern Iraq and the Turkmen community (also called Turcoman) calls it an "Azeri city" since a good number of the residents in the area speak the Azeri language, but they use the Arabic script and many have Arabic or Kurdish as a second language.
Turkmen are found in Erbil, Mosul/Ninawa and Deyalah provinces as well as villages southeast of Kirkuk.
The Turkmen are represented by the Turkmen Front, established in 1995 with the merger of several Turkmen political and social organisations.
The Turkmen are third largest ethnic group in Iraq after the Arabs and Kurds and have historically formed a cultural buffer zone between the Arabs in the south and the Kurds in the north.
The Iraqi constitution of 1925 granted both Turkmen and Kurds the right to use their own languages in schools, government offices and press. However, in 1972 the Iraqi government prohibited the both the study of the Turkmen language and the Turkmen media and in 1973 any reference to the Turkmen was omitted from the provisional constitution. The revamped Iraqi Constitution of 1990 states that the "people of Iraq consists of Arabs and Kurds." Kirkuk is one of the key oil centres of Iraq. The first commercial oil field in Iraq was developed in Kirkuk in 1927. Today pipelines connect Turkey to the Mediterranean ports of Tripoli in Lebanon and Yumurtalik in Turkey.
There is little doubt that Iraqi Kurds would fight tooth and nail if Turkey were to make good its threat; indeed a Turkish-Kurdish confrontation parallel to a US-led invasion of Baghad with the aim of toppling Saddam Hussein is only one of the many possible developments that would destablise the entire Middle East.
"If Iraqi Kurds seeking separation and accepted the existing crumbs without Kirkuk, most probably Saddam Hussein would have been the first one in history who recognised an independent Kurdish state," according to RM Ahmad, a Kurdish writer