Kurdistandoff.

• Author: Barkey, Henri J.
• Position: The Kurdistan Workers Party and Turkish-U.S. relations

NORTHERN IRAQ has represented the one success of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It is quiet and prosperous, and American troops are welcomed by the population there. This can all crumble in the next six to nine months if Washington is not careful. Neighboring Turkey, alarmed at the emergence of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq and the presence of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) there, may throw caution to the wind by engaging in a cross-border military operation. Such an event is likely to pit Ankara, a NATO ally, against both the U.S. military and its Kurdish allies. Fighting between Turks and Kurds in Iraq could spread to Turkey itself and, in the end, lead to a severe rupture in U.S.-Turkish relations. An unstable and violent northern Iraq would deal a fatal blow to the United States's Iraq project by accelerating, widening and deepening the current intercommunal carnage.

Turkey, which has a sizeable and restive Kurdish minority of its own, is fearful of the demonstration effect of the gains achieved by Iraqi Kurds. It has tried to resist not only Kurdish independence but also Kurdish attempts at incorporating the oil-rich city of Kirkuk into their area, thereby facilitating any future bid for independence. Renewed confrontations with the PKK in Turkey with concomitant increases in casualties have further soured the Turkish mood and have contributed to the rise of xenophobic nationalism and political instability in that country.

The Turks blame the Iraq War for creating the conditions that have given rise to a potential independent Kurdish state. They also accuse the United States of ignoring Turkish red lines on Kirkuk and federalism, and demands to take action against the PKK. In fact, Turks are convinced that the United States prefers its newfound Kurdish allies to its old NATO ally. A deputy leader in the main opposition party, Ali Topuz, went so far as to accuse the United States of using the PKK as a weapon against Turkey. As a result, only 12 percent of the Turkish public, according to a recent Pew poll, holds a positive view of the United States. Widespread disaffection with the United States--exacerbated by politicians, pundits and generals--has translated into increasing public pressure for a unilateral Turkish move into Iraq.

Since the end of major combat operations, the United States has been distracted by the rising insurgency in the rest of Iraq. With too few troops to protect the entirety of the territory, the United States has been thankful for the relative tranquility in the north, where the Kurds have established a functioning administrative government. In fact, security in the north is almost completely in Kurdish hands. Although the United States considers the PKK a terrorist organization, CENTCOM, the U.S. military command in charge of Iraq, has demurred in fighting the widely dispersed PKK camps along the Turkish border and in its mountainous hideouts in Qandil, deep inside Iraqi-Kurdish territory. The United States and Turkey have not succeeded in persuading Iraqi Kurds to take on the PKK. A half-hearted attempt at dislodging the PKK risks the possibility of wider conflict with the group at a time when CENTCOM feels it already has its share of local enemies.

Residual bad blood, arising when, in March 2003, the Turkish parliament declined permission to the United States to send a mechanized division from the north to Baghdad, has not helped matters much. Even more damaging, on July 4, 2003, U.S. troops arrested a number of Turkish Special Forces troops on suspicion of planning to assassinate the governor of Kirkuk province. The arrested Turks were then hooded and transported to Baghdad. The image of Turkish troops being subjected to the AI-Qaeda treatment was a humiliating blow seared into the Turkish psyche, and this event became emblematic of Turkish-American relations. Paradoxically, few in Turkey noticed that the Turkish General Staff quietly retired or dismissed the three generals in command of special forces in Iraq, perhaps in an indirect admission that theirs was a rogue operation not sanctioned by higher echelons in Ankara. More than three years later, this event continues to cast its long shadow over Turkish-American relations.

Ankara has also stepped up its attacks on the approach of Iraqi Kurds to Kirkuk, accusing Iraqi Kurds of forcibly changing the demographics of the city and mistreating the Turkmen population, with whom Turkey has cultivated ties. It wants the United States to use its influence to prevent Iraqi Kurds from incorporating Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) through a referendum mandated by the Iraqi constitution to take place by the end of 2007.

In August 2006, with Turkish patience waning, a Turkish move into northern Iraq was averted by last-minute diplomacy and the appointment of a special U.S. negotiator, retired General Joseph Ralston, to work with the Turks on the PKK. Although both the United States and Turkey are well-aware of the stakes involved, the fact remains that the continued stalemate is hostage to a flare-up of violence, a miscalculation or even an accident, especially now that Turkey will be beset with uncertainty as it struggles with its constitutional crisis following the failed May presidential election.

Washington is reportedly taking a more serious look...