Turkey is interested in the fate of the Kirkuk region of Iraq for three main reasons. First, Turkish policy-makers perceive the insistence of Iraqi Kurdish leaders to include the region within the Kurdish Regional Government as a sign of their intention to break away from Iraq. According to this view, Iraqi Kurdish leaders want to incorporate the region due to its oil resources to create an economically viable Kurdish state. This contradicts the Turkish policy of keeping Iraq’s territorial integrity intact – a policy Turkey has pursued since the Gulf war of 1991. That policy reflects Turkey’s concerns over the instability that the emergence of a Kurdish state would create in the region, especially in Turkey itself. There, it touches on the Kurdish issue via the demonstration effect and irredentism. The second reason for Turkey’s interest in the future of Kirkuk is the existence of a large number of Turkmen living there. And the third reason is Turkey’s general concern about stability in Iraq. The possible integration of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Regional Government is not only opposed by Turkey and the Turkmen but also by the Arabs and Chaldeans-Assyrians living in this region as well as by the Arab states. Therefore, one of the main elements of Turkey’s Iraq policy has been opposition to the integration of the Kirkuk region within the Kurdistan Regional Government. Instead, Turkey has been advocating a special status for this multiethnic city. In the meantime, Turkey has concentrated its efforts on the postponement of the referendum that the Iraqi Constitution stipulates must be held by December 2007. The Turkish government argues that imposing a referendum on Kirkuk, of which the results are already known, would not solve the problem but on the contrary would create tensions and instability in the city. As part of its effort to develop an Iraq policy, Turkey began to show an interest in the Turkmen starting in the mid-1990s. This was based not on any expansionist designs, but rather on the desire to increase Turkey’s influence over developments in Iraq and facilitate the protection of its territorial integrity. Within that context, the Turkmen organized the Iraqi Turkmen Front that was supported by Turkey and struggled for international recognition, especially by the United States, to become part of the politics of Iraq. By the end of that decade they also became a factor in Turkish politics through alliances with diverse groups, and the Turkmen factor increased its weight in Turkish policy toward Iraq. Turkey and the Turkmen community in Iraq accuse the Kurds of continually pressing for full control of towns where there are mixed populations and seeking to evict Turkmen and Arab inhabitants from the region. The two leading Kurdish parties reject the charges. The most significant conflict in this regard centers on Kirkuk. Although Kirkuk and its environs are not part of the Kurdistan regional government for now, the Iraqi Kurdish leaders have been quite vocal regarding their aim of incorporating what they consider historically a Kurdish city. Indeed, Iraqi Kurds have been in control of the city since the war. They dominate the city council, and the Kurdish militias, the Peshmerga, are on the ground and act as a security force. On the eve of the planned census, which will be the basis for proportional representation in the January elections, there are concerns that the Kurdish groups, having the means and the power, are trying to change the demographic structure of the city. During the 2003 war, and despite assurances to the contrary, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan entered the city and reportedly destroyed land records. Since the war, Kurds have been pouring back into the city with the encouragement of Kurdish political parties, which have given them money or building supplies to help them reclaim their land. Kirkuk was subjected to Saddam Hussein “Arabization policies and Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians and others were consequently uprooted. Thus the injustice that was inflicted on these families needs to be remedied. Yet the way in which this sensitive issue is handled is of the utmost importance. Failure to implement judicial measures for resolving claims and compensating those who have suffered could have grave consequences. In fact, there have already been repeated clashes and assassinations in the city since the war. When Kurdish leaders announced that they wanted Kirkuk included in their proposed Kurdistan late last December, it provoked riots and gun fights between Kurds on the one hand and Turkmen and Arabs on the other. As a recent Human Rights Watch report stated, “[If] these issues can be settled peacefully by legal and political means, violence can be kept minimum. If they cannot, Kirkuk could become a tinderbox of ethnic violence. Turkey argues that the reversal of Arabization policies should not lead to the Kurdification of the Kirkuk region. The Turkish government and military have repeatedly warned against Kurdish attempts to change the demographic structure ahead of the census in northern Iraq. Ankara also argues that a civil war in multiethnic Kirkuk could easily spread and lead to turmoil in all of Iraq. The problems regarding Kirkuk have contributed to an atmosphere of mistrust. Turkey and Iraqi Turkmen apparently suspect that the recent US assault on dissidents in the Turkmen city of Tal Afar was in part provoked by Kurdish misinformation and was directed at eliminating the Turkmen presence in the region, where there has been Turkmen-Kurdish friction since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ankara views operations in that city as part of Kurdish attempts to gain control of northern Iraq. It was also argued that this attack was closely related to the issue of opening a second border crossing with Iraq that aims to create a direct land-corridor between Turkey and Baghdad via Kirkuk. Turkey has repeatedly raised this issue since the late 1990s, but the proposal is opposed by Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) leader Massoud Barzani due to fears that this would decrease the KDP’s income. The volume of Turkish trade with Iraq, including the unregistered economic activity along the border, exceeds $10 billion. Turkey is one of the main electricity suppliers to northern Iraq. Hundreds of Turkish contracting companies operate in Iraq. Turkey is a main artery to Iraq, used by more than 1 million trucks annually, and offers the most reliable supply line for US forces and their allies. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has warned that “if things continue in this way, we told [the United States] very clearly that Turkey’s cooperation on matters concerning Iraq will come to an end.
Meliha Altunisikis chair of the Department of International Relations at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.
