The Kurds Ascending

The Kurds Ascending

Michael M. Gunter

Palgrave & Macmillan

For the first time in their modern history, the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey are cautiously ascending. In northern Iraq the two U.S. wars against Saddam Hussein have helped to create a Kurdistan Regional Government (K RCI). The KRG has become an island of democratic stability, peace, and burgeoning economic progress, as well as an autonomous part of a projected federal, democratic, post-Saddam-Hussein Iraq. If such an Iraq proves impossible to construct, as it well may, the KRC! is positioned to become independent. Either way, the evolution of a solution to the Kurdish problem in Iraq is clear. Furthermore, Turkey’s EU candidacy has had the fortuitous side effect of granting that country’s ethnic Kurds their full democratic rights that have hitherto been denied. Although this evolving solution to the Kurdish problem in Iraq and Turkey remains cautiously fragile and would not apply to the Kurds in Iran and Syria because < they have not experienced the recent developments their co-nationals in Iraq and Turkey have, -it does represent a strikingly positive future that until recently seemed bleak.

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Michael M. Gunter is a Professor of Political Science at Tennessee Technological University. £ I le is the author of seven critically praised scholarly books on the Kurdish question, including ^ Historical Dictionary of the Kurds.

 

FOREWORD

Professor Gunter has been following, analyzing, and writing about the Kurdish question for almost thirty years. To my knowledge, he was the very first American scholar to write extensively on these issues in a modern context, and thankfully for us, he still writes on the Kurds today. Gunter’s work on Kurdish issue offers the reader a clear, level headed and authoritative account.

The second edition of Kurds Ascending draws on more of Professor Gunter’s most recent work to provide a very up-to-date, riveting accounting of the monumental changes occurring vis-à-vis the Kurdish issue today. Chapters eight (“The KRG’s Delicate Balance”) and nine (“Turkey’s Kurdish Initiative”) offer completely new analyses of the most recent developments in the Iraqi and Turkish Kurdish regions. These chapters form a very welcome addition to the book, given how first things have been moving in the region.

The Kurds Ascending should prove particularly appealing to readers who want more information, more analysis, and more facts than journalistic treatments of the topic generally provide, but who don’t want the overly dense jargon of many academic publications. Written in easily understandable prose, brimming with interesting up-to-date information, Michael Gunter’s book should be of great interest to both those previously unfamiliar with the Kurds and specialists in Middle East politics as well. I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially the chapter on the “shadow state” in Turkey—the best I have read on a difficult, murky question. Gunter’s new chapter on “Turkey’s Kurdish Initiative” may in fact offer readers a roadmap showing how Turkey may eventually put its shadow state to rest.

David Romano
Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics
Missouri State University

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Introduction

For the first time in their modern history, the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, at least, are cautiously ascending. This is because of two major reasons. (1) In northern Iraq the two U.S. wars against Saddam Hussein have had the fortuitous side effect of helping to create a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The KRG has become an island of democratic stability, peace, and burgeoning economic progress, as well as an autonomous part of a projected federal, democratic, post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. If such an Iraq proves impossible to construct, as it well may, the KRG is positioned to become independent. Either way, the evolution of a solution to the Kurdish problem in Iraq is clear. (2) Furthermore, Turkey’s successful European Union (EU) candidacy would have the additional fortuitous side effect of granting that country’s ethnic Kurds their full democratic rights, which have hitherto been denied. Although this evolving solution to the Kurdish problem in Iraq and Turkey remains cautiously fragile and would not apply to the Kurds in Iran and Syria because they have not experienced the recent developments their co-nationals in Iraq and Turkey have, it does represent a strikingly positive future that until recently seemed so bleak.

I first became interested in the Kurdish problem while I was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in International Relations in Turkey during 1978-79. Over the years I became possibly the only Western scholar to meet and interview arguably the three main Kurdish leaders of the past thirty years: (1) Massoud Barzani, the current president of the KRG as well as president of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq; (2) Jalal Talabani, the current president of Iraq as well as the secretary general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Iraq; and (3) Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned president of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey. In addition, I count as friends a number of other important Kurdish leaders including: (1) Nechirvan Idris Barzani, the current prime minister of the unified KRG; (2) Barham Salih, the current deputy prime minister of Iraq and former prime minister of the PUK-administered KRG; (3) Noshirwan Mustafa Amin, for many years possibly the number two leader of the PUK; (4) Kosrat Rasul, another long-time leader of the PUK; (5) Hoshyar Zebari, the current foreign minister of Iraq; (6) the late Ibrahim Ahmed, the longtime leader of the KDP Politburo and father-in-law of Jalal Talabani; (7) the late Muhammad “Sami” Abdulrahman, another well-known KRG leader; (8) Mahmud Othman, who is still active as a member of the Iraqi parliament, and (9) Najmaldin O. Karim, probably the most prominent spokesman for the Kurdish cause in the United States, as well as such members of the next generation of KRG leaders as Masrour Barzani and Qubad Talabany, among many others. Furthermore, as the only U.S. member of the Advisory Council of the EU Turkey Civic Commission—an NGO advocating Turkish accession to the EU as a possible solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey—I have had the opportunity to meet and interact with a number of new Kurdish leaders in Turkey including the dynamic young mayor of Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir, and the leader of the Democratic Society Party, Ahmet Turk, as well as Kariane Westrheim who chairs the EUTCC.

In addition, I personally know and interact with many of the leading scholars (mostly Western) who have been studying the Kurdish problem over the past thirty years. A partial list includes Mohammed M.A. Ahmed, Henri Barkey, Hamit Bozarslan, Joyce Blau, Nader Entessar, Edmund Ghareeb, Amir Hassanpour, Mehrdad Izady, Farideh Koohi-Kamali, Janet Klein, Philip Kreyenbroek, Sheri Laizer, Charles MacDonald, David McDowall, Lokman Meho, Brendan O'Leary, Denise Natali, Kendal Nezan, Robert Olson, Khaled Salih, the late Maria O’Shea, David Romano, the late Vera Saeedpour, Gareth Stansfield, Noun Talabany, Abbas Vali, Nicole Watts, Ismet Cheriff Vanly, and Kerim Yildiz, among others I am sure I have inadvertently omitted. Finally, there are many Turkish scholars I know, respect, and have learned much from too including Feroz Ahmad, Tozun Bahcheli, Michael Bishku, Palmira Brummett, the late Kathleen Burrill, George Gruen, George Harris, Metin Heper, Kemal Karpat, Heath Lowry, Paul Magnarella, Michael Rubin, Sabri Sayari, the late Stanford Shaw, and M. Hakan Yavuz, among others. My oldest friend, Joseph Blair, as well as Aram Nigogosian and Charles Bolden, Jr. have given me numerous insights over the years. From all of these Kurdish leaders, Kurdish scholars, and others, I have learned much about the Kurdish problem and what it will take to begin to solve it in a manner fair to all involved including the existing states of Iraq and Turkey.

A number of excellent studies on the Kurds have recently appeared. However, this is the first book that will be primarily directed at analyzing the evolving solution to the Kurdish problem in Iraq and Turkey.

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Chapter 1
Historical Overview

Introduction

Straddling the borders where Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria converge in the Middle East, the Kurds constitute the largest nation in the world without its own independent state.1 Long a suppressed minority, the wars against Saddam Hussein in 1991 and 2003 resulted in the creation of a virtually independent KRG in a federal Iraq. This KRG has inspired the Kurds elsewhere to seek cultural, social, and even political autonomy, if not independence. Furthermore, Turkey’s application for admission into the EU also has brought the Kurdish issue to the attention of Europe. On the other hand, the states in which the Kurds live greatly fear Kurdish autonomy as a threat to their territorial integrity. The purpose of this initial chapter is to present a brief but necessary historical overview of the Kurdish problem in Iraq and Turkey before proceeding with the analysis of how a solution to the Kurdish problem is presently evolving in those two states.

Population

The Kurds are a largely Sunni Muslim, Indo-European-speaking people. Thus, they are quite distinct ethnically from the Turks and ...