IRAQI KURDS: PLAYING IT SAFE IN TURKEY’S PKK WAR

Stratfor
Sept 25 2006

The militant separatist group Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) claimed
responsibility Sept. 24 for two bombings in eastern Turkey a day
earlier. In the first incident, a mine placed on railroad tracks near
the town of Elazig derailed seven cars and damaged eight others.

Later in the day, a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (IED)
detonated outside a police compound in the town of Igdir, on the
Turkish-Armenian border, wounding 17 people.

The PKK has increased attacks on Turkish security, government and
commercial targets in the Kurdish-majority areas of the country in
recent months. Meanwhile its offshoot, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks
(TAK), has been attacking economic and tourism targets in Istanbul
and along Turkey’s Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. While attacks
attributed to the PKK occur frequently, they are not as devastating
as militant attacks by Sunni nationalist, jihadist and Shiite militia
groups in neighboring Iraq. One reason for this is the Iraqi Kurds’
general hands-off approach to the militant struggle of their brethren
in Turkey.

Ankara, Tehran and Damascus have often persecuted the Kurds that
make up the majority in parts of eastern Turkey, northwestern Iran
and northern Syria — an effort aimed at curtailing any ambitions
toward creating an independent Kurdistan in the region. The Kurds
in northern Iraq, however, have enjoyed increasing autonomy since
1991, when they began receiving aid and protection from the United
States at the end of the Persian Gulf War. After that war, the Kurds’
peshmerga militia was able to operate more openly, while the Kurds
themselves began conducting their affairs largely without interference
from Baghdad. Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, a de facto
Kurdish autonomous region has been established in the country, giving
the Iraqi Kurds their largest degree of autonomy in history.

Since 2003, Iraq has become an arms bazaar, with mountains of
explosives and other ordnance literally left lying on the ground
by the Hussein regime. As a result, militant groups operating in
Iraq have access to ample quantities of military-grade explosives,
such as 152mm artillery shells used to make IEDs, rocket-propelled
grenades and mortars. With Iraqi Kurdistan bordering Turkey, it would
seem the PKK also could obtain these explosives and deploy much more
effective IEDs against the Turkish military and security forces.

The Iraqi Kurds, however, have good reason not to supply their Turkish
kinsmen with powerful explosives, as doing so would risk alienating
their powerful U.S. patron and their quiet supporter Israel. Perhaps
most important, they risk a large-scale Turkish military response in
their territory, as occurred in 1995 and 1996.

The Iraqi Kurds have too much to lose by actively supporting the PKK.

Recently the Iraqi government announced that PKK facilities in the
country would be shut down.

Although Iraqi Kurds support the PKK in spirit, and might provide
the group limited material support, the Kurdish political parties and
provisional governments in northern Iraq are wary of giving Turkey any
reason to interfere in their affairs. Moreover, they want to avoid
sending any message to Iran or Syria that would make the countries
feel threatened by the establishment of an official Kurdish autonomous
region in Iraq.

Furthermore, there is some friction between the PKK and the Iraqi
Kurds. In the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, the PKK and Iraqi
Kurds engaged in a bitter dispute over the regions they controlled and
the sharing of revenues from the Turkish-Iraqi border. The mountainous
border was not fully controlled by either Baghdad or Ankara, so the PKK
took the opportunity to stage attacks against Turkey from there. The
Iraqi Kurds, led by Kurdish Democratic Party head Massoud Barzani,
asked the PKK in 1995 to scale down its attacks from Iraqi territory
to prevent a Turkish military response. The PKK ignored the request,
and Barzani subsequently sent the peshmerga after PKK units in Iraq
in an effort to prevent a Turkish invasion.

During the subsequent Kurdish civil war, the Turkish military also
entered Iraq to conduct operations against the PKK.

The Iraqi Kurds, fully aware that the autonomy they have gained
over the past 15 years is due largely to U.S. support, are unwilling
to jeopardize that status by supporting the PKK in its war against
Ankara. Washington is fully capable of withdrawing its support should
the Kurds in Iraq actively support a group the U.S. State Department
considers a terrorist organization.

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