NATIONALISTIC FERVOR HIJACKS GOVERNMENT
By Lale Sariibrahimoglu

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
April 10 2007

Increased nationalistic fervor in Turkey, which sometimes takes the
form of violence as witnessed in the slaying of Armenian Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul in January this year, has been
hijacking the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
government, too.

Some scholars, for example, link the AK Party government’s decreased
appetite for furthering democratic oversight of the Turkish security
sector in the past two years — primarily the Turkish Armed Forces
(TSK) — to the increased nationalistic tendency of the government
that has surfaced with the national elections due in a few months,
hot on the heels of the controversial presidential elections in May.

"The government and the TSK share the same threat perception which
consists of two legs; one is the PKK and its activities and the second
is the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq.

Despite the rhetoric that Turkey has come to terms with the existence
of a Kurdish entity in Iraq, I still think that this is not something
easy for both the government and the TSK to accept. If the government
and the TSK did not share the same threat perception on northern
Iraq, the ruling party could have taken more steps for the democratic
oversight of the TSK," Professor Umit Cizre from Ankara-based Bilkent
University argues.

Ironically, both the PKK and the Kurdish state issues are perhaps the
only two areas that bring the AK Party and the TSK closer while both
depart significantly on all internal and external policy issues,
seriously affecting the normalization of the country. It is then
not surprising, however unfortunate, that almost two years ago
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan stepped back from his attempts
to address the Kurdish problem in the country’s southeast through
democratic reforms that would have discouraged the taking up of arms
to solve this chronic problem.

As the US war in Iraq to topple deposed and executed Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein entered its fourth year yesterday, it is hard to say
that Ankara has learned its lessons from self-inflicted mistakes
such as, for example, neglecting the socio-economic problems of its
own Kurds while underestimating the growing power of the neighboring
Kurds of Iraq. We all know that Iraqi Kurds have already been enjoying
a de facto Kurdish state as the late former Turkish Prime Minister
Bulent Ecevit had said on several occasions. With the US invasion of
Iraq supported by Britain in March 2003, Kurds have also officially
inaugurated their autonomous Kurdish region’s Parliament as envisaged
in the new Iraqi Constitution.

Jalal Talabani, leader of one of the two main Kurdish groups, became
Iraqi president while Hoshyar Zebari, an Iraqi Kurd has been serving as
the foreign minister of Iraq. Iraqi Kurds play a significant role as a
power broker in Iraq where the rest of the population consists of Sunni
and Shiite Muslims as well as some minority groups such as Turkomans.

Again Iraqi Kurds are the closest allies of the US in Iraq, and are
apparently convinced that the US administration will not allow any
Turkish cross-border operation, even in cooperation with US forces.

Iraqi Kurds have become more vocal than ever in their warning signals
sent to neighboring countries, mainly Turkey.

A recent statement made by a senior Iraqi Kurdish leader warning
Ankara over meddling in its affairs proves once again the ongoing
Iraqi Kurdish anger with Turkey which has until recently been bullying
the Kurds.

Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)
and the head of the Iraqi autonomous Kurdish region, said during a
weekend TV broadcast that Turkey must not interfere in Iraqi Kurdish
attempts to attach the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to the Kurdish region.

He went to say if they were deterred by Turkey, Iraq’s Kurds would
retaliate by intervening in Turkey’s Kurdish dominated southeast.

Barzani also set a deadline of 10 to 15 years for the establishment
of a Kurdish state while saying that Turkey’s problem was not the
PKK but the existence of the Kurds.

I do not know how long this war of words will last between Turkey
and the Iraqi Kurds but one thing for sure is that Ankara should
behave like a big state and first solve its own internal problems
before looking for scapegoats for its self-inflicted mistakes. We
also have to bear in mind that acting on nationalistic sentiments
inflicts serious damage on the country in the long term.

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