Real News Network, NY
Feb. 22, 2008
A sign of declining US strategic power
Aijaz Ahmad explains why the Turkish Kurdish struggle is so explosive
Friday February 22nd, 2008
Recorded Oct 19, 2007
Based in New Delhi, Aijaz Ahmad is The Real News Network Senior News
Analyst, Senior Editorial Consultant, and political commentator for
the Indian newsmagazine, Frontline. He has taught Political Science,
and has written widely on South Asia and the Middle East.
Transcript:
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR: President Bush held an unusual press
conference in Washington on October 17, partly unusual given how
rarely there are any press conferences given by President Bush. But
at any rate, aside from some domestic issues, he also discussed the
US foreign policy in relation to a wide range of countries and global
issues. I’m joined by our Senior News Analyst, Aijaz Ahmad, to
discuss the implications of what President Bush said. And let’s start
with Turkey. So here’s what President Bush was asked, and here’s what
he had to say about the possibility of Turkish troops entering Iraq.
(CLIP BEGINS)
White House Press Conference
October 17, 2007
GEORGE W. BUSH, US PRESIDENT: We are making it very clear to Turkey
that we don’t think it is in their interests to send troops into
Iraq. Actually, they have troops already stationed in Iraq, and
they’ve had troops stationed there for quite awhile. We don’t think
it’s in their interests to send more troops in. There’s a better way
to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops into
the country?massive additional troops into the country.
(CLIP ENDS)
JAY: Can you start with giving us a little bit of background? Who’s
fighting whom here? What is it that the Turkish parliament’s
concerned about? And then how serious is there about a massive troop
movement from Turkey into Iraq? And what would be the implications of
that?
AIJAZ AHMAD, SENIOR NEWS ANALYST: Well, you see, this is a very
long-standing problem. There are large concentrations of Kurdish
population in Turkey, in Iraq, in Iran, and to a lesser extent in
Syria. These are also highly centralized states, which do not
recognize rights of religious or cultural or linguistic minorities,
particularly Turkey. Turkey has always been very sensitive, always
said there’s one Turkish nation, there?s one Turkish language, which
is the national language, and so on and so forth.
JAY: In terms of the Kurdish population, how many Kurds live on the
Turkish side of the border, and what’s the Kurdish population on the
Iraqi side of the border?
AHMAD: The whole of eastern Turkey is essentially a Kurdish zone in
which other ethnic minorities also live. But it’s predominantly a
Kurdish area. Similarly in Iraq it’s a very large part of the
territory.
JAY: So some of the Kurdish political forces want to unite Kurdish
Iraq, Kurdish Turkey, in an independent Kurdish [crosstalk].
AHMAD: Kurdish Iraq, Kurdish Turkey, Kurdish Iran, and even Kurdish
Syria. And if they were to be united, that would in fact form a very
substantial, very large state.
JAY: So all these other states?Syria, Iran, Turkey, Iraq?have a
common interest in stopping this.
AHMAD: That’s right. And one of the fallouts of the creation of a
virtually semi-sovereign state of the Kurds in western Iraq after the
US occupation is that all the other three states are very nervous
that sooner or later this Kurdish zone in Iraq will gain full
sovereignty and will become the base from which military incursions
into these three states will increasingly be stepped up towards the
realization of such a state.
JAY: And there’s a tremendous amount of oil and natural resources at
stake here. If there were an independent Kurdish country in Iraq, if
it became to try to include the Kurdish population in the neighboring
countries, we’d be talking a relatively wealthy state here.
AHMAD: Yes. Actually, Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991 has already become
quite a stable and prosperous state. It has some oil of its own, but
it is also claiming that the Kirkuk area, which is so far not a part
of Kurdistan, in Iraq?. Kirkuk area actually has a Kurdish
population, a Turkman population, which is historically of a Turkish
origin, as well as Arab populations. So it’s actually ethnically a
mixed area, Kurdistan. The Kurds’ parties in Iraq claim that as a
part of it. If they get that area, then they become a very major oil
power.
JAY: Now, the Kurds, certainly since this no-fly zone, if not before,
but since that point have had quite a close relationship to the
United States, closer than any of the other Iraqi political forces.
What is the American strategic interest here? ‘Cause one could
imagine it might be in America’s interest to have an independent
Kurdistan, a Kurdish state, although then it positions the United
States in a direct conflict with Turkey. The White House said they
were opposed to this congressional resolution on the genocide of
Armenians, but Congress voted for it, and then included a lot of
Republicans voting for it.
AHMAD: You see, it’s very interesting to me that this bill condemning
the Armenian genocide of 1915 came up at all, in the sense that of
course there was a genocide. It’s a very tragic part of Turkish
history and Armenian history, I must say. Of course it happened. But
why should this year, a year before the next US elections, should
such a bill be?? So at a certain level it is a deliberate provocation
towards the Turkish state. They want more and more Turkish
compliance. On the question of Iraq, you would recall that Turkish
parliament had refused to endorse the idea of sending Turkish troops
as part of the coalition troops in Iraq.
JAY: In the original invasion [crosstalk]
AHMAD: And invasion is being prepared now for Iran. Turkey and Iran
are drawing closer on the Kurdish question, because both states face
the same problem. This is partly to put pressure on Turkey to
dissociate itself from Iran, from improving it more, the
relationship. Then, you see, these Caspian Sea, the small states that
have arisen in the Caspian Sea basin are Turkic (Turkish)-speaking.
They used to be a part of the Ottoman Empire until late 19th century
when the Tsarist Empire conquered them.
JAY: And these are the leaders that just met in Iran that Putin’s
visit that we’re going to talk [crosstalk]
AHMAD: That?s right.
JAY: [crosstalk] in the next segment about.
AHMAD: That is right. And those states are drawing closer and closer
to Russia. Turkey has its own regional ambitions in those areas. The
United States wants to press Turkey to play a more aggressive role in
relation to those states in terms of containment [crosstalk] The
Americans want to support a sort of Turkey-dominated Caspian Sea
basin, so far as that other side which lies between Russia and Iran
is concerned. In fact, it is part of the rising cold war between the
United States and Russia, in which the United States wants Turkey to
play a more active role. I think they were very surprised by the
level at which the response came from Turkey, because the response
came not even so much from the prime minister, Erdoðan, but from the
chief of staff of the Turkish army. Now, Turkey has the largest army
in NATO. Turkey has a kind of weaponry that the United States has not
supplied even to Germany. It’s an extremely powerful army. And when
the chief of the Turkish general staff says that Turkey will have to
reconsider its military relationships with the United States, that
is, when they start backing off.
JAY: Are we seeing the fallout of perhaps a somewhat new strategic
weakness of the United States, post-Iraq war? But all the powers in
the region are starting to reassess what their strength is and what
the future is.
AHMAD: Absolutely. I agree with you, because underneath all this, the
US is suggesting somewhere there in Turkey that if you do not follow
some of these policies that we want you to follow, then Iraqi
Kurdistan can remain an area from which incursions will continue and
expand into Turkey. And Turkey retaliated immediately.
JAY: A very dangerous game.
AHMAD: Yeah. It’s a kind of brinksmanship. And you are seeing this
happening in country after country, where the US exerts pressure, and
to the extent possible the country retaliates by saying, no, we are
not going to follow the policies that you are telling us to follow.
And that is an indication of declining US strategic power.
DISCLAIMER:
Please note that TRNN transcripts are typed from a recording of the
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