Crossfire War: Turkey Receives Support Pledges Against PKK by Syria, Iran

By Willard Payne

Crossfire War - Kurdistan Theatre - Sphere of Revolt: Ankara-Damascus-Tehran-Baghdad; Turkey FM Gul Receives Pledges of Support Against PKK from Damascus - Tehran

Night Watch: ANKARA - In an interview over Turkey's state television TRT1 Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul announced that both Damascus and Tehran have pledged to cooperate with Ankara in confronting their respective rebellious Kurdish populations, which would help Turkey in its own war against the Kurdish armed group PKK (Turkey's Kurdish Workers Party). [IRNA]

The PKK armed revolt began in 1984 in Turkey's southeast, concentrated in and around the city of Diyarbakir, where a series of riots and demonstrations have just broken out as Kurds celebrate their New Year and resistance to Turkish rule. The fighting, since 1984, has claimed the lives of 37,000 people and the number increases daily. But this is the first time Ankara has received such official support from neighboring states and Foreign Minister Gul mentioned that his government also anticipates support from Baghdad.

The tradition of rebellion and fierceness, especially against centralized government control, noted among people who inhabit the Caucasus region, has gotten the Kurds almost no friends internationally. Syria and Iran also face insurrection from their own Kurdish populations while the Kurdish in northern Iraq are in fact their own autonomous state. They are at least sympathetic to the Kurds in southeastern Turkey, if not also providing them with financial and material support. Perhaps they also harbor the dream of a united Kurdistan. That of course would change the boundaries and alter the economies of several countries throughout what is possibly the world's most strategic and fragile region. One of the centers of the world's global energy concerns.

There is no greater international nightmare than a powerful, united Kurdistan, which would carve up Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and what is left of the independent states in the Caucasus. If Kurdistan became independent other non-Kurdish people between the Black Sea and the Caspian could identify with them and attach their own independent struggle with the Kurdish success story, a story they may already be seeing in northern Iraq. Other nationalistic people and organizations could get drawn into a Kurdish sphere of revolt, a geo-political chain reaction. The implications of an independent Kurdistan would dwarf any of the other "color revolutions"- orange in the Ukraine or the rose in Georgia. Every economic projection by multi-national energy corporations would have to be re-arranged.

In the meantime it is obviously impossible for an independent Kurdistan to be achieved with no more fighting than is currently taking place. Only the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Central Asia, at the end of the Cold War manipulations, can match the implications of an independent Kurdistan.

Ankara, and the other regional capitals now planning serious military cooperation against Kurdish rebel units, may have been alarmed at the recent oil exploration deal between the Norwegian company and the Kurds in northern Iraq. It was done without the knowledge and approval of Baghdad, which seems powerless to prevent it. The revenue such a project can earn for the Kurdish community in northern Iraq can be used to support and increase the armed revolt Ankara has already been confronting since 1984. That revenue could be the basis for the financing of Kurdish independence.

Since units from Islamic countries forced to engage the Kurds will not be active on fronts against the West, Russia or Israel, it is possible limited military assistance to Kurds could be sent by governments who want to reduce the number of Islamic units they will be confronting. Berlin may especially see the strategic benefits of sending more support, but not too much, to the PKK and other Kurdish groups, in order to reduce Ankara-Damacus-Tehran's presence on other fronts.

After the war against Tehran runs its course the Allies may be able to convince Kurdish people that autonomy is more realistic and economically beneficial. The European community obviously has its hands full with more crises than they can handle.

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