tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/kurdish-workers-party-22952/articlesKurdish Workers Party – The Conversation2022-05-17T19:41:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1832772022-05-17T19:41:37Z2022-05-17T19:41:37ZWhy Turkey isn’t on board with Finland, Sweden joining NATO – and why that matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463686/original/file-20220517-25-ezc7ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5472%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Room for any more at NATO? Not according to Turkey's president.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/turkeys-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan-attends-the-nato-news-photo/1233447431?adppopup=true">Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After decades of neutrality, the two Nordic states that have to date remained out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/world/europe/sweden-finland-nato.html">declaring an intention to join</a> the American-led alliance. But there is a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-stockholm-sweden-finland-f7328801f699fbb2f28826c0f14d4ef6">major obstacle in their way</a>: Turkey.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/07/16/how-erdogans-anti-democratic-government-made-turkey-ripe-for-unrest/">increasingly autocratic and anti-democratic</a> president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said he will not agree to the entry of these two countries. And as a member of NATO, <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49212.htm">Turkey’s approval is needed</a> for Finland and Sweden to join.</p>
<p>Erdogan is alone among NATO leaders in publicly stating that he is against the two countries’ joining the alliance.</p>
<h2>Harboring terrorists or grudges?</h2>
<p>The Turkish president’s opposition is based on his view that Finland and Sweden support “terrorists.” What Erdogan means is that both countries have given protection and residence to members of the <a href="https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/turkey_domestic_terrorism.html">Kurdistan Workers’ Party</a>, or PKK – the major armed group mounting resistance to Turkey’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/turkey">harsh treatment</a> of its millions of Kurdish citizens. The plight of the country’s Kurds, part of a large but stateless ethnic group in the region, has long been a bone of contention between Turkey and parts of the international community.</p>
<p>Despite the PKK’s being <a href="https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/">listed by the U.S.</a> <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:L:2021:043:FULL&from=en">and EU</a> as a terrorist group, Finland and Sweden have been <a href="https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/sweden-finland-reject-turkeys-request-to-extradite-terrorists">reluctant to extradite</a> members of the group to Turkey over human rights concerns. Erdogan <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/16/sweden-announces-nato-membership-bid-one-day-after-finland#:%7E:text=In%20a%20news%20conference%20on,terrorist%20organisations%2C%E2%80%9D%20Erdogan%20said.">has responded</a> by calling Sweden a “hatchery” for terrorism and claiming neither country has “a clear, open attitude” toward terrorist organizations, adding: “How can we trust them?”</p>
<p>Erdoğan’s ire with Finland and Sweden has also been exacerbated by the country hosting followers of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/from-ally-to-scapegoat-fethullah-gulen-the-man-behind-the-myth/a-37055485">Turkish scholar and cleric Fethullah Gulen</a>. These followers are part of an educational and political movement with which Erdogan had been allied, but with which he broke as it grew more powerful. The Turkish president accuses the Gulenists of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61472021">staging a failed coup</a> against his government in 2016.</p>
<h2>All international politics is local</h2>
<p>As if that were not enough, the neutral <a href="https://buffalonews.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/explainer-why-is-turkey-wary-of-nordic-states-nato-bid/article_d0650bc8-7def-556e-bc3d-2d17643094fa.html">northern Europeans condemned Turkey’s 2019 incursion</a> into Syria. In that operation, the Turks targeted Rojava – a <a href="https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-democracy/rojava-democracy/">socialist, feminist autonomous Kurdish enclave</a> near the Turkish border. Complicating the matter, the Syrians of Rojava were – despite their links to the PKK – allies of the American forces. The Kurds of Rojava played a crucial role beating back the Islamic State group in Syria but were later <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29702440">abandoned by the Trump administration</a>, which pulled U.S. troops back from the Turkish border, <a href="https://www.firstpost.com/world/turkey-remains-defiant-to-international-pressure-on-offensive-against-syrian-kurdish-forces-as-us-demands-ceasefire-7511331.html">allowing its NATO ally to launch a military operation</a> against the Kurds.</p>
<p>Foreign policy is almost always intimately tied to domestic concerns. In the case of Turkey’s government, a major fear is the threat to its grip on power posed by the Kurds – and international pressure over Turkey’s record of repressing the group.</p>
<p>Turkey’s Kurdish populations are <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/turkeys-local-elections-were-not-free-or-fair/">not allowed free elections</a> in the eastern Anatolian region, <a href="http://countrystudies.us/turkey/28.htm">where they are the majority</a>. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/in-turkey-repression-of-the-kurdish-language-is-back-with-no-end-in-sight/">education and cultural institutions in the Kurdish language</a> face a de facto ban.</p>
<h2>The path ahead for NATO</h2>
<p>Finland and Sweden are neutral countries not beholden to the strategic compromises that the United States and NATO are forced to make to hold the alliance together. Both countries have to date been free to take a moral position on Turkey’s position on Kurdish rights and have officially protested the repressions of dissidents, academics, journalists and minority groups.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, NATO countries have equivocated before their fellow member, agreeing to label the <a href="https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations/">PKK a terrorist organization</a>.</p>
<p>So where does this all leave Finland and Sweden’s application for NATO membership?</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49212.htm">rules for entry into the strategic alliance</a> require unanimity of the current NATO members.</p>
<p>As such, Turkey can effectively veto the entry of Finland and Sweden.</p>
<p>The standoff highlights an underlying problem the alliance is facing. NATO is supposed to be an alliance of democratic countries. Yet several of its members – <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/05/strongmen-die-but-authoritarianism-is-forever/">notably Turkey and Hungary</a> – have moved steadily away from liberal democracy toward ethnonational populist authoritarianism.</p>
<p>Finland and Sweden, on the other hand, fulfill the parameters of NATO membership more clearly than several of the alliance’s current members. As the United States proclaims that the war in Ukraine is a struggle between democracy and autocracy, Turkey’s opposition to the Nordics who have protested its drift to illiberalism are testing the unity and the ideological coherence of NATO.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald Suny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is against allowing two Nordic countries to join NATO over what he deems their support of ‘terrorists.’ His opposition will test the alliance’s unity.Ronald Suny, Professor of History and Political Science, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/913642018-03-19T10:40:14Z2018-03-19T10:40:14ZKurdish troops fight for freedom — and women’s equality — on battlegrounds across Middle East<p>For years, Kurdish fighters have been partners to the U.S. in the Middle East. From 2003 to 2017, they helped overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10896557/Iraq-crisis-al-Qaeda-inspired-forces-battle-Kurdish-fighters-on-the-frontline-of-a-new-war.html">battled al-Qaida</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/27/middleeast/kurdish-independent-state/index.html">pushed the Islamic State</a> out of northern Iraq and Syria. </p>
<p>In recent weeks, some of these same fierce fighters <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/middleeast/turkey-syria-us-afrin.html">have been violently clashing with Turkish troops in the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin</a>. In January, Turkish president Recep Erdoğan launched an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-france/french-calls-for-emergency-security-council-meeting-on-syria-idUSKBN1FA0K5">aggressive</a> bombing campaign called “Operation Olive Branch,” intended to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42704542">clear Kurds from the city</a>. </p>
<p>Reports of <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/turkey-used-chemical-weapons-in-north-syria-70h6f9rzk">chemical weapons</a> and a high <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/disturbing-reports-civilian-deaths-syria-afrin-180304173307583.html">civilian death toll</a> are now emerging from the conflict zone. Hundreds of thousands of people have been <a href="http://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/syria-afrin-150000-civilians-flee-turkey-military-offence-kurdish-people-protection-units-ypg-bashar-al-assad/208620">displaced</a>. </p>
<p>In all of these battles, Kurdish women <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/female_front_line">have fought on the front lines</a>, as they have done since the 19th-century Kurdish commander Kara Fatma <a href="https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DAC18871114.2.56">led an Ottoman battalion</a> of 700 men and 43 women. That was unusual for the period – but, then again, Kurdish women have long been exceptions in the mostly conservative Middle East.</p>
<p>So who, exactly, are the Kurds? And why do Kurdish women enjoy significantly more freedoms than many other Muslim women in the Middle East? </p>
<h2>Who are the Kurds?</h2>
<p>Kurdistan, where I was born, is among the largest nations in the world without a state. Around 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous zone straddling Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Armenia. </p>
<p>The Kurds were first split up politically in the 17th century, when their territory was divided between the <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/this-16th-century-battle-created-the-modern-middle-east/">Ottoman and Safavid empires</a>. Already at that time, the Roman scholar Pietro Della Valle traveled to the region and was surprised to find “Kurdish women commuting freely without hijab.” He noted in <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A65012.0001.001?view=toc">his 1667 travelogue</a> that “they engage with Kurdish men and foreigners without any problems.” </p>
<p>After World War I, a treaty between Britain and France, called the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement">Sykes-Picot Agreement</a>, drew arbitrary borders across the Middle East, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world/kurdistan-independence-referendum/how-kurds-became-part-of-iraq">creating colonial protectorate states</a>. The partition again fragmented the Kurds, this time across four countries: modern-day Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.</p>
<p>The Kurds have been fighting for their sovereignty ever since. In recent decades, they have succeeded in establishing autonomously governed regions within <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world/kurdistan-independence-referendum/history-of-britain-and-the-kurdish-people/">Iraq</a> and Syria. But in Iran and Turkey, the Kurds continue their <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230513082_6">armed struggle</a>, which has led both countries to view this ethnic minority as a terrorist threat and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/">to legally repress Kurdish populations</a>.</p>
<p>This setup has put Kurdistan – domestically a <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21587271-iraqi-kurds-haven-peace-being-buffeted-last-turmoil">rather peaceable, prosperous place with significant oil reserves</a> – squarely in the center of a geopolitical quagmire. </p>
<p>The U.S. backs the Kurds in Syria, Iraq and Iran, where they’re <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/mideast-crisis-kurds-land/">incredibly effective in battling the Islamic State</a>. But Turkey – a U.S. ally – sees the armed Kurds in Syria as an extension of the rebel <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20971100">Kurdistan Workers’ Party</a>, or PKK, which has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey since the 1980s. </p>
<p>Activists in Afrin, Syria, say <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43447624">over 250 people have been killed in the ongoing Turkish attacks on the Kurdish-majority city</a>, which Turkish armed forces considers a “terrorist corridor.”</p>
<h2>The feminists of the PKK</h2>
<p>The Marxist-Leninist PKK, founded in 1978, may be an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/21/how-competition-helped-then-hurt-kurds-in-turkey/">enemy of the Turkish state</a>, but it also happens to be one of the most feminist movements in the Middle East. </p>
<p>The group held its first congress on women’s rights in 1987, in which PKK co-founder Sakine Cansiz – who was later <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20968375">shot dead in an apparent assassination in 2013</a> – proposed that its “liberation for all” rhetoric must include women’s liberation, too. Today the party’s political agenda explicitly recognizes <a href="http://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60907/to-make-a-world-part-iii-stateless-democracy/">religious minorities, dissidents and women as the crux of democracy</a>. </p>
<p>In the autonomous Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria, women have the same legal rights as men. Indeed, the Iraqi Kurdish regional government <a href="https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-women/">has a higher proportion of women</a> than the United Kingdom – 30 percent versus 20 percent. </p>
<p>The charter of the semiautonomous Syrian Federation of Kurdistan, founded in 2012, requires that <a href="http://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60907/to-make-a-world-part-iii-stateless-democracy/">women must hold a minimum of 40 percent of all government posts</a>. Every Kurdish Syrian public institution must also have two co-presidents, one male and one female.</p>
<p>Women also make up <a href="https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-women/">40 percent of Kurdish fighters deployed across the Middle East</a>. Today, more than 25,000 Kurdish women are deployed in Syria as the Women’s Protection Units, an all-female militia inspired by the KPP’s <a href="https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article37467">feminist liberation ideology</a>. </p>
<p>In contrast, about <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/01/24/us/military-women-glance/index.html">14 percent of the U.S. military service members are women</a>. </p>
<h2>Sensationalizing female fighters</h2>
<p>Female Kurdish troops played a crucial role in rescuing the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/iraq-yazidis-living-fear-mount-sinjar-160726063155982.html">thousands of Yazidis trapped by ISIS on Iraq’s Mount Sinjar</a> in 2014 and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/20/middleeast/raqqa-syria-isis-total-liberation/index.html">liberating the city of Raqqa from the Islamic State in 2017</a>. Currently, women are on the <a href="http://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/syria-afrin-150000-civilians-flee-turkey-military-offence-kurdish-people-protection-units-ypg-bashar-al-assad/208620">brutal front lines of Afrin</a>. </p>
<p>Their prominence has caught the eye of the international media. But, in my opinion, the reporting has not accurately reflected the complexity of Kurdish feminism.</p>
<p>State media in Turkey and Iran, for example, <a href="http://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60907/to-make-a-world-part-iii-stateless-democracy/">often reflect the government’s view that</a> female Kurdish guerrilla fighters are man-hating terrorists. Western reporters, on the other hand, may <a href="http://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60907/to-make-a-world-part-iii-stateless-democracy/">portray Kurdish female fighters as oppressed victims</a> of a backwards culture who are looking for an escape. </p>
<p>Others outlets focus on their looks. In 2014, British papers dubbed fighter Asia Ramazan Antar the “<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3777518/Angelina-Jolie-Kurdistan-dies-battling-ISIS-Woman-fighter-resembling-Hollywood-superstar-killed-clash-jihadists-Syria.html">Kurdish Angelina Jolie</a>,” neglecting the relevant fact that Antar had been forced into marriage as a teenager. </p>
<h2>Not yet gender equal</h2>
<p>That’s because despite the relative freedom of women in Kurdistan compared to elsewhere in the Middle East, gender norms are not entirely equal there, either. </p>
<p>In 2014, only <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/westminster/zeynep-n-kaya/women-in-post-conflict-iraqi-kurdistan">12 of 250 judges in Iraqi Kurdistan were female, and just one of 21 government ministers was</a>. Female genital mutilation, child marriage and honor killings – in which male family members murder women who are alleged to have disgraced their families – <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/world/middleeast/21honor.html">persist</a>, particularly in rural areas of Kurdistan. </p>
<p>And, in my experience, feminist debates like equal pay for women and #MeToo aren’t yet a topic of conversation in Kurdistan. </p>
<p>Historically, too, it’s noteworthy that many famous female Kurdish leaders succeeded only because their empowerment did not challenge the male establishment. </p>
<p>During World War I, Lady Adela Khanum, leader of the Kurdish region of Halabja, saved the lives of <a href="https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/famous-kurds/lady-adela-khanum/">numerous British army officers on the battlefield</a>, earning her the nickname “Princess of the Brave.” </p>
<p>But she originally rose to power because she inherited the position when her husband died. While ruling Halabja from 1909 to 1924, she did not push a women’s rights agenda.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/209981/original/file-20180312-30994-cr7n6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kurdish leader Lady Adela was commanding her own army in WWI, while women in England were still struggling to get the vote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Adela#/media/File:Lady_Adela.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>The hard labor of freedom</h2>
<p>Kurdish women who were seen as threats to male authority have often been punished, sometimes with death. </p>
<p>That’s what happened to the very first woman to fight in the Kurdish army. Margaret George Malik quickly rose up among the all-male ranks in the 1960s to lead troops in the Kurdish war for independence from Iraq. </p>
<p>She was <a href="http://kurdishquestion.com/oldarticle.php?aid=beyond-kurdistan-remembering-those-who-lost-their-lives-for-the-kurds">murdered in 1969 under mysterious circumstances</a>. Some historians believe that Malik was killed by her lover because she rejected his marriage proposal. Others say she was assassinated by the Kurdish leadership, which feared her growing influence. </p>
<p>Either way, Malik’s murder speaks to the battles Kurdish women still fight today.</p>
<p>It’s meaningful that in the Kurdish language the word for woman – “jin” – shares a root with the word for life: “jiyan.” And both jin and jiyan are related to the word “jan,” or labor pains. </p>
<p>In a region surrounded by threats – from Turkey’s attacks and Islamic State terrorism and patriarchy at home – the women of Kurdistan are fighting for their life and liberty. And the cost is hard, dangerous labor.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Haidar Khezri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kurdish female fighters are on the front lines of conflicts in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and they bring their particular brand of radical feminism with them.Haidar Khezri, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies (CEUS), Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/903552018-03-08T16:03:57Z2018-03-08T16:03:57ZWhy the PKK has become overstretched in its quest for self-rule in Syria<p>For a group widely regarded as a terrorist organisation, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20971100">Kurdistan Workers’ Party</a> (PKK) has huge regional influence. Fighting first for an independent state, and later for autonomy within Turkey, it is also heavily involved with the battle against Islamic State (IS) in Syria.</p>
<p>In October 2014, Kurdish forces linked to the PKK <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29647314">drove IS out of most of Kobane</a>, in the north of Syria. Ever since, the PKK and its affiliates have come to be seen by many Kurds as champions for humanity in the face of barbarism. (Although its <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37193197">violent attacks</a> have led others to hold the opposite view. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU and the US.)</p>
<p>Support among Kurds has been accompanied more recently by a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/90e7a53c-b4ad-11e7-a398-73d59db9e399">huge public outcry</a> against the <a href="http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/post-referendum-hangovers-the-local-aspects">political elites</a> of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Compared to them, the PKK is seen by many as the sole reliable force fighting for Kurdish nationalism. Images of <a href="https://twitter.com/FazelHawramy/status/920335280137220097">PKK fighters holding their ground against Iraqi forces</a> on social media have provided the group with a great deal of sympathy and respect.</p>
<p>So it may seem that right now that the PKK is better positioned than ever to expand its sphere of influence across Kurdistan. But the reality is that the group is dramatically overstretched and faces a complicated future.</p>
<p>Things are far from simple, for example, in Syria, where the PKK’s affiliates, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing People’s Protection Unit (YPG) won a military victory against IS which yielded de facto self-rule for Syrian Kurds. </p>
<p>Securing self-rule depended in large part on acquiring the support of both the US and Russia – a precarious political balancing act. But with intensifying competition between the US and Russia over the future of Syria, it became harder for the Syrian Kurds to maintain the relationship with those two countries during the three-year war against IS.</p>
<p>And in January 2018, Turkey’s (Russian approved) military assault on the Syrian enclave of Afrin demonstrated the weakness of the Kurdish autonomy project. </p>
<p>Yet Syria has also been a scene of unlikely partnerships. In an attempt to secure support against Turkey’s offensive, the PYD <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-afrin-assad-forces-kurdish-turkey-ypg-assad-soldiers-army-erdogan-fight-turkey-kurds-a8218061.html">recently reached a deal with the Assad regime</a>. However, so far, only a limited number of regime-backed forces have entered the town in support of the Kurdish defensive operation, with no real impact on Turkey’s advancement. </p>
<p>Eventually, the scope of Turkey’s military incursion will be up to Russia.
Since Turkey’s move into Afrin, the PKK has kept a low profile – partly to show the US that its Syrian affiliates are fighting by themselves, autonomously from the PKK (which the US regards as a terrorist group).</p>
<p>American support for the Kurds, as the PKK is well aware, is still essential for the survival of Kurdish autonomy, especially in areas east of the Euphrates river which have previously benefited from US backing.</p>
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</figure>
<p>However, the PKK’s willingness not to offend American foreign policy all depends on how the fighting evolves in Afrin. If it intensifies and reaches the centre of the city, the PKK will throw its full weight into Afrin’s defence, potentially intensifying attacks against Turkey. But the cost of such action would be high.</p>
<p>In Iraq, too, the intensification of war between Turkey and the PKK will bring further instability to politics in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. Since the eruption of the Syrian crisis, the PKK has actively sought to challenge the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) by reinforcing its ties with a range of other anti-KDP groups. But with a range of groups comes a range of distinct political priorities. Tactical alliance has not yet produced any tangible outcome.</p>
<h2>Fighting too many battles</h2>
<p>The Kurdish <a href="https://theconversation.com/kurdistan-after-vote-for-independence-whats-next-84715">referendum on independence</a> meanwhile left the major Kurdish political movements in disarray, presenting the PKK with another <a href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/indepth/2017/10/19/iraqi-kurdistan-in-disarray-after-the-loss-of-kirkuk">window of opportunity to seek influence</a>.</p>
<p>Turkey’s hostile attitude to the independence vote in Iraqi Kurdistan and its subsequent invasion of Afrin have led to a rapprochement between otherwise diverging Kurdish groups. This, nonetheless, does not represent a real shift in relations between the KDP and PKK. KDP leader Nechirvan Barzani’s position on the PKK is still clear – he views them as a destabilising force.</p>
<p>After decades of fighting, the PKK is now in dire need of success to show Turkey’s Kurds that it has achieved something as tangible as self rule in Syria. Failing to do so would risk its political relevance in the eyes of the Kurdish constituency, which prompts its determination to be in control of developments in Northern Syria</p>
<p>In the future, Kurds may acquiesce to sharing power with the Assad regime in Afrin rather than let the city fall to Turkish backed rebels. But in reality this still means the end of the Kurds’ dream of unification in northern Syria. When the dust settles, the loss of Afrin could mark yet another tragic sense of defeat for the Kurds. </p>
<p>PKK’s quest for self-rule there has led the group to scale up its activities in multiple settings. But its strategy of seeking a dominating role across Kurdistan territory over the past years has now reached its limits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90355/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mujge Kucukkeles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Kurdistan Workers’ Party is under mounting pressure.Mujge Kucukkeles, PhD Candidate and Assistant Lecturer, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/764252017-05-05T15:50:17Z2017-05-05T15:50:17ZKurds brace for an uncertain future in post-referendum Turkey<p>Turkey is still taking stock of its <a href="https://theconversation.com/erdogan-declares-victory-in-his-pursuit-of-one-man-rule-76032">referendum</a> on sweeping constitutional reforms, which delivered a crucial victory for the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – albeit under highly contested circumstances. </p>
<p>The anti-Erdoğan “No” camp, led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Kurdish-led, left-leaning People’s Democracy Party (HDP), <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/chp-blasts-election-board-referendum-result-170417034950684.html">claim</a> that about 1.5m ballots in favour of “Yes” were counted despite having no official stamp, which should have rendered them invalid. But their complaints have failed to overturn the result, and the new political reality is taking shape. Turkey’s parliamentary system will be restructured, greatly enhancing Erdoğan’s power.</p>
<p>The new “super-presidency” system is the ultimate realisation of the “New Turkey” rhetoric <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/08/turkey-erdogan-new-turkey-religious-conservatives.html">long propagated</a> by Erdoğan’s right-wing populist (in a “conservative democrat” discourse) ruling party, Justice and Development (AKP). Whatever the coming years hold, they will be full of surprises. No one, including Erdoğan and the AKP, seems quite sure what to expect – but the implications of this new order are especially unclear for the Kurds. </p>
<p>In the absence of a clear prognosis, the future of the so-called “Kurdish right problem” is the subject of intense debate on all sides. Is New Turkey a renewed Ottoman <a href="http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0231.xml">millet system</a> of religious politics, an Islamist project in the style of the <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170217-turkeys-erdogan-muslim-brotherhood-is-ideological-not-terrorist-organisation/">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, or a chance to realise the long-held dream of Kurdish self-governance?</p>
<p>The Kurds briefly seemed to have a strong political voice in the form of the HDP. The party is noticeably different to the pro-Kurdish political parties of yore, espousing a leftist populist discourse of equality and liberty for all against the AKP’s growing conservative authoritarianism and neoliberal elitism. It’s also relatively popular among Kurdish movements: its efforts to mobilise the passion stirred up by the 2013 Gezi Park protests seemed to pay off at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-next-for-the-kurds-after-turkish-election-success-of-hdp-42979">June 2015 election</a>, where it cleared the 10% national vote threshold to win seats in parliament, netting 80 MPs. </p>
<p>The result was a beacon of hope for many in Turkey and beyond, but it faded fast. At a second election later in 2015, Erdoğan <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkey-election-erdogan-and-the-akp-get-majority-back-amid-climate-of-violence-and-fear-49963">won an outright majority</a> and formed a government, while the HDP lost 20 of its hard-won seats. Erdoğan’s approach to the Kurdish issue has since then been more hardline than ever. </p>
<h2>A more muscular approach</h2>
<p>The president accuses previous governments of being “weak” in the face of the militarised Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He blames their failure on treacherous cadres within the police, military, and intelligence services – the same malign infiltrators he accuses of masterminding the <a href="https://theconversation.com/turkey-struggles-to-make-sense-of-a-surreal-failed-coup-detat-62596">failed coup attempt</a> in July 2016. Expunging these factions, he says, will allow him to take a more muscular, highly militarised approach.</p>
<p>When the so-called Kurdish peace process ultimately <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/07/turkey-kurdish-peace-process-150729074358423.html">broke down</a> in 2015, the AKP government duly turned away from a peaceful path to a military one, <a href="http://www.dailysabah.com/war-on-terror/2016/09/29/extension-of-state-of-emergency-to-benefit-people-president-erdogan-says">vowing</a> to vanquish the PKK altogether – all this with the zealous support of Turkish ultra-nationalists.</p>
<p>Violence soon returned to south-eastern Turkey. The HDP’s “human security” agenda was overwhelmed by a new armed conflict between security forces and the PKK’s youth branch, the <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/turkey-kurdish-rebels-new-youth-wing-or-deep-pkk.html">Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement</a>, who are using heavy weapons, digging trenches and erecting barricades down the side streets of cities and towns.</p>
<p>To listen to Erdoğan, you might think none of this was happening. In his post-referendum victory speech, he claimed his support had substantially grown in the east and south-east, even though those regions voted “No” by large margins. The HDP counter-claims that what advances Erdoğan made can be chalked up to fraud, unfairness, and outright coercion. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in 2016, almost all the elected pro-Kurdish municipal authorities were <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/28-mayors-replaced-with-trustees-by-turkish-government.aspx?pageID=238&nID=103784&NewsCatID=341.0">replaced</a> by state-appointed “trustees” and elected mayors <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-kurds-idUSKCN11H065">arrested</a>, while the tough state of emergency law has securitised the region as never before.</p>
<p>Erdoğan seems to be looking for a new political representative for the Kurdish movement, one that will be more likely to toe his line. But as long as he oppresses the HDP, Kurdish politics will have no single mainstream political voice. The non-PKK, secular, socialist or Kurdistani (pro-Kurdish autonomy) political parties have yet to mobilise efficiently enough to carry much weight. The ensuing vacuum might be filled by a new actor – and not necessarily a secular, peaceful one.</p>
<p>One faction vying for the lead role is <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21590595-islamist-party-turkeys-kurds-huda-pars-emergence">Hüda-Par</a>, a radical Islamist party with links to the Hizbullah paramilitary group. But the majority of Kurds still associate Hizbullah with brutal violence, and secular pro-Kurdish factions are still popular, particularly since their <a href="http://aranews.net/2017/01/syrian-kurds-celebrate-second-anniversary-kobane-liberation/">victory against the so-called Islamic State</a> just across the Syrian border.</p>
<p>So long as the Kurds lack a unified political voice, the newly empowered Erdoğan will continue to deal with them violently rather than peacefully – and their future in Turkey will remain out of their control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76425/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omer Tekdemir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With President Erdoğan increasingly empowered, the ‘Kurdish question’ is at the forefront once again.Omer Tekdemir, Research Associate, School of History, Politics and International Relations, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/624842016-08-16T03:09:10Z2016-08-16T03:09:10ZTurkey’s post-coup commitment to democracy offers chance to resolve Kurdish crisis<p>Turkey’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-turkeys-failed-coup-and-massive-purge-affect-its-economic-future-62947">failed military coup</a> last month rocked the foundations of its political system, yet in some ways the country has emerged stronger and more resilient. </p>
<p>And that’s precisely what Turkey needs to deal with one of its biggest and oldest challenges: the Kurdish minority and the PKK separatists who took up arms against the Turkish military 32 years ago this week. </p>
<p>The popular protests that brought the July 15 coup to an end less than 12 hours after it started evolved into a collective affirmation of Turkey’s commitment to political democracy, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-idUSKCN10I0CZ">culminating in a rally of more than a million people</a> earlier this month. </p>
<p>Although the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-turkeys-failed-coup-and-massive-purge-affect-its-economic-future-62947">government’s crackdown</a> on perceived supporters of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen has raised <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13746679">some concerns</a> in Western capitals about that commitment, it nonetheless provides an opening to reexamine the current cultural and political status of Turkey’s Kurdish citizens. </p>
<p>President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (known as AKP) has emerged <a href="http://community.bowdoin.edu/news/2016/08/prof-robert-morrison-on-turkey-attempted-coup-leaves-erdogan-in-much-stronger-position/">stronger than before</a>, so he can afford to take a bold step to address the Kurdish crisis, which <a href="http://blog.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/2016/07/20/turkey-s-pkk-conflict-the-rising-toll/">has cost Turkey</a> thousands of lives, millions of internal migrants and billions of dollars in property damage. </p>
<p>But how to do that with both sides so embittered and entrenched after years of fighting? </p>
<p>As an observer of Turkey’s social and political developments for more than two decades, I suggest a fresh approach to the problem that should ease Turkish fears of Kurdish separatism as well as Kurdish fears that they have few rights. It depends on whether Turkey is ready to honor its ideals and fulfill the promise that its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/A-History-of-the-Turkish-Kurdish-Conflict-20150728-0042.html">made to the Kurds in return</a> for their support for his war of independence. </p>
<h2>From the ashes of the empire</h2>
<p>That’s when the trouble began, as Turkey emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire – known for its <a href="http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/5-1/text/rodrigue.html">multiethnic diversity</a> – in 1923. </p>
<p>After the empire’s collapse, Ataturk sought to build a modern republic on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk%27s_Reforms">two cultural policies</a>. First, he suppressed Islamic and traditional cultures in favor of a Western and modern lifestyle for all citizens. Second, he suppressed ethnic identities and tried to create a unified Turkish identity. </p>
<p>The group most affected was the Kurds. Ataturk <a href="http://www.ssu.edu.tr/uploads/vol_13-no_1-arakon_DLG1DRl5.pdf">had promised</a> to let them preserve their language and cultural identity in exchange for their support in ousting the Allies after World War I but later broke his word and initiated more than eight decades of cultural and linguistic homogenization. </p>
<p>In the 1990s, Turkey’s military <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/opinion/the-kurdish-challenge.html?_r=0">engaged in a costly war</a> with the PKK, founded in 1978 and regarded as a terrorist organization by several other countries including the U.S. </p>
<h2>A new policy, negotiations and collapse</h2>
<p>When he came to power in 2002, Erdogan began to gradually reverse these policies. A decade later, he initiated peace negotiations and a ceasefire with PKK leader <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abdullah-Ocalan">Abdullah Ocalan</a>. </p>
<p>Ocalan agreed to abandon his separatist demands and cease paramilitary operations in exchange for political and social rights for the Kurds. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the negotiations and ceasefire collapsed after a suicide bombing targeting Kurdish activists prompted a new round of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/turkey-syria-explosion-suruc-150720093632908.html">PKK violence</a> in July 2015. <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/only-solution-is-to-destroy-pkk-erdogan.aspx?PageID=238&NID=98037&NewsCatID=338">Erdogan later pledged to destroy the PKK</a> and all Kurdish resistance groups that resort to violence. </p>
<p>This policy of fighting without negotiations and imposing severe restrictions on the Kurds – such as <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/international-state-crime-initiative/death-of-peace-process-martial-law-returns-to-turkey">long daily curfews and martial law</a> – in my view is not enough to defeat the uprising.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/hdp-co-chair-calls-for-return-to-peace-talks.aspx?pageID=238&nID=102114&NewsCatID=338">Some have been calling on Erdogan</a> to back up his post-coup talk of democracy by resuming peace negotiations. Though renewed fighting has created an environment of distrust, a new strategy to end the crisis is desperately needed. </p>
<h2>A fresh approach</h2>
<p>That brings me to what I call my “max-min proposal” as a step toward resolving this decades-old conflict. A key point is that it would be a unilateral initiative by the Turkish government, without the need for negotiation or coordination with the PKK. </p>
<p>The policy has two parts: the max and the min. </p>
<p>The min refers to a minimum level of tolerance (read zero) for separatism by any ethnic group. It’s a policy already in place and necessary because there is unanimous agreement among Turks on preserving Turkey’s <a href="https://dspace.mah.se/bitstream/handle/2043/16734/Territorial%20Integrity%20of%20Turkey%20and%20the%20PKK%20Peace%20Process.pdf?sequence=2">territorial integrity</a>. Any policy package by the AKP must start with this commitment. </p>
<p>Max stands for maximum respect for political, cultural and linguistic rights of Kurds as an ethnic minority in Turkey. The cultural dimension of this policy recognizes the right of Kurds to preserve their ethnic language and culture identity – while keeping Turkish as the official language. </p>
<p>Providing Kurds with the right to teach and consume media in their own language – as well as equal democratic political rights – would create an environment of fairness and justice in which Kurds would feel confident as equal citizens. </p>
<p>Since taking power, the AKP has initiated several partial steps toward recognition of these rights. These steps, <a href="http://www.merip.org/mero/mero080410">which were mostly introduced in 2009</a>, included a Kurdish language television station and permission to offer Kurdish language classes in universities and private institutions. They were undertaken <a href="http://www.merip.org/mero/mero080410">in an effort</a> to meet the human and minority rights requirements for joining the European Union and to increase the popularity of the AKP in the Kurdish regions. Yet these rights have been only partially implemented. </p>
<p>Successful implementation of these rights, however, would require a change in public opinion. At the moment, expressions of Kurdish culture <a href="http://www.merip.org/mero/mero080410">are perceived as a threat</a> to national unity among a sizable segment of the Turkish population. Success will depend on changing minds. On this note, there’s some reason to be optimistic because there was <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/middleeast/2013/04/19/turkeys-kurdish-peace-process-parsing-the-polls/">little significant opposition</a> to the progress of the peace talks with the PKK.</p>
<p>As for the Kurds, several public opinion surveys indicate that a <a href="http://arsiv.setav.org/Ups/dosya/8504.pdf">large majority would welcome</a> such a unilateral offering of rights. This support would come from moderate Kurdish political leaders such as Leyla Zana, a member of the Turkish parliament who <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/06/prominent-kurdish-leaders-statem.html">has rejected</a> the PKK’s separatist goals. Full cultural and linguistic rights would likely empower the moderates and isolate the separatists.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c116413a-5cdb-11e6-a72a-bd4bf1198c63.html#axzz4Ggwwpzmw">political unity that Turkey is currently enjoying</a> in the aftermath of the failed coup creates a unique opportunity for Erdogan to initiate negotiations with other Turkish political parties to gain a strong majority and political consensus for these reforms. </p>
<h2>Bountiful benefits</h2>
<p>Many of the benefits of this proposal are fairly obvious, while others may be more obscure, but they add up to a powerful argument for choosing a unilateral path of cultural accommodation rather than one of war or <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/new-turkey-pkk-peace-talks-an-inevitability-postponed.aspx?pageID=238&nID=96978&NewsCatID=39">endless negotiation</a>.</p>
<p>Besides likely reducing support for the separatists, it’s also a just policy that would earn Turkey international respect at a time <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/world/europe/russia-putin-turkey-erdogan-syria.html?_r=0">when it’s feeling isolated</a> after its <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b82ef35a-4cc3-11e6-88c5-db83e98a590a.html">post-coup crackdown</a>. </p>
<p>It would legitimize Turkey’s advocacy for the cultural and political rights of Turkish minorities in other countries. How can Turkey campaign for the rights of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34910389">Turkmen</a> in Iraq, Chechens and <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/turkey-russia-crimea-ukraine.html">Tatars</a> in Russia and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/world/asia/ethnic-tensions-in-xinjiang-complicate-china-turkey-ties.html?_r=0">Uighurs</a> in China if it’s suppressing Kurds at home?</p>
<p>As for those who prefer a military solution, public opinion surveys indicate that majority of Turkey’s citizens <a href="http://arsiv.setav.org/Ups/dosya/8504.pdf">believe that the crisis can’t be resolved</a> this way. The Turkish military may enjoy complete supremacy, yet peace will remain elusive as long as the underlying grievances persist.</p>
<p>Resolving this crisis is also of regional geopolitical importance. The U.S. relies on Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria in its battle to take back ground from the Islamic State. Turkey’s conflict with its own Kurdish population has complicated the war against IS.</p>
<p>And finally, it would be a major step toward fulfilling <a href="http://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-nationalism/">Ataturk’s original promise to the Kurds</a>. </p>
<h2>Crucial next steps</h2>
<p>As a final note, it must be acknowledged that enhancing the cultural and political rights of Kurds is likely to reduce their desire for separatism but it is unlikely to end the <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/02/kurdish-autonomy-turkey-risks-consequences.html">Kurdish desire for regional autonomy</a>.</p>
<p>These demands cannot be resolved unilaterally by the Turkish government and would require political negotiations between the government and a representative body of Kurdish political leaders. </p>
<p>Such a negotiation, however, will take place in a more positive and cooperative atmosphere if Kurds already feel confident about the protection of their cultural and political rights in a democratic and tolerant Turkey.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nader Habibi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The protests that helped end the attempted coup turned into an affirmation of Turkish democracy. Can it help resolve the Kurdish crisis?Nader Habibi, Professor of the Economics of the Middle East at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/512972015-11-25T22:06:08Z2015-11-25T22:06:08ZRussia, Turkey and the US: between the terrible and the catastrophic<p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34907983">downing</a> of Russia’s plane by Turkish military forces over the skies of the Syrian-Turkish border has added yet another layer of complexity to the vortex of conflict in the Middle East. </p>
<p>Most of the prior concern had focused on the prospect of the US clashing with Russia over the skies of Syria. But an October <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/20/us-mideast-crisis-russia-usa-idUSKCN0SE2HK20151020#6JbPCBG1Rqryo2yT.97">agreement</a> between the two countries had seemed to address that worry. That reassuring move took everyone’s focus away from a possible Turkish-Russian clash. </p>
<p>But with 20-20 hindsight, a clash was almost inevitable. </p>
<p>Here’s why. </p>
<h2>Statesmen and leaders?</h2>
<p>Russia and Turkey are headed by two of the most brash, abrasive and swashbuckling leaders in the modern world. </p>
<p>Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin have both spent most of the last decade working hard to secure their dominance at home. Both have had to deal with major internal security problems – from the separatist <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20971100">Kurdish Workers Part</a> (or PKK) in Turkey and from <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/03/a-threat-to-the-west-the-rise-of-islamist-insurgency-in-the-northern-caucasus">Islamist insurgents</a> in Russia’s Northern Caucasus, a movement fueled by a Sunni <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FLJoBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=wahhabi+influence+over+caucasus&source=bl&ots=oPzbg3Jx50&sig=nPwQsP72NPzNwkNjw9yUn4kJ1nE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2kfWgrazJAhUJdz4KHVC6BbEQ6AEIPTAE#v=onepage&q=wahhabi%20influence%20over%20caucasus&f=false">Wahhabist</a> ideology exported from Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>Both Erdoğan and Putin have responded to these persistent problems with the use of force at home coupled with assertive policies abroad. </p>
<p>In each case, loud pronouncement of their respective country’s importance in the world is intended as a nationalist call to obscure economic problems and <a href="http://humanrightsturkey.org/2015/02/24/amnesty-on-turkeys-worsening-human-rights-record-11-key-issues/">worsening</a> <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/02/us-un-rights-russia-idUSKBN0MT18L20150402">human rights records</a>. </p>
<p>In pursuing these comparable agendas, both presidents count on reliable, largely unquestioning deputies: Dmitry Medvedev serves as Putin’s prime minister and Ahmet Davutoğlu as Erdoğan’s. This allows each president to characterize themselves as figureheads, above the fray of everyday politics. </p>
<p>In effect, they portray themselves as statesmen and leaders, keen on establishing a regional sphere of influence.</p>
<p>For Putin, this extends not only to the boundaries of the old Soviet Union – most obviously in Ukraine – but beyond to include old Soviet allies in the Middle East. </p>
<p>For Erdoğan, the historical ties spread from the <a href="https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/problems-foreign-powers-find-balkans">Balkans</a> to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant">Levant</a> – an area extending all the way to Jordan. </p>
<p>These two sets of ambitions notably overlap in Syria.</p>
<h2>History rears its head</h2>
<p>This potential clash of individual egos and ambitions is augmented by a persistent clash of cultures and identities that has spanned hundreds of years. </p>
<p>Turkey’s <a href="http://www.umich.edu/%7Eturkish/links/ottemp_brhist.html">Ottoman Empire</a> ruled over Eastern Orthodox Slavs in the Balkans from the 15th century until its final dissolution less than a century ago. Turks still see themselves as the guardians of Muslims, reflected in their admirable willingness to host over <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e48e0fa7f.html">one-and-a-half million</a> refugees fleeing the Syrian War. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103244/original/image-20151125-23861-1mrhx99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103244/original/image-20151125-23861-1mrhx99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103244/original/image-20151125-23861-1mrhx99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103244/original/image-20151125-23861-1mrhx99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103244/original/image-20151125-23861-1mrhx99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103244/original/image-20151125-23861-1mrhx99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103244/original/image-20151125-23861-1mrhx99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fighting in the Turkish Russo War.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boj_u_Ivanovo-Chiflik.jpg">Pavel Kovalevsky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Russians historically considered themselves the protector of the Balkans’ Orthodox Christians and often fought wars with the Ottomans, notably in the <a href="http://www.library.yale.edu/slavic/microform/russoturkishwar.html">Turkish-Russo</a> War of 1877-1878. </p>
<p>The two countries went on to fight on opposite sides in the First World War. And in World War II, Turkey signed a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4oQNJvu6NpgC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=Turkish+non+aggression+pact+with+germany&source=bl&ots=soaZ2Dox4G&sig=Aol5vKK7J_gyo5DEi80bEZoKXto&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQ4uuPsazJAhUEOT4KHVazD-0Q6AEIQjAG#v=onepage&q=Turkish%20non%20aggression%20pact%20with%20germany&f=false">nonaggression</a> pact with Nazi Germany and maintained it until the closing months of the war. </p>
<p>To Americans, this may all seem like ancient history. After all, the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/">US-Mexican</a> war ended in 1848, and today relations between the US and Mexico are complex, but not hostile. Trade and tourism boom as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/11/21/mexico-has-its-own-immigration-problem-american-retirees/">millions</a> live in each other’s country.</p>
<p>Contact and trade between Russia and Turkey is far more limited, despite Turkey being a <a href="https://www.rt.com/business/323400-russia-business-turkey-jet/">tourist destination for many Russians</a>. </p>
<p>In both areas of the world – the Middle East and Eastern Europe – where the ethnic composition of populations has remained relatively stable, and the religious practices have, if anything, <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2014/02/10/russians-return-to-religion-but-not-to-church/">strengthened</a> in the last decade, old enmities are easily resurrected. </p>
<p>It is what the University of Delaware’s Stuart Kaufmann, in describing the Balkan War of the early 20th century, called <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100693720">“Modern Hatreds.”</a></p>
<p>With this in mind, it is easy to see how the reputed <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/20/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-russia-idUSKCN0T91MO20151120">Russian bombing of ethnic Turkmen villages</a> on the Syrian-Turkish border – the events that precipitated the downing of the Russian plane – can be portrayed as consistent with that historic hostility.</p>
<p>And when you add the historical dimension to two populist leaders vying to consolidate their support at home, the situation can easily become incendiary – and escalate. </p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>In his most famous work, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes famously describes the state of nature as “<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/">a war of all against all</a>.” There is, he says, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; and which is worst of all, continuall feare [sic], and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sounds just like the Middle East. </p>
<p>Just when we mistakenly conclude that things can’t get worse in Syria, we discover that they can. An already complicated theater of war threatens to take on a novel dimension as states begin to directly fight each other, rather than what it has been to date: an assortment of states fighting against an assortment of moderate and extremist militias. </p>
<p>Predictably, Putin has come out of his corner swinging. </p>
<p>He has described Turkey’s action as “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/12015465/Turkey-shoots-down-Russia-jet-live.html">"a planned provocation”</a> and has vowed to send <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/russian-pilot-rescued-syrian-commando-unit-101718676.html">air defense missiles</a> to Syria, clearly implying that Turkish planes will be the targets while, obviously, risking that coalition aircraft, most likely American ones, will become the victims. Earlier he paved the way for sending <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/world/europe/nato-russia-warplane-turkey.html?_r=0">150,000 troops</a> to Syria, purportedly to fight ISIS but more likely to buttress the Syrian government’s forces. </p>
<p>Erdoğan, for his part, has been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/world/europe/turkey-syria-russia-military-plane.html">quick to call</a> on NATO forces to defend his country under Article 5 of the agreement that states that an attack on one member is an attack on all members. Having poked the Russian bear, he is now asking for the bear to be threatened with being gang tackled as a deterrent measure. </p>
<p>This risks the United States being dragged into a military confrontation with Russia, a prospect that America’s always-cautious president, Barack Obama, has carefully avoided in Ukraine. </p>
<p>What’s more, Obama is ill-placed to mediate between the two sides. He has not enjoyed good relations with either the Russian or the Turkish presidents. And he cannot legitimately portray himself as an honest broker, given US ties to Turkey through NATO. </p>
<p>It will take all his diplomatic skills, and those of Secretary of State John Kerry, to sufficiently sooth the egos of both sides to avoid a plunge into an even greater quagmire.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, as our attention focuses on this new dimension, the old problems persist. </p>
<p>ISIS is still killing people in Syria and now in Europe. Refugees keep fleeing and dying at sea and in camps. And we appear no nearer a diplomatic solution. </p>
<p>America has to stick to its priorities and offer both sticks and carrots to all sides as it builds towards them. If Barack Obama thought negotiating an arms agreement with the Iranians was hard, he “ain’t seen nothing yet.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The downing of Russia’s plane by Turkish military forces over the skies of the Syrian-Turkish border has added yet another layer of complexity to the vortex of conflict in the Middle East. Most of the…Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.