Turkey takes the side of Syria's Kurds

Yesterday's Erdogan-Barzani meeting and the title of Michael Weiss' piece

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has now played his “Kurdish card” -- not to win Syria back, but mire Turkey and hopefully walk away with an Alawite state.

This explains why he mobilized his Qaeda-linked surrogates to take control of Kurdish areas in the north of Syria on the border with Turkey.

In the face of the Syrian uprising, Assad forces originally pulled out of those areas in July and August 2012, hoping the vacuum would be filled by Turkey’s nemesis at the time, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The March 2013 peace deal between Turkey and the PKK spoiled Assad’s plan.

His fallback in recent weeks on his Qaeda-linked proxies – Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – is to keep the plan alive.

In context, I can’t think of a better eye-opener than yesterday’s commentary by Michael Weiss fittingly titled “Assad’s no enemy of al-Qaeda.” You can read it here.

Overnight, news broke of jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda -- read Assad -- having taken hostage around 200 Kurdish civilians after violent clashes with Kurdish fighters in two villages of northeastern Syria.

“Fighters of Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISIL have seized control of Tall Aren village in Aleppo province and are laying siege to another village nearby, Tall Hassel,” said the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Clashes between jihadists and Kurdish fighters have raged for some two weeks, after jihadists were expelled from the key town of Ras al-Ayn on the Turkish border.

The fighting claimed a prominent casualty on Tuesday, as a car bomb planted by Jihadists killed Kurdish leader Isa Huso, a leading member of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), a pro-PKK organization of Syrian Kurds and the most powerful faction of the ethnic group in the region (see yesterday’s post).

Politically, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met yesterday with Nachervan Barzani, prime minister of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government and nephew of KRG President Massoud Barzani.

The two-hour meeting at the Prime Ministry in Ankara was closed to the press.

The talks are believed to have focused on bilateral relations, the PYD’s agenda in Syria and the upcoming three-day Kurdish National Conference.

The latter opens in Erbil on August 19 with 500 Kurdish delegates attending, mostly from Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran.

Before Barzani's visit, PYD co-chair Salih Muslim, a graduate of Istanbul Technical University in the late 1970s, was able -- on Turkey’s invitation -- to fly from Erbil to Istanbul after 35 years.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu told reporters after meeting with Muslim he acknowledged Syrian Kurds’ need to establish a “civilian administration” in their areas, just as other opposition groups have. He warned such provisional measures were possible provided the administration does not gain “permanent status.”

The understanding is that such a provisional local administration would include other ethnic groups such as Christians, Turkmen and non-Kurds who live in the Kurdish-majority areas of northeastern Syria.

Turkish columnist Sedat Ergin, writing for Hurriyet daily, says Turkey’s dilemma of late was to choose one of two options that would serves it interests best: Control of Syria’s Kurdish areas by the PYD or by the Qaeda-linked groups?

“We understand from Muslim’s interview with Ali Çelebi for Özgür Gündem daily,” writes Ergin, “that the Justice and Development (AKP) government has gone for the first option.

“…This being the case, instead of approaching the Syrian Kurds with animosity, building a permanent friendship with them starting today appears to be a wiser, more realistic policy. The path to this passes along a road that approaches them with respect, knows them and talks to them as counterparts.

“From this aspect, Muslim’s visit has been a positive step in the sense that a dialogue has been launched between Turkey and Syrian Kurds; also, it complements the peace process launched with the aim of solving the Kurdish issue domestically.”

Separately, Turkey has also stepped up economic relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq.

The KRG is now pushing ahead with plans to build an oil pipeline between Turkey and northern Iraq despite objections from Baghdad and the United States.

Barzani and the Middle East’s new Kurdish player

Inset is Massoud Barzani, president of Iraqi Kurdistan

My paraphrasing of today's leader comment penned in Arabic by Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of al-Hayat:

A new player has entered the terrible Middle East field, where regimes, governments, maps and minorities are either crumbling or shaking like a leaf.

That’s the Kurdish player.

In the last century, Kurds were roughed up in the game of nations, which dispersed them, independently of their will, as minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Geography sentenced this people without the right to appeal, and history endorsed the ruling.

Today, we’re talking of nearly 25 million Kurds.

A decade ago many believed Kurds were destined to simply pass on story lines about their sufferings in rugged mountains and about scenes of Halabja and the Anfal Campaign.

Many also believed Kurds would forcibly swallow unjust Turkization and Arabization drives.

Denial of Kurdish rights was a fixed but tacit government policy clause in all four countries despite their claims to the contrary.

Suddenly, the crazy American adventure of invading Iraq brought this dirty game to a close.

The invasion would not have taken place had the Kurdish-Shiite alliance not made a pitch for toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime by any means and in whatever way possible.

That’s how the Shiites pocketed Baghdad and the Kurds bagged Iraqi Kurdistan under the federal constitutional republic of Iraq.

The Kurds have now had a decade of stability for the first time in their blood-soaked history.

They’re living under their own flag, though they’ve not ditched Iraq’s.

They teach their children in their native tongue and sing their ballads in their squares. They are building roads and setting up universities. They are also attracting investors and tourists.

The past decade was full of scenes as well.

Massoud Mustafa Barzani is the elected president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, managing it with the competence of a statesman after having led the Peshmerga with the astuteness of a freedom fighter-cum-politician.

Jalal Talabani sits in Saddam Hussein’s office as the president of Iraq.

Hoshyar Zebari shepherds Iraqi diplomacy, trying to uphold the interests of Iraq while walking a tightrope between America’s shadow and Iran’s clout.

Another scene is no less important.

The plane of someone named Recep Tayyip Erdogan landed in Erbil to open its international airport.

In a historic message, the visitor said the day when Kurdish rights were ignored is gone forever. Barzani struggled to conceal his delight, choosing instead to build on the phrase.

I asked Massoud Barzani about Erdogan’s Turkey and the Kurds of Abdullah Ocalan being on the same page now.

He acknowledged in his answer that he encouraged the two sides to bury the hatchet and seek a political solution.

He said success of the Turkey-PKK deal would be “a historic event inducing a sea change in the region.”

He said the two sides showed a sense of realism by kicking off implementation of the agreement to end a conflict that drained Kurds and Turks correspondingly.

I also asked Barzani if stability and prosperity in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region could incite Kurds in neighboring countries to use it as a template.

He replied: There is absolutely no need to clone the Kurdistan Region’s experience. There are circumstances, particularities, power balances and equilibriums. Chronic injustice should not stir up rashness.

“We’re not seeking to tear up maps and redraw borders. We don’t want clashes. We want to live in peace with the Turks, Arabs and Persians. We want to be a stability-and-prosperity factor.

“Surely, however, the times of usurped rights, exclusion and marginalization are defunct. Non-recognition of the ‘Other’ is a destructive culture.”

Barzani felt aggrieved by the mass killings and horrendous destruction in Syria, “which is on our doorstep.” He feared a prolonged split that would create an environment for extremists.

He precluded any role by Iraqi Kurdistan in arming Syria’s Kurds. He also hoped democracy and respect of all constituents would prevail in neighborly Syria.

Barzani refused to “personalize” his current dispute with Nouri al-Maliki, recognizing at the same time that links with Baghdad’s prevailing course of action were “nearing the point of no return.”

He stressed (Iraq’s) Kurds are not asking for more than a respect of the constitution and agreements signed, indicating at the same time that Baghdad’s course of action provoked a deep crisis with Iraq’s Arab Sunni component as well.

Turkey chose a new approach to deal with its Kurds.  Once the guns fall silent in Syria, its Kurdish component will be seated at the reconciliation table. Watching and waiting for their appointment will be Iran’s Kurds.

The triumph of Iraqi Kurdistan has helped change the way the ball bounces.

I asked Barzani, “What do the children of Peshmerga fighters yearn for?”

He grinned and replied, “They want computers, technologies, universities, job opportunities and hospitals. But, in this intricate Middle East, you have to remain on your guard. You must be prepared for war to ward it off.”

I asked, “Why do Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Nouri al-Maliki, Bashar al-Assad and Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemingly lack an esprit de corps?”

Barzani smiled again, saying only, “We want to turn borders into prospects to cooperate, not clash. We have to bank on human dignity, the economy and education. There’s no turning back.”

Iraq et al: Without electricity -- كهربا ماكو

Sulaymaniyah (top) & Erbil are well-lit but Baghdad is trapped in a maze of snatched cables 

The colloquial Iraqi expression “ماكو for maco,” means “without,” “deprived of” or “lacking.”

Sulaymaniyah and Erbil (also written Arbil or Irbil) are the major cities in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in northern Iraq.

About 100 miles separate Sulaymaniyah from Erbil, which is the capital of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.

A trip to the region by Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, must have elicited his think piece, published today in Arabic:

Three men from different backgrounds chose to renew their old friendship in Sulaymaniyah.

The three had paid dearly for dreaming early on of an Iraq free of Saddam Hussein.

One of the threesome had fought for years in the rugged mountains. The other had spent a good part of his life as a subversive. The third got to serve time in an assortment of Baathist jails.

I chanced to attend their cheerful get-together.

After an absence of about two years, I was overawed by Erbil’s evolution.

Erbil is in a race against time, hoping to become another Dubai: high-rise buildings, shopping malls, exceptional vivacity, a rush of entrepreneurs and investors, and homes and streets full of light.

Sulaymaniyah is following suit.

It seems the people of Iraqi Kurdistan are bent on making up for time lost.

There was little in the dinner conversation about the pains of bygone years, but much about progress, reconstruction, investment and stability.

The person sitting next to me at the dining table asked about my impressions.

I said I was pleasantly surprised but passed up critical queries about travelling through the outskirts of Kirkuk.

I was heartened to learn that to forestall fraud and corruption, the Kurdistan Region had a few years back devolved the issue of electric power to the private sector.

The result is the Kurdish Region enjoys 24-hour electricity and is currently selling excess power supply to governorates in the vicinity.

I was overjoyed because, being Lebanese, I suffer from the “electricity complex.”

The Lebanese civil war plunged my native country into decades-long power cuts that have yet to end despite the wastage of billions of dollars and the ceaseless shuffling of crooks and charlatans.

I did not tell my dining companion I was envious, especially that I believe darkness in Lebanon caused by outages is only part of the pitch-black darkness likely to envelop the country.

For some reason, however, envy electrified the conversation at the dinner table around midnight, when the man sitting next to me burst out: “Imagine, my friend! Historically, Iraq was home to the oldest civilizations in the world. It now rests on a sea of proven oil reserves. Its annual budget exceeds $120 billion. It spent tens of billions to restore power supplies. Still, electricity is wanting: كهربا ماكو.

“We brag about Iraq recouping its regional clout, about having balanced relations with the United States and equitable ties with Turkey and Iran, and about our new, strong and promising country. But electricity is wanting: كهربا ماكو.”

He said sharks were gulping down Iraq’s wealth and that corruption is boundless – “worse than in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriyah, Najaf and all other cities, he said, swim in a sea of darkness and are sinking under the weight of snatched electricity cables and power generators.

He said power cuts and shortages were part of a tragic overheating of coexistence power lines connecting Iraqis.

He feared a growing preparation for a divorce between Sunnites and Shiites, especially if the emotional separation gripping Syria’s components -- due to the wholesale mass massacre going on in Syria -- culminated in divorce.

The power lines of coexistence in the Middle East region are cut.

True, a popular revolution is sweeping Syria. But also true, scenes of the former Yugoslavia are being replayed there, foreshadowing a long agony.

In Egypt, one rumor about a kidnapping or a mixed marriage is enough to see Muslims and Copts confirm a break in the power lines of coexistence. The lines are also out of service in Bahrain.

In Lebanon, a heated debate over a new electoral law risks splintering its constituent communities.

The cut in the power lines of coexistence make all our cities with (ethnically and religiously) mixed populations resemble Kirkuk.

Depression, darkness and fear permeate our cities.

The power lines of citizenry, of the state electricity authorities and of public institutions are down.

We stand at the threshold of a prolonged blackout, In fact, كهربا ماكو 

Is Iraq preparing to dump Assad?

Massoud Barzani (top) and Hoshyar Zebari

Has Iraq decided to turn its back on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?

The $64,000 Question came hot on the heels of Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari’s address at the opening of the Syrian opposition groups’ conference in Cairo earlier this week.

Zebari, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Arab League Summit, told the Cairo meeting the Syrian opposition “is trying to get rid of a totalitarian regime disregarding the (Syrian) people’s well-being.”

He also said, “We know from our experience in Iraq what it means to stand up to oppressive regimes.”

Zebari then called for a peaceful transition of power in Syria, pledging to help in that endeavor "so that representatives of the Syrian people take over their political process and build their modern Syrian state."

Zebari’s utterances suggest Iraq is perhaps pondering what lies ahead across its border, says senior diplomatic correspondent and political analyst Raghida Dergham today in her weekly think piece for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

Writing about an alleged “international understanding on the exit of Assad and his kinsfolk in exchange for a regime reprieve,” she quotes an unnamed Iraqi official as saying off the record: “We concluded in light of our international contacts and first hand observations that developments on the ground are not going in the regime’s favor. Whole (Syrian) governorates are no more under central control. The government is one of shabiha and the military. Russia is having a dialogue with the opposition. Even Iran is opening channels for dialogue with the opposition. All this prompted us to take clearer and more assertive stands.”

A more comprehensive analysis of Iraq’s Syria reset comes from Syrian Kurdish analyst Farouk Hajji Mustafa.

“In truth,” he also writes for al-Hayat, “the reasons for the shift in Iraq’s diplomatic discourse can only be explained by two factors”:

1.    Multiple analyses have hinted at an understanding between Russia and the United States on the way to manage change in Syria. According to these analyses, “change would be conditional on a balance being struck between the influences of Saudi Arabia and Iran in the region.” The implication is that “Iran would lose its supremacy in Lebanon and Iraq in return for keeping the Syrian regime in place – manifestly at least – until year’s end 2014. This drove the Iraqis to change their tack and speak accordingly.”

2.  The Iraqi leaders’ internecine power struggle is the other explanation for Baghdad’s new discourse supportive of the Syrian opposition. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could be telling Iran he would cross the aisle if it let him down. Alternatively, “the shift could be traced back to Massoud Barzani,” head of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. In other words, “the new discourse could be expressing the view of the government in Erbil, not Baghdad.” Barzani has repeatedly warned Maliki he can change the power balance in Baghdad if it didn’t stop canoodling with Damascus. The KRG leader, in other words, has put Maliki on notice that he was putting his alliance with the Kurds at risk.

Hajji Mustafa says in either case the question remains: “Will Iraq keep up its new Syria pitch?”