Syrian Kurds declare transitional administration

The PYD's Saleh Muslim and a map showing "Rojava" along Syria's border with Turkay

Syrian Kurds yesterday declared an interim administration in northeastern parts of the country (Rojava), further solidifying their geographic and political presence after driving out radical Islamist rebels. 

Long oppressed under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Kurds view the Syria war as an opportunity to gain more autonomy -- like their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq. 

Control over Syria's northeast, where Kurds predominate, had in recent months swung back and forth between them and mainly Arab Islamist rebels, who strongly oppose what they suspect are Kurdish plans to secede.

But a Kurdish militia prevailed earlier this month, and at a meeting held in the Syrian city of Qamishli yesterday, a committee of Kurdish and other groups said it was now time to set up an administrative body to run the region. 

"In light of the current circumstances which Syria is going through, and in order to fill an administrative vacuum... we see it as an utmost necessity to reach a transitional, pluralistic, democratic administration," said a statement sent to Reuters.

The statement said they were committed to the unity of Syria and asked world powers and neighboring countries to back the new administration, which they said had won the support of different political groups and minorities in the area.

The dominant force on the ground in Syria's Kurdish areas is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has a well-trained militia and is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PYD's growing clout has also dismayed some fellow Kurds, who accuse it of being in league with Assad and seeking to replace his authoritarian one-party rule with its own.

PYD representative Mohammed Reso said some Syrian Kurdish parties had refused to sign up to the plan.

Davutoglu

In his first remarks after the declaration of the interim administration, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the PYD of "not keeping its promise."

"We told them to avoid a de facto administration declaration that could divide Syria. We told them to put a distance between themselves and the [al-Assad] regime," Davutoglu said during a live interview on private broadcaster NTV on Tuesday. 

He criticized the Kurdish group for adopting an "ambivalent" posture. "The most serious mistake that the PYD is making is to put under pressure on the other Kurdish opposition groups in [their] controlled areas. We receive a lot of complaints from Kurds [in northern Syria], and we hope they will change this attitude," Davutoglu added.

PYD leader Saleh Muslim had visited Turkey twice in a brief period in July and August as the open conflict between Kurdish militia groups and jihadist rebels mounted, causing a refugee outflow from Rojava. He reportedly discussed with Turkish officials PYD's plans of forming an autonomous administration that triggered concerns in Ankara.

Barzani

The Turkish government and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have adopted a similar attitude on the situation in northern Syria. Both oppose the PYD's creation of a politically autonomous entity in the region.

KRG leader Massoud Barzani is troubled by the disputes among Kurds, particularly between the PYD and other Kurdish parties, over the areas in Syria's north.

The Turkish government and Barzani also backed the Syrian Kurdish National Council (KNC), a group that agreed to join the main Syrian opposition body, the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

“The KNC is close to Barzani. Barzani wanted to impose his policies in Rojava and Turkey wanted to use Barzani to establish an alternative group to the PYD, which was the KNC. They tried hard, but failed. The KNC is not stronger than the PYD,” Iso said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to meet Barzani in Diyarbakir at the weekend.

According to Turkish media sources, Erdogan will visit Diyarbakir, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey on Saturday, when he will be meeting the Iraqi Kurdistan president.

A source from Turkish Channel Show TV said renowned Kurdish singer Shivan Perwer will be back to Diyarbakir from self-exile in Germany to meet Barzani and Erdogan.

Relations between Iraq’s Kurdistan Region and Turkey have been improving steadily of late.

The volume of trade between Iraq and Turkey is about $12 billion, with three quarters of it being between Ankara and the Kurdistan Region.

Iran

Writing for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat today, former editor-in-chief Tariq Alhomayed quotes a Reuters dispatch yesterday as saying the Kurds’ military gains in Syria is posing a dilemma for regional powers.

Syrian Kurds view Syria’s civil war as an opportunity to gain the kind of autonomy enjoyed by their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq.

The seriousness of the report, says Alhomayed, is that their offensive has stirred mixed feelings, globally, regionally and locally, even among some fellow Kurds, who say the Kurdish fighters have drifted into an Iran-led regional axis supportive of Assad, something they deny.

To Assad and his Shiite allies, their gains mean more territory out of Sunni rebel hands two and a half years into a revolt against his rule.

Islamist rebels -- particularly the Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that have been imposing their will across rebel-held territory -- argue that their defeat says more about who was helping their foes than the strength of the Kurdish forces themselves. They said help from Assad's forces and Shiite-led Iraq was the reason for Kurdish gains.

The Iraqi government strongly denies supporting any faction in Syria, including Kurds.

A closer reading of this and other reports shows the Kurds’ military gains in Syria are posing a bigger dilemma for Syrian Kurds than for regional powers.

A senior Iraqi politician told Reuters Shiite powerhouse Iran, Assad's main regional ally, was also actively backing the PYD and emboldening the PKK, with which it is closely aligned.

"Iran supports these groups to guarantee having a powerful group in Syria in case things go out of control," he said, adding that Tehran was creating a network of allies from minority groups across the country to bolster their interests and to create alternative partners should Assad fall.

The Iraqi politician said Baghdad's Shiite government was supporting the Kurds to weaken cross-border ties among Sunnis.

"(They) may help them in cooperation with Iran to create an autonomous Kurdish region ... to establish a buffer zone between Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis."

This of course means the Kurds will have hostile and unbalanced relations with a predominantly Sunni region.

Also, can Syria’s Kurds genuinely withstand Turkey’s ire and eventually that of Tehran, which is home to eight million Iranian Kurds?

Syrian Kurds are set to realize that you don’t build nation-states by simply having minorities go their separate ways.

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.

Erdogan backpedals with Obama on Syria

U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan are riding a tandem bicycle and backpedaling together on Syria after their talks this week at the White House.

At Thursday’s news conference with Erdogan, the president, responding to a question about how he would react to conclusive evidence Syrian troops had crossed a “red line” and used chemical weapons, portrayed the issue as a challenge for world powers collectively, rather than his administration alone.

Turkey, Obama said, “is going to play an important role as we bring representatives of the regime and opposition together in the coming weeks.”

Erdogan was kind enough to oblige without delay.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington a day after discussing Syria with Obama, Erdogan said it would be up to the UN Security Council to decide whether to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria.

He said he also backed a planned international conference on Syria agreed by Washington and Moscow.

"With respect to a no-fly zone... it is not a decision that could be taken between the United States and Turkey. It is something that would have to come through the UN Security Council," Erdogan said.

"We are in the process of putting together a conference in Geneva... If that process decides on such a zone, as Turkey, we would also do whatever is necessary," he said.

During his talks at the White House, Erdogan had been expected to push Obama, at least in private, for more assertive action on Syria.

Listing actions he would take, Obama said he would increase pressure on the Syrian regime with diplomatic efforts and humanitarian aid, but notably did not include any military steps.

Israel is all too happy with the pair’s about-face.

A weakened Bashar al-Assad is preferable for Syria and the whole region, to a takeover by rebel forces increasingly ruled by Muslim extremists, Israeli officials said overnight.

“Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there,” a senior Israeli intelligence officer told The Times of London.

On Friday, Israel’s senior Defense Ministry official Maj.-Gen. (Res) Amos Gilad said in an interview with Israel Radio Assad is in total control of his country’s weapons systems and is acting sensibly with regard to Israel, seeking to calm escalating tensions between Jerusalem and Damascus following Israeli airstrikes earlier this month.

According to The Times of Israel English-language daily, Gilad stressed Israel is not striving to topple Assad’s regime, and recent IAF attacks on Iranian weapons shipments in Syria en route to Hezbollah are motivated by a desire and an obligation to defend Israel.

Brig.-Gen. Tamir Hyman, commander of the IDF division responsible for the Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan Heights, said Assad’s army “has not fallen apart” despite the two years of fighting, and its command structure was intact, adding Israel had “no interest” in one side prevailing over the other in the war.

In his column for the Beirut independent daily al-Nahar, Lebanese political analyst Rajeh el-Khoury today describes Obama as a Syria deserter.

According to Khoury:

The gist of Erdogan’s visit to Washington and his talks with Obama is that the United States won’t go it alone on Syria. Since other nations refuse to act except on the heels of America, the tragic crisis will remain widely open under the aegis of Russian intervention and Iranian meddling.

This means the race between warfare and efforts to convene Geneva-2 will drag on longer than many expect in view of the deep schism between an opposition that refuses to sit at the table with a “murderous” regime and a regime unwilling to negotiate with its “terrorist” opponents.

It’s not enough for Obama to say, “We're going to keep working for a Syria that is free from Assad's tyranny; that is intact and inclusive of all ethnic and religious groups; and that’s a source of stability, not extremism...”

The White House has been parroting this for over two years.

But the Obama Administration’s failure to translate the words into action left the field wide open for the Russians to buy time for the regime’s military and for the Iranians and Hezbollah to join the fray, leading the tragedy to where it is now.

In his new approach, Obama has explicitly surrendered American’s leadership role and disavowed all his previous positions and erased the “red lines” he drew on the use of chemical weapons.

“This is an international problem. It is very much my hope to continue to work with all the various parties involved, to find a solution that brings peace to Syria, stabilizes the region, stabilizes those chemical weapons," Obama said at his joint news conference with Erdogan.

"But it's not going to be something that the United States does by itself. I don't think anybody in the region would think that U.S. unilateral actions would bring about a better outcome in Syria," he added.

Obama’s words are not only an avowed relinquishment of America’s role. They give the Russia- and Iran-backed Assad regime the green light to keep up its military campaign and destroy Syria on the Syrians’ heads.

Isn’t Obama gibbering when he says with Erdogan by his side, “We’re going to keep increasing the pressure on the Assad regime and working with the Syrian opposition”?

“We both agree that Assad needs to go,” he added -- after 90,000 deaths?

Hearing such verbiage, you can construe the American president’s Syria policy has simply gone haywire.

Turkish bombings linked to Banias suspect

Mihraç Ural in Syria

The man I called five days ago “the ethnic cleanser of Banias” is emerging as the suspected mastermind of Saturday’s twin bombings in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, a main hub for Syrian refugees and opposition activity in Turkey's Hatay province, just across the border with Syria.

“A fugitive Turkish Alevi with Syrian citizenship and a checkered past has emerged as the chief instigator and overseer of last week’s massacres in Bayda and Banias. A native of Hatay Province in southern Turkey, his real name is Mihraç Ural,” I wrote in my May 8 post, “Syria: Enter the ethnic cleanser of Banias.”

Turkish authorities are holding nine Turkish citizens believed to have links to Syrian intelligence in connection with the two car bombs in Reyhanli that left 46 people dead and 100 injured.

Today, Turkish political analyst Murat Yetkin essentially writes about Ural’s role in his column for Hurriyet English-language daily:

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said during a live TV show yesterday, “Those who committed the Banias massacre are also responsible for these (Reyhanli) attacks.”

He was talking about a Syrian army operation supported by “المقاومة السورية” -- the “Syrian Resistance” -- against the Sunni population of the historical coastal town of Banias, killing hundreds of civilians, including children.

Davutoglu had denounced the operation as an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Sunnis by Assad, as a contingency plan to set up a rump Alawite state…

The point is there was somebody, technically still a Turkish citizen, Mihraç Ural, who was shown as the responsible party… There are videos of him available on YouTube as he speaks in Arabic and tries to incite militiamen around him to cleanse Banias of Sunnis as soon as possible.

The name is not alien to Turkish security circles.

Ural was among the founders of an armed leftist group dubbed “Acilciler” – the “hasty ones” – in the late 1970s and is responsible of a number of political murders, bank robberies and similar acts of terror.

The group had been denounced by other leftists as a tool of Syrian intelligence, and even mocked as the “Hatay liberation army” since some of its members were from Hatay and of Nusayri (Alawite) origin…

Ural’s name and organization were mentioned by Turkish security and media right after a similar car bomb attack at Cilvegözü border gate with Syria on Feb. 11, killing 13 people...

In Syria, where he commands “المقاومة السورية” (the “Syrian Resistance”) militia, a shabiha subdivision, Mihraç Ural goes by his Arabic nom de guerre: Ali at-Kayyali.

Ural left Turkey for Syria after the 12 September 1980 Turkish coup d'état, headed by Gen. Kenan Evren.

He is said to have introduced PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, in Damascus.

In his leader comment this morning, Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, also alludes to the Reyhanli-Banias connection.

Writing in Arabic about what he describes as “post-honeymoon bitterness,” Charbel says:

It is not child’s play for Ankara officials to say perpetrators of the deadly bombings in Reyhanli are Turkish citizens associated with Syrian intelligence.

It is not child’s play either to say some of the suspects were involved in the latest Banias massacre.

True, the fallout between the two countries is not new. Equally true, the wrangle has now acquired grave dimensions.

When a government accuses a neighboring state of being behind bombings on its territory, it commits itself to a response.

The response could have been a classical recourse to the UN Security Council, but Ankara is aware that Council’s door is firmly locked and strictly guarded by Russia.

Ankara is thus expected to seek a response surpassing a salvo of cross-border shells or a reminder underscoring its NATO credentials.

Recent months were replete with signs of the mushrooming estrangement between Ankara and Damascus.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not tired of asking Assad to step down. He has used tough words to describe his former friend. Ankara did not suffice with hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. It went further and assumed the mantle of the safe haven and stronghold of Assad’s enemies, including the Free Syrian Army.

Assad did not grin and bear his former friend either. He hosted Turkish opposition leaders and held Erdogan fully responsible for the rot. He addressed the Turkish public via the Turkish media to increase the pressure on Erdogan, denying him the chance to do the same. Syria’s state-run media unearthed old wordbooks to warn of the Ottomans getting astride Muslim Brotherhood horses to ride back and revive the caliphate. Syrian state media also revitalized the Iskenderun (Alexandretta) file, which has been dormant for decades.

The Reyhanli bombings’ timing elicited much scrutiny and a series of scripts.

The outrage came a few days after the U.S.-Russian agreement to hold an international conference for a political solution in Syria based on the June 2012 Geneva Declaration.

It also came after fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) started withdrawing from Turkey in keeping with the Erdogan-Ocalan agreement.

Incidentally, Erdogan’s deal with Abdullah Ocalan was a game-changer for Syria’s Kurds, turning them from a card up Damascus’ sleeve into an ace of trumps in Ankara’s hand.

The Reyhanli bombings also came in the week of Erdogan’s talks with President Barack Obama at the White House next Thursday.

Turkey-watchers believe the Reyhanli bombings will spur Erdogan to urge Obama to stop fudging and dithering and be more decisive on Syria. They believe Erdogan “considers Assad’s lingering in any part of Syria would seriously undermine Turkey’s stability and territorial integrity. And Ankara is prepared to bear the burden of safeguarding its stability and engaging further in the battle to remove Assad.”

The Turkish-Syrian honeymoon was drawn out.

Turkey hoped an “exemplary rapport” with Syria was its gateway to the Arab world and key to building bridges to the region.

Syria too was elated to reach out to a Sunni member of NATO. Damascus felt relations with Turkey compensated for its tiff with Saudi Arabia and Egypt and imagined Ankara becoming both its passageway and password.

The post-honeymoon bitterness followed.

Syria accuses Turkey of spewing out arms and rebels. Ankara accuses Damascus of trying to destabilize Turkey and undermine the unity of its social fabric. Ankara yearns for Syria without Assad while Assad dreams of Turkey without Erdogan. The Syrian information minister did not omit calling on Erdogan lately to step down.

But the game is more intricate.

Russia insists it is the door and latchkey to a solution. Iran does not lack the appetite to assume such a role despite its deep involvement.

Solving the Syria crisis is so difficult. The door is stuck shut and the small key is lost.

Erdogan will surely ask Obama to open the door and find the key, arguing that the once widespread treatment of wounds by cauterization is long overdue.

Syria takes its war to Turkey

Devastation in Reyhanli (Photos from the Turkish daily, Today's Zaman)

At least 40 people were killed and dozens injured this afternoon when two car bombs exploded in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, along Turkey’s southern border with Syria.

Interior Minister Muammer Güler told private NTV channel at least 100 people were injured, 29 of them critically.

He said the two car bombs went off near the town’s municipality and post offices.

The blasts came shortly after the Local Coordination Committees for Syria -- an opposition group -- reported that Damascus government forces had fired several shells toward Reyhanli, which is in Turkey's southern province of Hatay and hosts a large number of Syrian refugees.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking from Berlin, called the incident a “provocation,” saying, “There may be some powers who want to sabotage peace in Turkey.”

In initial comments, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “We have recently launched a settlement process [to address the conflict in the southeast] and those who cannot digest this new period and the atmosphere of freedom in our country can be involved in such attacks."

"Another sensitive issue,” he added, “is that Hatay province is on the border with Syria, these actions may have been taken to provoke those sensitivities.”

Erdogan said this week that Turkey would support a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone in Syria and warned that Damascus crossed President Barack Obama's "red line" on the use of chemical weapons long ago. 

Erdogan is due to meet Obama in Washington in five days’ time, on May 16. 

Turkey’s ruling AKP returns to its roots

Editorially, Turkey under Erdogan is the theme of Saudi author and analyst Jamal Khashoggi’s weekly column today for pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper.

He penned his think piece in Arabic after spending a few days in Ankara:

Raising his hands high in prayer, the old traditional Turkish way of beseeching God’s guidance, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç invited the group of Arab journalists he had addressed to recite al-Fatiha, the opening seven verses of the Quran.

The journalists were guests of the Prime Minister’s Press Office and Anadolu Agency in Ankara, where they spent a few days meeting ruling party officials and the premier’s close aides.

Arınç’s welcoming words were fervent and emotional.

“Come to us, we both share the same values and aspirations,” he said.

“Come to us,” he repeated while spelling out other reasons for Arab-Turkish cooperation. The words “Islam,” “Arab Spring” “dignity… justice… freedom” kept recurring as well before he made an oblique reference to Egypt’s Tahrir Square by saying, “We will all sit one day close by Tahrir Square.”

A renowned Arab author and former editor-in-chief looked at me and said with a smile on his face, “Does he think we’re all Muslim Brothers?”

“It’s their heydays; brace for the upcoming,” I let slip.

I did not see or hear members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) wax lyrical about Islamism as a form of identity politics as much as I did during my latest Turkey visit.

I watched their political ascent to power since Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan led his National Salvation Party and then Refah (Welfare) Party. The secular authorities repeatedly closed both down.

Erbakan passed away in 2001, months before the Islamic-leaning AKP was founded. It won the following year’s general election by a landslide and has never looked back since, bringing Turkey unprecedented stability, economic growth and prosperity.

Party leaders were previously cautious not to overplay their Islamic streaks. The “Deep State” was lying in wait for them.

Emrullah İşler, a party member of parliament who graduated from King Saud University in Riyadh and is fluent in Arabic, told me: “Five years ago (in mid-2008), in spite of the AKP having a parliamentary majority and an enviable economic record, the party staved off dissolution by not more than one Constitutional Court vote.”

İşler is confident this won’t happen again. The Old Guards in the judiciary, the army and the security services are out. “Our biggest achievement is to have built a democratic state,” he told me. “Each branch of the state is committed to its charge. The army is there to defend the nation. The judiciary is now apolitical. The government is governing. There are no more conspiracies.”

Furthermore, the Ergenekon trials of people long believed to have been pulling the strings of power are underway.

I looked at an Egyptian colleague, hoping he would have heard the conversation. What İşler said is what Egypt needs.

Turan Kışlakçı, head of the Press Office’s Arabic department, quotes Prime Minister Erdogan as saying, “We earned the competence – which means ‘rule’ in Turkish – five years back. Today, we’re competent.”

Is it so, or is it the Arab Spring?

Cemalettin Haşimi, a special advisor to the Prime Minister overseeing the Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), states clearly, “The AKP calls for change – not only in Turkey, but the region as a whole. The preceding Arab regimes could not have carried on. But reform and change depend on each state’s particular circumstances.”

Haşimi is close to intellectuals and political activists in the region and to political parties appreciative of the AKP.

He is a fervent advocate of reform changes and believes the Arab world is Turkey’s purview and vice versa.

“Like you,” he said, “Turkey has had its Arab Spring in 2002,” the year the AKP came to office.

“We believe in reform changes throughout the Islamic world,” he added. “We’ve been waiting for this moment for a hundred years. We’ve been left lagging behind for a full century. And it’s time for geography to reconnect with history.

“We can’t accept an inequitable world order, or to be dictated agendas or courses by the West. We need to set our own.”

Beşir Atalay, also a deputy prime minister, was irked when an Arab researcher talked of a planned Turkish-Israeli-American alliance, given the Israeli prime minister’s ice-breaking phone call to Erdogan, which was brokered by Obama.

“It is sad to hear such a question.” Atalay said. “We can’t build, under Prime Minister Erdogan, an alliance with Israel independently of our Arab and Muslim allies.”

It seems a different and strong Turkey is heading our way, one that has just zeroed out her debt to the International Monetary Fund.

She believes in change in the Arab world, which she divides into two groups – one where she feels accountable for change and another she classifies states according to their respective economic weight and political clout.

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.”