Neck of the woods

“Everything I do seems to make me think of you.
Why I dream of you every night,
Why I seem to like you,
I will never know.
All I really know is that you are a bit strange at times.
Other times you are nice.
You are my turkish delight……..” Turkish Delight (Linger City)

“When the Bush administration sought permission to transit its Iraq invasion troops through Turkish territory in early 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara’s soon-to-be installed prime minister and his Justice and Development party (AKP) bluntly refused. Their bold defiance of America’s will won plaudits around the Arab world, not least from Syria……….. with the prospect of a bilateral or regional conflict inching closer following Syria’s shooting down of a Turkish military plane, Erdogan has swiftly changed his tune. Unwilling to take on Assad by himself, Erdogan turned to the US and Nato for support this week. So much for Turkey’s much discussed “strategic realignment”…….. But Erdogan’s vow to target Syrian military formations should they approach their shared border, support opposition forces “at any cost”, and do all he can to bring down the Assad dynasty, barely disguises the weakness of Turkey’s position. Ankara’s twin priorities are both domestic in nature: modernisation and economic growth. Turkey does not want, and cannot afford, a war along its southern border that would jeopardise these aims, further destabilise the Kurdish regions, and seriously compromise its broader regional interests……………”


Whatever happens in Syria now, the Kurds are winners. The Kurds have already won concessions from both the repressive chauvinistic Baathist regime and from the ‘opposition’. The Baath has been forced to recognize the long-denied Kurdish basic rights: both Iraqi and Syrian branches of the Baath Party have been historically chauvinistic, probably influenced by the Nazism and Fascism of Europe where Aflaq and Bitar studied. The opposition has chosen a Kurd as the new head of the Syrian National Council.  He is now the most prominent Kurd since Khaled Bikdash led the Communist Party, but this does not disprove that he is a figurehead. A Kurd is much more reassuring to the outside world and to Syria’s worried minorities than some wild Salafi or suspected Muslim brother.

A Kurd is also problematic for Turkey. The Turks prefer calling their own Kurds “Mountain Turks”. Cute, but not convincing, least of all for the Kurds. They also restricted the use of the Kurdish language in education (and in official media). The Turks have long faced a rebellion in their Kurdish region, and their rapprochement with the Iraqi Kurds will not solve that: the solution has to be inside Turkey.


Cheers
mhg
[email protected]