Turkey’s drive against Kurds: and now talks?

Over the last few months, Turkey has stepped up its attacks into Iraqi Kurdistan, but a new report from Al-Monitor suggests peace talks could be on the cards.

Turkey has been conducting raids into Iraqi Kurdistan for decades, ostensibly limited to anti-terror operations to root out the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), the Kurdish nationalist militia. The recent escalation has seen Turkey deploy infantry and tanks, and set up checkpoints. They have killed a number of civilians in bombings and raids, and displaced thousands of people.

Ostensibly, Turkey wants to create a “30-40km security corridor” to separate Turkey from Iraq and Syria. This should be seen as code for a Turkish-occupied zone. In 2019 a buffer zone was agreed between the USA, Turkey, and the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces — the military of Rojava, the Kurdish-controlled region in north and eastern Syria which is linked to the PKK). Shortly after this Donald Trump withdrew US forces from Syria, and Turkey invaded this area, adding to its existing territory in northern Syria. The Turkish government rules alongside allied Islamist militias, and has since attempted to resettle parts of its large Syrian refugee population in the area, prioritising Arab refugees in order to make the area “less Kurdish”.

Both the central government in Iraq and Masoud Barzani’s KRG (the Kurdistan Regional Government, which rules over Iraqi Kurdistan as an autonomous region of Iraq) have stayed largely quiet about the invasion into Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey and Iraq are engaged in a large-scale infrastructure project along with Qatar and the UAE, the “Development Road”. This is a $17 billion dollar attempt to build rail and road links between Basra on the Persian Gulf and Mersin, a Turkish city on the Mediterannean. After a state visit from Erdoğan the Iraqi government banned the PKK in a sop to Turkey.

After visiting Baghdad in April this year, Erdoğan also went to Erbil, the capital of the KRG. The Turkish government has long enjoyed relatively friendly relations with Barzani, at least economically: until last year, the KRG exported oil to Turkey without the agreement of the Iraqi central government. It is unclear to what extent the KRG, and their military force the Peshmerga, have collaborated in the invasion.

Speculation

Much of the speculation about peace talks comes after the Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far right MHP (National Movement Party) linked to the Grey Wolves, shook hands with Kurdish deputies from the DEM Party (the successor to the HDP) at the opening of parliament.

In addition to this, according to the Al-Monitor report, Turkey recently allowed jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to communicate with the PKK leadership in Iraqi Kurdistan. He supposedly told them “it was time to discuss laying down their arms”. Öcalan’s involvement in these discussions should not be mistaken as a shocking new development.

Since his capture in 1999 he has variously been used as an interlocutor in discussions between the Turkish state and the PKK, such as in the 2013 peace talks: in 2015, the PKK stated that any decision to lay down their arms is neither Öcalan’s nor the HDP’s to make.

Why is this happening now? Turkey is worried about increasing instability in the Middle East, vocally about Iran’s and Israel’s supposed actions against Turkey. They accuse Iran of secret arrangements with the PKK on the Iranian-Iraqi border, and Erdoğan has claimed that after Lebanon Israel will target Turkey. Perhaps more importantly, Erdoğan’s presidential term limit will come to an end in 2028 as things stand, and it is likely that he will seek to extend this: previous large electoral wins for the AKP have often relied on its sporadic Kurdish support.

As things stand, any peace talks will be on the terms of the Turkish state, which has continually proved itself an existential enemy of Kurdish self-determination and safety in the region.

Within Turkey itself, the state has continued to repress Kurdish society. Both a demonstration in the majority-Kurdish city Diyarbakır in defence of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, and screenings of the Kurdish-language film Rojbash have been banned.

DEM Party activists and politicians are still being harassed and arrested. Recent police raids targeted their party officials in Iğdır. It is common practice to depose local elected officials based on “terror links”, as happened to the mayor of Hakkarî shortly after his election earlier this year.

There has been overwhelming international silence on Turkey’s invasion into Northern Iraq. We have republished online the statement by the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, who demand that Turkey stop shelling, withdraw from Iraqi Kurdistan, and compensate those affected by the invasion.