In 1991 the Ukraine became an independent country and Ukrainians ceased to be the largest ethnic group in the world without a state of their own. That unhappy distinction then passed to the Kurds, some 25-30 million people, who are currently spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
Yet 1991 was not a year devoid of hope for the Kurds. After their failed uprising against Saddam Hussein, the Kurds of Iraq were given a degree of protection by the USA and Britain. This allowed Iraqi Kurdistan to achieve a semi-independent status. After the Kurdish assistance to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was recognised as a legitimate authority within the country by the 2005 Iraqi constitution.
Kurds have achieved a semi-autonomous status within Iraq, so why has such success brought almost 150,000 Turkish troops to the borders of Iraq with the apparent intention of invading Iraqi Kurdistan?
The majority of the world's Kurds live in south-east Turkey and make up around twenty per cent of that country's population. Since the republic of Turkey was established in 1923, its rulers have always acted ruthlessly to suppress any separatist tendencies among Turkish Kurds. Apart from participation in the Korean War (1950-53) and invading Cyprus in 1974, the combat experience of the Turkish army since 1923 has largely consisted of crushing Kurdish uprisings.
The most recent outbreak began in 1984 and was organised by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). During the 1990s Turkish troops carried out a number of incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan aimed at destroying PKK bases. However, it was only after the capture of the organisation's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1999 that PKK activities in Turkey began to decline.
In recent years a revived PKK has once again become active in south-east Turkey. The Turkish army is now apparently preparing to return to its 1990s strategy of launching incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan to attack PKK bases. However, there is now talk of Turkey establishing a buffer zone on Iraqi soil to keep PKK forces away from the Kurdish areas of Turkey. Given the long, bloody and unhappy history of Israel's anti-terrorist buffer zone in southern Lebanon from 1978 to 2000, this does not seem a good idea.
However, Turkish nationalists are increasingly alarmed by the growing independence of the KRG in Iraq and the example it sets for the Kurds of Turkey. If the promised referendum in Kirkuk before the end of 2007 brings that city and its neighbouring oil fields into the area under KRG control, Iraqi Kurdistan will have great wealth as well as semi-independence. Some Turkish generals have already made it clear that if the KRG's military forces resist their operations against the PKK, they will be hapy to crush those forces as well.
Although most Iraqi Kurds are ready to put aside dreams of complete independence for the moment, Turkish fears of such dreams may well compel them to undertake an unwise military adventure in Iraq that can only further destabilise the region, seriously damage Turkish relations with the USA, and probably extinguish Turkish hopes of EU membership.
The re-election of the Justice and Development (AK) party government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey's July general election may have done something to reduce the likelihood of a Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The AK party has won support in the Kurdish areas of south-east Tukey; it seems ready to co-operate with the Kurdish deputies in the new parliament; and it has opened negotiations with the Baghdad government in hopes of finding a diplomatic solution to the problem of PKK bases in Iraq.
Nevertheless the large Turkish army assembled on Iraq's northern border cannot be maintained there indefinitely. If there is no sign of a real settlement that will end PKK attacks from Iraq, the Turkish generals may force the AK government to approve an attack before the onset of winter ends the prospect of large-scale military operations in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan this year.
