Turkey Should Take Lessons From Iraqi Kurdistan Experience

[Aslan]

Should I say “déjà vu,” like the French? Or ask the question in our own street language: “Haven’t we seen this movie before?” I couldn’t decide.

I just can’t make sense of the recent clashes on the Syrian border and the reactions of our government. I feel like we have rewound the movie to the beginning of the reel.
On our border with Syria, there are heavy clashes between Jabhat al-Nusra and the PYD. Let’s name the actors openly:

Jabhat al-Nusra is a jihadist-Salafist outfit affiliated with al-Qaeda fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s troops with mostly imported fighters.

The PYD, or Democratic Union Party, is a well-organized, armed organization made up of mostly of Syrian Kurds who are not fighting Assad openly. The PYD appears to have gained control over many parts of the 900-km (560-mile) Turkish-Syrian border.

Turkey is reacting for two reasons: First, are we becoming neighbors with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is also on the Syrian border, after Iraq? Second, is there a Kurdish state emerging in northern Syria?

Then you start wondering if you have been through all this before. But, of course. Not once, but twice.
For years, Turkey lived with the fear of a Kurdish state arising in northern Iraq. We even declared Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani an enemy because of the PKK. We had military commanders who proposed sending F-16s over Barzani’s residence.

Finally, the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP) government refined this foreign policy based on fear and paranoia, and developed a wiser policy toward the Barzani administration. An independent state of Kurdistan in Iraq was not established. This was not because Turkey opposed it, but because it was not realistic. Remember also Turkey did not want the creation of a Kurdistan Regional Government, but it is there.

In our official correspondence we didn’t say “Northern Iraq,” but wrote “north of Iraq.” So what happened? Because we stuck our heads in the sand did Iraqi Kurdistan evaporate?

Iraqi Kurdistan became the strongest ally of Turkey politically and commercially. That wasn’t because Barzani changed, but because Turkey had abandoned its fear-laden policies. After living through all that in northern Iraq and seeing how our government is reacting to what is going on Syria, what else can you say except “déjà vu”?

And that is after Turkey reacted along the same lines last year, when the PYD made a deal with Assad and took control over many towns. Isn’t that why we rushed ahead with the solution process with the PKK? I truly have problems comprehending this. What is Turkey’s priority in Syria? The answer is: to get rid of the Assad regime.

In that case, why is Turkey — with its fear of the PKK — pushing Jabhat al-Nusra to confront the PYD, instead of forming alliances against Assad with Syrian Kurds, including the PYD? Didn’t the Syrian developments play a part in encouraging PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to start the solution process last year? Isn’t this why our government dumped the strategy of “separating from the Kurds,” and adopted the strategy of “growing with the Kurds”?

If so, why didn’t Turkey bring the Syrian Kurds alongside it against Assad, knowing how his regime had denied the existence of Syrian Kurds, who have always looked at Turkey with sympathy?
As I said, I still can’t understand why Turkey has reverted to past policies of fear. I could have understood it if I didn’t know what we lived through in Iraq and if the solution process had not begun.
But we have already watched this horror movie twice before. Why are we watching it for the third time? Does anyone know?