Turkey and Iraq take a step at a
time Robert M Cutler
MONTREAL - After eight days, Turkey this
month ended its ground operation in the Kurdish
territory in northern Iraq without achieving its
stated goal of uprooting the Kurdish Workers'
Party (PKK) presence. However, the professional
military in Turkey must have known how difficult
that would be; more likely, they agreed with
politicians' wish to use force to focus others'
attention on the issue.
Turkish
politicians and the military would have agreed
that only this sort of action would insure that
the others in the region would always include the
possibility of Turkey's repeating such operations
in their calculations. The purpose of the
operation was to demonstrate the willingness to
undertake the operation. In this it succeeded,
ending very soon after Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani
decided
to go to Ankara.
Thus, Turkey is trying to
start negotiations with Baghdad, which has little
authority in the north of Iraq, where the Kurdish
administration nevertheless has no intention to
complicate Turkey's situation. However, Turkey
will not solve these issues directly with the
leaders of the Kurdish administration in the north
before the president of Iraq invites these leaders
to take responsibility for solving these
questions.
Turkey is unlikely to be
comfortable cooperating with the Kurdish
administration in the north of Iraq as long as the
latter's legal infrastructure is incomplete. It is
necessary to define comprehensively the regional
authority's responsibilities, implement
successfully the juridical means for assuming
those responsibilities, and execute the resulting
legal obligations.
Take, for example, the
question of oil exports. Beyond the present
exports from northern Iraq through Turkey, for
which the status has previously been established,
it is impossible to know the legal basis for
future possibilities, when the referendum on the
status of the Kirkuk region has not yet been held.
That is because business requires a stable
financial environment and legal framework; but
today there is no authoritative definition of the
rights and responsibilities of any participants on
the Iraqi side in any possible negotiations.
The referendum on the status of oil-rich
Kirkuk - whether it should be included in the
Kurdish semi-autonomous region - is the best-known
part of the puzzle that needs to be completed, but
also it is only an example of the type of matter
that needs to be settled. Clearly, these issues
will not be settled overnight. On the other hand,
joint national-regional delegations on both the
Iraqi and the Turkish sides may be created to take
small steps for cross-border cooperation.
This would help to build confidence,
leading to deeper mutual understanding and bigger
steps on more important issues. A step-by-step
approach leading to the gradual reduction of
tension and accompanied by practical joint
cooperation on non-controversial common actions,
however small, will lead, on the basis of mutual
confidence-building, from violent to non-violent
means for conflict management, then to conflict
reduction, and finally to conflict resolution.
Indeed, without reference to border
problems, "sister-city" cooperation is also a
possibility provided proper partners can be found
on both sides. The potential for such cooperation
in building goodwill among the public should not
be underestimated. Also, this type of cooperation
may even in some ways be easier at the present
moment, since it would represent a voluntary
association of a civil-society type between two
municipalities. Consequently, it would not depend
on clarifications concerning national sovereignty
or international law.
The experience of
the past 20 years in other regions of the world
suggests that, in the Kurdish region in the north
or Iraq, three general positive measures would be
strengthening order and arms control,
strengthening local self-government, and
implementing multi-ethnic political coalitions
while reducing ethnic disparities. If the Kurdish
administration in the north of Iraq were to
implement such measures successfully, then any
honorable neighbor should feel challenged to
demonstrate similar capacities.
Finally,
there arises the question of Turkey's role as a
power in the region, in relation to the question
of proposed Turkish membership in the European
Union. Turkey's membership in the EU at some time
in the indefinite future would by no means exclude
Turkey from playing such a leading role in the
nearby region.
Already there is an
informal division of labor within the EU, where
the cultural and historical traditions of
different members already lead them to be
concerned with one or another regional or global
neighborhood. As an organization, the EU welcomes
this differentiation, because it enhances the EU's
capacities as an actor in international politics.
Even if Turkey does not join the EU in the
long run, there would still be the potential for a
strategic partnership between the EU and Turkey on
such international matters of common interest. A
special concern is the fact that if Turkey becomes
a member of the EU, then Turkey's border with Iraq
becomes an external border of the EU. The question
of the security of this border would become
correspondingly more important to many more
numerous governments than is the case today.
Dr
Robert M Cutleris senior research fellow,
Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian
Studies, Carleton University, Canada.
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