Vol. 73/No. 31      August 17, 2009

U.S. secretary of defense Robert Gates met with KRG president Massoud Barzani, among others, to discuss Washington’s concerns during his trip to Iraq in late July. The main disputed questions are the scope of Kurdish autonomy; the KRG boundaries, particularly control over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk; and division of oil revenues.

The Kurds are an oppressed nationality of some 25-30 million people who have long resided in an area often referred to as Kurdistan that spans parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

In a 96-1 vote, the Kurdish parliament passed a draft regional constitution June 24 laying claim to disputed territories, including Kirkuk. Since 2007 the Iraqi government has repeatedly postponed a referendum on the city’s status.

Geoff Morrell, Gates’s chief spokesman, said the defense secretary has endorsed an April UN report that outlines a number of possible compromises, including a call for a power-sharing solution for the city’s status. In response to growing tensions earlier this year, Washington increased its forces in Kirkuk from about 900 to 3,200 troops.

The U.S. rulers are concerned that an escalating conflict on these issues would destabilize Iraq and threaten Washington’s interests in the region.

The conflict over Kurdish control of land and resources is “probably our No. 1 driver of instability,” Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said July 28.

Tense standoffs between Iraq’s Kurdish and Arab troops in the disputed areas along the KRG border underscore the volatility of the conflict. Last month about 2,000 Kurdish Pesh Merga troops faced off with an Arab-led Iraqi army unit for 24 hours when the Arab forces approached the disputed and predominantly Kurdish town of Makhmur. The standoff ended when U.S. military officials convinced Baghdad to divert its Arab troops from the area.

The Pesh Merga, a militia force that fought the Baath regime of Saddam Hussein, numbering about 80,000, is officially part of the Iraqi army, but function as units loyal to the KRG.

About half of the Kurdish people live in Turkey, where they have been subjected to systematic discrimination and violent repression by the government. They face the highest rates of illiteracy and poverty in that country.

In 1984 the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Maoist group, opened armed struggle against the Turkish government, which responded with ferocity against the Kurdish population. More than 44,000 people were killed over two decades and the PKK was forced to retreat to northern Iraq.

The Turkish military, with U.S.-provided intelligence, has been on a bombing campaign targeting PKK forces in Kurdish areas along Iraq’s northern border since December 2007. The PKK is estimated to have about 5,000 members in Iraq.

While maintaining its war against the PKK and its determination to marginalize any struggle for Kurdish autonomy, the Turkish government, led by the Justice and Development Party, has eased up some of its repressive measures in the country and sought greater cooperation with the KRG.

Earlier this year, the Turkish government allowed the launching of a Kurdish television channel.

The Turkish government is touting its new approach to the Kurds as a “democratic opening.” Changes under discussion include: an end to charging and jailing minors as “terrorist” for chanting illegal slogans or throwing rocks at police; reinstating Kurdish names of villages and ending laws against use of Kurdish names in general; allowing Kurdish cultural performances by local and regional artists that promote “peace and friendship”; allowing the teaching of the Kurdish language in schools; and allowing candidates to campaign in Kurdish.

The government has ruled out granting amnesty to Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s central leader, who has been imprisoned since 1999. At the same time, Ankara will consider reviewing the incarceration of PKK members who were not involved in armed attacks and pardoning rank-and-file PKK members who desert the group and have not taken part in any military operations.

Barzani pointed to the moves as a positive step to weaken the PKK.

Meanwhile, recent elections in Iraqi Kurdistan reveal a loosening of the grip of the two ruling bourgeois parties—the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The Change List, a split from the PUK, took nearly a quarter of the parliamentary seats in a campaign that criticized clan nepotism and a lack of services.
 
 
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