2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey
2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey
2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey
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42<br />
Svante E. Cornell and Halil Magnus Karaveli<br />
northern Iraq a sanctuary and Syrian support was forthcoming; it faded into<br />
irrelevance in the early 2000s as Ankara pressured Syria to withdraw support<br />
and the Turkish military set up security zones inside Iraq. It emerged with<br />
force again in 2004, when the American occupation of Iraq made northern<br />
Iraq quasi-independent, and as America’s troubles in the rest of Iraq<br />
precluded it from targeting the PKK directly, unwilling to risk the stability in<br />
the only calm region of the country. But in 2007, the success of the surge<br />
allowed Washington to permit <strong>Turkey</strong> to again target PKK bases in northern<br />
Iraq, decimating the PKK.<br />
Yet it is a fact that the past fifteen years have seen the emergence of a de facto<br />
Kurdish state in northern Iraq. While it is nominally part of Iraq, and while<br />
Kurds exercise an important influence over Iraqi politics writ large, it<br />
remains the case that northern Iraq as an autonomous Kurdish political<br />
entity is a reality that is unlikely to disappear. Quite to the contrary, this<br />
political reality is only likely to strengthen in the coming decade, whether<br />
within the context of a federal Iraq, or even more pointedly in the case of a<br />
dissolution of Iraq. This political reality has exercised a double political<br />
impact on <strong>Turkey</strong>. First, it provided the PKK – at least until 2007 – with a<br />
sanctuary, something that made the prospect of a rapprochement between<br />
Ankara and the Kurdish Regional Government in Erbil decidedly more<br />
difficult. To <strong>Turkey</strong>, it indicated that the Iraqi Kurdish leadership was not a<br />
partner, but instead opportunistically allowed the PKK to weaken <strong>Turkey</strong><br />
while the U.S. was unwilling or unable to intervene. Secondly, and perhaps<br />
more importantly, it inspired a revival of Kurdish nationalism inside <strong>Turkey</strong>.<br />
The emergence of a Kurdish political entity under the name of Kurdistan,<br />
replete with a flag and national anthem, provide exactly the symbolism that<br />
<strong>Turkey</strong> long but unsuccessfully sought to avoid. This reality implies that<br />
Kurdish nationalism in <strong>Turkey</strong> will remain a force to be reckoned with.<br />
However, the Islamic conservatives have manifested a certain capability to<br />
steer the Kurds away from Kurdish nationalism. In the 2007 elections, the<br />
AKP succeeded in effectively marginalizing the Kurdish nationalist<br />
Democratic Society Party in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern areas.<br />
Abdullah Gül had indeed declared that “there is a convergence between the