The Kurds stand to gain an independent Kurdish state out of the turmoil in that region that might be established along the northern Syrian and Iraqi border if those countries were to breakup seeing as how the Kurds have gained control of large areas in that area of Syria due to the civil war there, and also control Iraqi Kurdistan as an autonomous region and have the military might to defend it.
@InfraBlue,
And finally the Middle East will have a nation that the political boundaries will make sense historically and ethnically without first world bumbling interference. In the end Turkey will go along.
@InfraBlue,
I suspect that if the situation deteriorated that much, Turkey would intervene. They don't want to see an independent Kurdistan.
@Setanta,
I don't think we'll see an independent Kurdistan, but perhaps the
autonomous Kudistan will now include Kirkuk.
@George,
George wrote:
I don't think we'll see an independent Kurdistan, but perhaps the
autonomous Kudistan will now include Kirkuk.
Kirkuk is the capital, the Kurds have already said so.
The bigger story here is that after many years of Western governments disrespecting national boarders when ever doing so suits their immediate goals the borders of nation states continually have less relevance. This has huge consequences, because the global economic and legal systems assume that functioning nation states exist.
@George,
The Turks invaded Iraq in 2008 and 20aa precisely because the Kurds were operating as a semi-autonomous region, and amassing a large military force. Do a web search for "Turkish troops invade Iraq." There's lots of information on it.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
The Turks invaded Iraq in 2008 and 20aa precisely because the Kurds were operating as a semi-autonomous region, and amassing a large military force. Do a web search for "Turkish troops invade Iraq." There's lots of information on it.
Turkey is swamped with problems, they are in no position to take on the Kurds. The kurds have the most competent ( though not best equipped certainly) military force in the region, which should tell you how much Turk opposition matters.
@hawkeye10,
God you're a f*cking idiot. Have you ever head of the PKK? Do you know what the Turks consider to be in their best military inter3st? You just shoot your mouth off all the time without knowing a goddamned thing about the situation.
@Setanta,
Quote:It has been almost a week since Kurdish paramilitary forces took control of the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk amidst Iraq's civil war between Sunni rebels and largely Shiite government forces, and now another group has joined the conflict—Iraqi Turkmen in Kirkuk.
The president of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, Arshad al-Salihi, announced on Monday that Turkmen militia forces have been mobilized to take up arms against jihadists and “to fight back” if Kurdish Peshmerga forces fail to return Kirkuk to the Iraqi government.
But the Kurdish Regional Government has no intention of relinquishing Kirkuk, an oil-rich city that has long been the center of dispute between the KRG and the Iraqi government. KRG’s parliamentary speaker Yousif Mohammed Sadiq told the The Telegraph that seizing Kirkuk was justified and the secretary-general of the Kurdish security forces Jabber Yawar dismissed ITF's declaration as "media propaganda."
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/06/18/turkmen_in_iraq_group_says_it_could_join_conflict.html
Nobody can agree how many Iraqi's claim to be Turkman but most say less than 5%, they have never had any power, and they have little history of being organized (plus they are both Sunni and Shia)....they will have nothing to say about how Iraq partitions itself.
@Setanta,
Quote:Do you know what the Turks consider to be in their best military inter3st?
Where did you learn how to read? What I said was that what the Turks want does not matter. They have not even been able to control their own border with Syria. The Turks have so many serious problems that they dont have the energy to do anything about the Kurds even if they wanted to do so.
Which has what to do with your bullshit claim about the prowess of the Kurds militarily, especially with respect to the Turks? This is classic Whackeye. You rush off to do a web search, but are too inept to actually find something relevant. In the Spring of 2013, the Turks and the PKK concluded a cease fire. There was a lot of Kurdish bluster, but basically, the PKK agreed to withdraw from Turkey into northern Iraq. This they did, although there may be a thousand or fifteen hundred PKK fighters still in Turkey. Now the PKK are accusing Turkey of waging a proxy war on the Kurds through rebel groups in Syria. Once again, it's largely hot air, saber-rattling bluster. The Turks consider the PKK the most proximate threat to their national security. They've invaded Iraq before over this issue, and i'll bet they'll od it again if they feel it is necessary.
@hawkeye10,
hawkeye10 wrote:The Turks have so many serious problems that they dont have the energy to do anything about the Kurds even if they wanted to do so.
You mean all what was written - and done - about the Turkey–PKK conflict is fake?
@Setanta,
They would if it would bring an arrangement between Turks and Kurds and if it offered a buffer state between Turkey and fundamentalism to the south of Turkey.
@bobsal u1553115,
Their main interest will be to keep the PKK weak and ineffective in Turkey. If the Kurds look like setting up an autonomous state which will threaten their territorial integrity by supporting the PKK, i think they'll take military action.
@Setanta,
Quote: In a statement that could have a dramatic impact on regional politics in the Middle East, a spokesman for Turkey's ruling party recently told a Kurdish media outlet that the Kurds in Iraq have the right to self-determination. The statement has been relatively overlooked so far, but could signal a shift in policy as Turkey has long been a principal opponent of Kurdish independence, which would mean a partitioning of Iraq.
"The Kurds of Iraq can decide for themselves the name and type of the entity they are living in," Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for the Justice and Development Party, told the Kurdish online news outlet Rudaw last week.
The Kurds have been effectively autonomous since 1991, when the U.S. established a no-fly zone over northern Iraq. Turkey, a strong U.S. ally, has long opposed the creation of an independent Kurdistan so that its own eastern region would not be swallowed into it. But Celik's statement indicates that the country may be starting to view an autonomous Kurdistan as a viable option -- a sort of bulwark against spreading extremism within a deeply unstable country.
"The Kurds, like any other nation, will have the right to decide their fate," Celik told Rudaw, in a story that was picked up by CNN's Turkish-language outlet. "Turkey has been supporting the Kurdistan region till now and will continue this support."
Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan have recently forged a strong bond over oil, much to the chagrin of Iraq, which claims that Baghdad has sole authority over oil in Kurdistan. Turkey recently signed a 50-year energy deal with Iraqi Kurdistan’s semi-autonomous government to export Kurdish oil to the north, and Kurdistan has increased its exports this week despite the insurgency by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/17/turkey-kurdistan_n_5504309.html
By necessity, but the Kurds now having lots of oil to sell does help the medicine go down.
@hawkeye10,
Quote:KRG’s ambitions are currently enhanced by the occupation on June 10 of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, by ISIS, a Sunni jihadist organisation affiliated until recently with Al Qaeda.
KRG has used ISIS’s aggression as a justification to annex Kirkuk, in order to spare it from jihadist rule. As the central Iraqi government is weak and its army in decomposition, it is unlikely that KRG will ever return Kirkuk to its former status.
According to experts in the fossil energy industry, the combined revenues from its own and Kirkuk’s oil production would endow KRG with enough financial resources to survive as an independent state. Political analysts in the region already speculate that in such a scenario, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel may eventually support the creation of a stand-alone Kurdistan, granting it legitimacy and status.
An outcome of this kind bears high probability that Turkish, Iranian and Syrian ethnic Kurds will be tempted to join their cousins of northern Iraq and get a taste of the prosperity that comes with petro-dollars, although KRG leaders will most likely temporarily dissuade such a rush to transnational independence movements in their region.
KRG needs Turkey at present, and may need Syria in the future, for its oil exports and economic viability.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/06/turkeys-kurdish-problem-likely-worsen-isis-gains-iraq/
Sounds right, the Iraqi Kurds have little reason to support the PKK's goals in Turkey. Turkey is beset with problems and a strong cooperative Turkey is in the Iraqi Kurds interest so the Iraqis will help unify Turkey . THe KRG are the kurds with all of the money, with the government skills, with the military.....it should not be too much trouble to get the Turkish Kurds to settle down. What we see here is that the Kurds of Iraq are huge winners, not only do they get oil and their own part of Iraq (or the former Iraq), but they get a strong influence inside of Turkey as well. Having the military also means that the Kurd to some extent get to play king maker in the war between the Sunnis and the Shia.
LIFE IS GOOD!
Right, and so long as the PKK doesn't threaten Turkey's territorial integrity, and the Kurds in Iraq do not support PKK military action in Turkey, everything will be hunky-dory. It's amazing what you can learn by rushing around the internet trying to pretend that you're wise and well-informed.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
Right, and so long as the PKK doesn't threaten Turkey's territorial integrity, and the Kurds in Iraq do not support PKK military action in Turkey, everything will be hunky-dory. It's amazing what you can learn by rushing around the internet trying to pretend that you're wise and well-informed.
The PKK will become irrelevant as the Kurds in Turkey see that the most profit will come from cooperating with the relatives who have all of the money and power...the Iraq kurds. Without public support the PKK does not exist.
