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71. Preventing Conflict Over Kurdistan

Author:
Henri J. Barkey
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The consequences of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq will doubtless be debated for years to come. One result, however, is already clear: the long suppressed nationalist aspirations of the Kurdish people now dispersed across four states—Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria—have been aroused, perhaps irrevocably, by the war. Already in Iraq, Kurdish regions, which have benefited from Saddam Hussein's overthrow, have consolidated themselves into a federal region. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is a reality and a force for further Kurdish empowerment as it seeks to incorporate other Kurdish-majority areas and the oil-rich Kirkuk province in particular into its domain. The KRG's existence and demands have already alarmed all of Iraq's neighbors and the Baghdad government. The issues are far from being settled. If ignored or badly handled, Kurdish aspirations have the potential to cause considerable instability and violence in Iraq and beyond at a particularly delicate time.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Nationalism, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, and Kurdistan

72. PolicyWatch #1346: A Mutual Enemy: U.S.-Turkish-Iraqi Cooperation against the PKK

Author:
Abdulkadir Onay and Soner Cagaptay
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On February 21, Turkish ground forces crossed the Iraqi border in an attempt to dismantle Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorist camps, following weeks of periodic aerial bombardment that began in mid-December. The incursion was partly the product of a November 5 agreement between Turkey and the United States to share intelligence in fighting the PKK, a group that the U.S. State Department has designated a foreign terrorist organization. On February 22, the White House backed the operation: "The United States agrees with Turkey that the PKK is a terrorist organization, and . . . an enemy of Turkey, Iraq, and the United States."
Topic:
Terrorism and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, and Kurdistan

73. The AKP and the Kurdish Issue: What Went Wrong?

Author:
Rabia Karakaya Polat
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
In the parliamentary elections of July 22, 2007, AKP (Justice and Development Party) won 47% of the votes, obtaining a very strong mandate to take issue with Turkey's outstanding problems. In the predominantly Kurdish east and southeast region, the AKP doubled its vote from 26% to 53%. The AKP seemed to have persuaded the Kurds thanks to the party's earlier moves to solve the Kurdish problem by granting more rights and freedoms as well as jobs and economic prosperity. Having started the negotiation process with the EU and obtaining such a strong mandate from the Kurdish voters, why did the AKP turn its back to the Kurdish issue? This can be explained with reference to three groups of factors working at the domestic, the EU and international levels.
Topic:
Political Economy and Politics
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Kurdistan

74. The AKP Catalyst: Progressive Islamists and Ambitious Kurds

Author:
Michael M. Gunter
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
The newly elected AK Party looks to cement its authority over the Turkish Military and its Kurdish citizens through progressive reforms and EU membership.
Topic:
Civil Society, Globalization, Government, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Turkey and Kurdistan

75. 2008 Hate Crime Survey

Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
European and North American governments are failing to keep pace with a wave of violent hate crime that continues to rise across the region. Racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, anti-Muslim and anti-Roma hatred, religious intolerance, homophobia: the list of biases that fuel these crimes is a long one. Attacks range from lethal assaults to threats and harassment to vandalism and desecration of religious and community property. The perpetrators are individuals acting alone, or in concert with neighbors, coworkers, and fellow students, as well as loosely-knit or more organized groups that share ideologies of hatred and act on them. The violence can ruin lives, or end them. It can terrorize whole communities, driving away vulnerable minorities or forcing them to stay out of sight. Violent hate crime, especially when the official response to it is weak or nonexistent, also attacks the society at large, undermining the very notions of equality and the equal protection of the law.
Topic:
Crime, Sociology, and Culture
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, and Kurdistan

76. PolicyWatch #1275: Iraqi Kurds and the Turkish-Iraqi Memorandum against the PKK

Author:
Soner Cagaptay and H. Akin Unver
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On August 7, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Ankara against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Although the PKK, based in northern Iraq, is on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, lack of action against the group by Washington and Baghdad is poisoning Turkey's relations with both. Moreover, because the group operates from an area of Iraq controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the PKK issue affects Turkey's ties with Iraqi Kurds as well. Does the MOU represent a breakthrough on any of these fronts?
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Turkey, Middle East, and Kurdistan

77. PolicyWatch #1244: The PKK, PJAK, and Iran: Implications for U.S.-Turkish Relations

Author:
Soner Cagaptay and Zeynep Eroglu
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On June 8, a day after reports that Turkish troops had crossed into northern Iraq to pursue members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Iranian aircraft bombed the camps of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), also in northern Iraq. PJAK, which operates in the mountains of northern Iraq and adjacent areas of Iran, has around 3,000 members. Analysts describe the group as the Iranian branch of the PKK, which has been carrying out attacks on Turkish military and civilian targets for decades and is on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. PJAK insists that it is distinct from the PKK, but interviews with its leaders and members, along with a look at its history, suggest that the two groups have similar ideologies and methodologies. They also share leadership and membership, in addition to operating in overlapping areas. Given that both Turkey and Iran view PJAK as a threat, the group poses unique challenges to U.S.-Turkish relations.
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Middle East, and Kurdistan

78. Global Terrorism: Multilateral Institutional Responses to an Extraordinary Threat

Author:
Eric Rosand
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
In recent years, the traditional tendency to treat non state actors that resort to terrorist violence as a domestic issue has given way to an increasing focus on international—and multilateral—responses Nationalist/ separatist terrorist groups such as the Kurdistan Peoples Party (PKK) in Turkey, the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) generated only limited responses at the multilateral level. The emergence of transnational terrorism in the 1970s led to a spate of international law-making to facilitate inter-state cooperation in response to hijacking, hostage-taking and other forms of terrorism. But only with the emergence of Al Qaeda, with its extraordinary global reach, has the transnational threat moved to the top of the agenda of international for a such as the United Nations and G8.
Topic:
International Relations, Globalization, International Law, Terrorism, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Turkey, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Kurdistan

79. Sovereignties, the World Conference against Racism 2001 and the Formation of a Dalit Human Rights Campaign

Author:
Dag Erik Berg
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales
Abstract:
This paper examines how the World Conference against Racism in Durban 2001 intensified an old debate in India about caste and race. The controversy arose after the 'National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights' wanted to present caste discrimination in Durban as equivalent to racial discrimination. The Indian government protested, and distinguished sociologists entered the fray by claiming that race is a western concept which cannot be compared to caste, strengthening the official position. Conceptual logic became central to the debate. First, the position represents conventional knowledge, which reflects the anti-colonial attempt to define race as being irrelevant to India. But, secondly, the scholarly discourse acted to exclude oppression from the debate in clear contrast to the Durban agenda on racism and intolerance. The debate showed, broadly, how Durban represented a transformative potential by connecting global racism discourse to the moral status of an embedded postcolonial state. Further, the paper argues that the dominating conceptual focus reflects a paradigmatic individualism, which informs the scholarly approach to modern caste formations. While individualist approaches exclude Dalit rhetoric as subjective, they do not sufficiently acknowledge that the exclusionary logics inflicted on Dalits in modern bureaucratic institutions is a racial dynamic. To shed light on the Durban controversy, the paper outlines the larger background to caste in India and provides examples of Dalit discourse. It also presents the formation of the hum an rights network and controversial issues regarding the way they define themselves as NGOs, Dalits and Christians. These attributed properties were fundamental for the debate(s). Durban cannot be seen as an episode with tangible empirical impact. Rather, the debate was an intense moment in an ongoing historical argument about hierarchical practices and equality in India as well as about its moral status in the global community. In December 2006, however, at an international conference in New Delhi, the Prime Minister of India compared the Dalit situation to apartheid.
Topic:
Human Rights, Poverty, and Race
Political Geography:
India, East Asia, Asia, New Delhi, Kurdistan, and Durban

80. Iraq's New Political Map

Author:
Phebe Marr
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
In 2006, a new group of Iraqi leaders came to power through elections. In the absence of strong bureaucratic and military institutions, the qualities and skills they bring to bear and their capacity and willingness to cooperate, especially across ethnic and sectarian lines, will determine whether Iraq collapses into chaos or moves forward toward stability. Three characteristics of these leaders are striking. First is how new and inexperienced most of them are. Rapid political mobility and change in ministers was prevalent in previous cabinets, but it has intensified in this government. This degree of change has made it difficult for leaders to acquire experience in national governance, create institutions, establish networks across ministries, and cultivate constituencies outside the central government. Second, the current leadership is still dominated by “outsiders”—exiles who have spent much of their adult life outside Iraq, or by Kurds who have lived in the north, cut off from the rest of Iraq. Most of these exiles have spent time in Middle Eastern, not Western, societies. “Insiders” who lived in Saddam's Iraq and endured its hardships are still a minority. This fault line between insiders and outsiders helps explain some of the lack of cohesion in the government. Third, and most important, many of the current leaders have spent the best part of their adult life engaged in opposition to the Saddam regime, often in underground or militant activities. Those who had any affiliation with, or simply worked under, the old regime have still found it very difficult to gain entry. The result has been a profound distrust between the new leadership and those with some association with the old regime. The continuation of the insurgency has helped this political struggle metamorphose into an ethnic and sectarian war. A fourth parameter is emerging as significant: the development of political parties and groups, often accompanied by militias. While ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iraq have grabbed most of the headlines, it is these parties and their constituencies that are shaping the political agenda and are likely to be determinative in the future. The most important of these parties now occupy seats, not only in the assembly but in the government. They include the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Da'wah, and the Sadrist movement in the dominant Shi'ah United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the Kurdistan Democratic party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the Kurdistan Alliance, Tawafuq (Iraqi National Accord) among the Sunnis, and the weaker Iraqiyyah (Iraqi) ticket among the secularists. Each of these parties has different positions on issues and different constituencies to satisfy; in a number of cases these cross ethnic and sectarian divides. Among the most important of these common interests are (a) economic development, (b) oil legislation, (c) management of water resources and the environment, and (d) the role of religion and the state. Even more divisive issues, such as federalism and a timetable for withdrawal of multinational forces, find allies on one or another side of these issues among different ethnic and sectarian groups. This suggests that despite ethnic and sectarian strife, a new political dynamic could be built in Iraq by focusing on one problem at a time and dealing with it by encouraging party, not communal, negotiations. Although such agreements will take time, they may provide a means of gradually building much-needed trust and a network of people and institutions that can work across ethnic and sectarian boundaries. Such a process will have a far better outcome over the long term—an intact, more durable Iraqi state, than the ethnic and sectarian divisions now being pushed by events on the ground and by some outside policy analysts.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Iraq, Middle East, and Kurdistan