TurkeyTurkey has its own good reasons for not intervening in Kobane
As the Kurdish town of Kobane, just inside Syria on the Syria-Turkey border, continues to defy Islamic State (IS) forces, many pundits have condemned Turkey’s unwillingness to help the People’s Protection Units (YPG) keep the forces of “evil” at bay. The Turkish government, however, has valid reasons not to become embroiled in the defense of Kobane against IS. The defenders of Kobane are members of the YPG, which is the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) – a Kurdish group linked to the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). The PKK is a movement that waged a decades-long guerrilla war, at a cost of more than 40,000 lives, in pursuit of independent state at the expense of Turkish territorial integrity. The PKK, and the PYD by association, are still listed as a proscribed terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the West, including Australia and the United States. It thus suits Turkey that IS and the YPG/PKK are slugging it out: not only are two of its primary enemies otherwise occupied, but they are weakening each other. The PYD has been accused of collaborating with the Assad regime, and Turkey has no intention of allowing another PKK haven to be set up along its borders. The PYD-YPG resistance is testimony to their courage, but the Western public’s fleeting emotional investment in Kobane isn’t going to flick a magic switch in the Turkish majority’s collective consciousness after decades of separatist conflict.
Kurdish leaders observing battle // Source: presstv.ir
As the Kurdish town of Kobane continues to defy Islamic State (IS) forces, many pundits have condemned Turkey’s unwillingness to help the People’s Protection Units (YPG) keep the forces of “evil” at bay.
In a dichotomy characteristic of mainstream reporting on the Middle East, the Kurds, one of the region’s perennial victims, have largely been cast as the “good guys.” The YPG and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) lived up to that image by helping to rescue Yazidis trapped on Mount Sinjar.
Turkey, in possession of NATO’s second-largest army, has been thrown in with the “bad guys.” This perception was heightened when protests in Kurdish majority areas of Turkey against government inaction resulted in more than forty deaths. But is this “bad guy” label a fair representation of Turkey’s reluctance to intervene in Kobane?
The Turkish government has valid reasons not to become embroiled in the defense of Kobane against IS. It would be a breach of Syrian sovereignty and international law.
Also, the YPG is the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the predominant faction of three non-contiguous self-declared Kurdish autonomous regions of Rojava (Western/Syrian Kurdistan), which is linked to the PKK. This is a movement that waged a decades-long guerrilla war, at a cost of more than 40,000 lives, in pursuit of independent state at the expense of Turkish territorial integrity.
The PKK is now more committed to Kurdish self-determination than separatism. A ceasefire has been in effect since March 2013. The PKK, and the PYD by association, is still listed as a proscribed terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the West, including Australia and the United States.
Territorial integrity comes first for Turkey
Turkish sovereignty, and in particular territorial integrity, has been an extremely prickly subject since the First World War. This didn’t just lead to the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire — which contributed to many of the problems in the region today — but also the Allied invasion of Turkish Anatolia. A Kurdish state was proposed, which would have included vast tracts of land ceded from what is today recognized as Turkey.
In effect, the war didn’t finish for Turkey until 1923. Turkey’s borders today are the result of nationalist resistance led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Merely referring to “Kurdistan” can trigger an angry response, as I experienced while travelling in Capadoccia in October 2013 when I mentioned working in Iraqi Kurdistan.
