The British first used the Kurdish tribes as part of their own struggle against Germany’s ally, the Turkish Empire, but afterward, having safeguarded their own colonial interests, they used military force to quash the Kurds’ desire for independence. The second time, those same British, together with the Americans, pressed the Kurds to fight the Nazis’ infiltration into Iran and Iraq, but after the Third Reich was defeated they helped the governments of those countries to suppress Kurdish proto-state polities (for example, the Republic of Mahabad.) And so history repeats itself. Again the Anglo-Saxons (primarily the Americans this time) are using the Kurds as a tool to promote their own geopolitical interests in the Middle East. And there is no guarantee that the Kurds, despite their sad historical experience, will not once again fall into the trap.

Because the Kurds are such a close-knit group, the two million of them who live in Syria have ended up front and center in that civil war. They have liberated vast swaths in the north of the country and along the Euphrates River from the Islamic State (IS) and they have proclaimed Rojava to be a Kurdish autonomous region.

The Turks have noted uneasily that all three major dams across the Euphrates are under Kurdish control, and thus, consequently, are Syria’s energy supplies, water resources, and most fertile arable land.

The Kurds in Syria and Turkey are extremely close, both ethnically and politically, which explains Ankara's special antipathy toward and fierce resistance to the idea of any sort of independence for that nation in Syria. The leading Kurdish political force in Syria – the Democratic Union Party (PYD) led by Saleh Muslim – has close ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey has labeled a terrorist organization. The Americans agree, yet still cooperate with the PKK.

Naturally the Kurds have not forgotten how the Anglo-Saxons treated them in the past, but somehow seem to feel that this time will be different. Perhaps it is the memory of how the West helped to establish the independent Albanian state of Kosovo atop the remains of Yugoslavia that they find so appealing. The SDF’s American advisers are probably taking advantage of the «Kosovo precedent» to convince the Kurds that they can count on the US and thus make them willing to fight for American interests. This is hardly a complete analogy, however – there are far more differences. In Kosovo, the Americans’ only military adversary was Serbia, which had been weakened by sanctions, but now they must contend with resistance from at least four states – Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

There is no situation that is truly analogous to that of Iraqi Kurdistan. Much could change there by Sept. 25 – the date for the referendum on Iraqi Kurdistan – because by then the Iraqi army could be at its borders, and thanks to its experience battling IS, that fighting force has already been mobilized and trained to maneuver in unison. It is even more likely that the Islamic State in Iraq could be completely decimated and wiped from the map not by the end of 2018, as has been claimed, but within two to three months. The sizable territory held by IS forces in Syria and Iraq is far from homogeneous. Three-quarters of it is desert inhabited by Bedouin tribes who have merely sworn allegiance to IS, without fully integrating themselves into it. The Bedouins will have no problems shifting their loyalties, as if offering a "baksheesh" to the new bosses when they arrive. IS doesn’t have many real areas of strength, and the ones it has are all under siege. Some of them, such as Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, will fall within a matter of days; and others, such as Tal Afar in Iraq and al-Sukhnah, Deir ez-Zor, and Uqayribat in Syria, will be taken within weeks. This will have a domino effect.

One cannot help but feel sympathetic about the sad fate of the Kurdish attempts to win legal recognition for their nation, but it makes no sense to step on the same rake three times in a row. Neither Washington nor London has offered nor will offer any guarantees about the creation of an independent Kurdish polity in Syria or an independent state in Iraq. Nor are such obligations found in any of the cooperation agreements signed with such fanfare over the course of decades between the Pentagon and the Peshmerga. All that other stuff is just hot air. Recent decades have offered plenty of examples of the US flouting even legally binding treaties, not to mention its verbal promises offered by «somebody somewhere».

It should be noted that throughout the entire Syrian war, Russia has been the one reliably standing up for the interests of local Kurds. Moscow, for example, has tried to ensure that the Kurds have been represented at every international forum for resolving the Syrian issue, including in Geneva, while the West has not lifted a finger. Only Russia was able to halt the implementation of Turkey’s plans to decimate the Kurds as part of their Operation Euphrates Shield. Kurdish rights are explicitly included in the draft of the Syrian constitution that was drawn up by Russian advisers and proposed to Damascus. A few days ago Bashar al-Assad announced an administrative reform in the country, proposing that the Kurds truly take their rightful place in all of Syria’s public and state institutions and be permitted to realize their national and cultural aspirations. And this represents a real, tangible «bird in the hand». Until recently, the leadership of the PYD, led by Saleh Muslim, both recognized this and greatly valued Russian assistance.

But unfortunately, the Kurds have recently been pushed to choose unwisely between this «bird in the hand» vs. the Americans’ offer of «two in the bush». This became especially noticeable after the failure of the Pentagon’s May attempts to ensure that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) units it controls hold full sway throughout southern Syria. Disappointed in the FSA’s fighting skills and seeking at all costs to «topple Assad», the US «advisors» have shifted the focus of their attention to the northeast and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which consist primarily of Kurds. The government SU-22 shot down by Americans near Raqqa (the plane was allegedly planning to bomb SDF positions, although in fact it had been tasked with hitting IS targets) marked a turning point. Washington has demonstrated that it considers the fight against Damascus to be more important than defeating IS and that it is prepared, or so they say, to defend Kurdish interests with all its military might. And unfortunately many of the commanders of the Kurdish forces believed this, although in the long term this threatens the Kurds with a new national catastrophe. This is especially true if they continue their short-sighted refusal to allow the government army to pass through to the territories they occupy.

But in reality the Americans have no intention of throwing the kind of military muscle at Syria that they deployed against Serbia back when they were helping to carve out Kosovo. Even in their worst nightmares they did not imagine battling the standing armies of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and their own ally – Turkey, in order to win independence for the Kurds. And such a prospect is by no means a fantasy, because these states see Kurdish independence as by far their greatest threat. For Turkey, for example, this threat will always dwarf its obligations under any alliance, including NATO.

ARANews, the semi-official press service of the Syrian Kurds, even quotes former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford’s claim that in the final phase of the war the US «will not defend the Kurds against Assad’s forces». Ford asserted that «What we’re [the Americans – D.M.] doing with the Kurds is not only politically stupid, but immoral. Syrian Kurds are making their biggest mistake in trusting the Americans». ARANews disagrees and cites other analysts as well, but to no avail: you will not find a more respected expert on the Syrian crisis than Robert Ford, who was present for its inception. 

Nor will the huge amount of land the SDF holds in Syria (as much as 45,000 sq. km.) keep the Kurds out of harm’s way. The Kurdish forces are extremely thin on the ground in those regions (only 30,000 fighters), and their communication lines are stretched out. If there's a showdown, the regular Syrian army will have no problems breaking up the area held by the SDF. Two-thirds of the terrain occupied by the Kurds (which they want to keep) consists of Arab lands, and the Kurds have no resources for forging any kind of normal life there. Between Damascus and the pro-Turkish forces, they’ll have no trouble galvanizing the Arab settlements there to rise up, should things escalate, and the Kurds would look like the «cruel oppressors». Then they’d be entirely out of options for finding international support.

According to recent reports, Turkey has already marshaled massive numbers of troops on the borders of the Kurdish cantons in Syria and is waiting for the go-ahead from Moscow and Damascus. And why, one might ask, would those countries continue to hold the Turks in check, if the Kurds themselves are turning their backs on Damascus and Moscow?

The leaders of the Syrian Kurds must now grapple with the enormous responsibility of making a fateful decision for their people. They can either refrain from throwing obstacles in Damascus’s way, helping to build a new version of the state in which they will have far more rights than they used to have in Syria, or they can choose the opposite path, doing the bidding of what Robert Ford has called the «immoral» foreign politicians and embark on adventures that will end with them losing everything they have gained.

The move is supported by lawmakers. «To me, it’s the only viable solution right now», Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told reporters on Capitol Hill. «And obviously the Kurds have got to have the weaponry to be successful. So I’m glad they’re finally following through on what they’ve known for some time: This is the only course that appears to be feasible relative to Raqqa». «That’s a really tricky dance. And ultimately you may be inviting more problems than you’re solving by pushing the Turks off to the side and making them antagonists to a future reconciliation process inside Syria», Senate Foreign Relations member Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Al-Monitor. «There are no good options in Syria. But generally giving people arms creates more problems than it solves».

The US support for the Syrian Kurds, in particular the YPG, has driven a wedge between Washington and Ankara. Turkey sees the YPG militia as the Syrian extension of the Kurdish PKK militant group, which has fought an insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984. Turkey had long argued that the United States should switch support for the planned assault on Raqqa from the Kurdish YPG militia to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other Syrian rebels supported by Ankara. Washington sees the 50,000-strong SDF as the most effective force fighting the IS in Syria and has already armed the non-Kurdish Arab elements of that group. Syrian Kurds make up slightly over than half of the SDF.

The Kurdish issue turned into a problem in the American-Turkish relations after Ankara launched Operation Euphrates Shield in August 2016, invading the northern part of Syria. One of the goals was to prevent the Kurds from uniting Afrin and Kobani – the regions in the west and east under their control. The operation Euphrates Shield was launched about two weeks after US-backed SDF liberated Manbij in the east of Aleppo province.

In August 2016, the US urged Kurds to leave Manbij and retreat to the east of Euphrates. However, those demands were largely ignored. In March 2017, America announced that Manbij was transferred under control of its anti-IS coalition, making it play against Turkey.

US military and YPG fighters have been patrolling the Turkey-Syrian border since late April after the Turkish Air Force delivered a strike on Kurdish positions. The announcement of the decision comes just a few days before the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s meeting with President Trump in Washington scheduled on May 16.

Turkish top officials have spoken out against the move, saying the US decision is a “crisis” between the two NATO allies. It strikes an eye that President Trump has decided to travel to Israel and Saudi Arabia – and not Turkey – on his first international visit starting on May 19. The president may be looking for the two countries to provide financial and political support for the idea of creating a Kurdish state.

«There have been bad episodes in the relationship between the United States and Turkey, but this one is serious because it gets to the heart of Turkish security priorities», said Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. «You’ve now got a question mark over the US-Turkish security relationship that is pretty serious», Aliriza added.

With American weapons going to the Syrian Kurds, at least a temporary arrangement should be found to soothe Turkey’s concerns. YPG units and Turkish military could be effectively divided by neutral forces taking positions between them. It’s important to prevent possible clashes.

Tentative talks between Turkey and the Kurds could be launched with Russia – the party Turkey and the Kurds trust – acting as a mediator. This is the time to meet the Moscow’s initiative to make the Syrian Kurds part of the Astana peace process. The forum could be used as a platform for contacts to bring together Russia, Turkey, the Kurds and the US. With all the contradictions to divide them, Ankara and the YPG must talk, not fight to make IS terrorists happy.

With Raqqa liberated from the IS militants, the question will arise as to who and under what authority will govern the city and what to do next. Some international presence is inevitable. The establishment of the offices of the UN, the Arab League and other international organizations would be a logical step to take. Turkey should be represented across the political spectrum as part of the Sunni Muslims’ camp. It is a neighboring state with Syria and its legitimate security concerns must be taken into account and respected. Those concerns should be one way or another reconciled with the objectives pursued by the Syrian Kurds. Otherwise, no conflict management in Syria will be possible.

In the longer run, the arms supplies to the YPG are unacceptable to Ankara. It will most certainly put an end to the “strategic partnership’. The parties will not immediately break ties and Turkey will not leave NATO in protest, but it will shift from the US and the West to Russia and the SCO. The decision taken before the US-Turkish summit is an offense not to be easily forgotten or forgiven.

This is the time for intensive mediation and also changes in the Middle East political landscape as the United States has made a decision to support the Kurds. With this choice made by the Trump administration, it’s easy to predict the US-Turkey relationship will never be the same again.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Tens of thousands of people flocked to Station Square in Diyarbakir, Turkey’s largest Kurdish-majority city, July 31 for the biggest gathering there since a twin bomb attack bloodied a pre-election rally of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) last year. For the first time since the deadly attack, the HDP held a rally at the venue to denounce the July 15 coup attempt, but to also warn Ankara against straying from the path of democracy.

Months-long clashes between Kurdish militants and the security forces have left Diyarbakir a wounded city, with the HDP ostracized and snubbed by the government in Ankara. Still, rally-goers vocally condemned the coup bid against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), brandishing banners that urged both “democratic resistance” against the coup and “radical democracy” in its aftermath.

With enthusiasm written all over his face, rally-goer Nevzat Ozgen told Al-Monitor, “Lending a shoulder to the democracy camp and being part of it is a duty for anyone who calls himself a human. I’m here to say no to coups and wars in our region. I’m here in the name of democracy, freedoms, humanity and living [peacefully] side by side.”

The aftermath of the failed putsch has seen daily anti-coup rallies across Turkey, and the toxic climate between the AKP and the opposition has thawed to some extent amid universal condemnation of the coup. The HDP, however, has been excluded from a number of initiatives to forge national unity, including a meeting Erdogan convened with opposition leaders in his palace and a big rally scheduled for Aug. 7 in Istanbul. Similarly, Erdogan has withdrawn libel cases against people accused of “insulting” him, excluding HDP members.

Nevertheless, the HDP and the Kurds have taken to the streets to denounce the coup attempt. The string of rallies began in Istanbul July 23 and continued in the Kurdish-majority southeast, with the largest one in Diyarbakir.

HDP leaders attending the July 31 rally called for the revival of peace talks to resolve the Kurdish conflict and an end to a ban on visits to Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who is serving a life sentence on the prison island of Imrali, not far from Istanbul.

“Imrali’s isolation should end and a true peace process should resume. Our calls regarding Ocalan’s isolation are not propaganda, but a call for a settlement,” HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas said, as many in the crowd chanted slogans praising Ocalan, who was reportedly on the assassination list of the putschists.

Demirtas stressed that standing up against the coup did not amount to supporting the AKP but “support for the struggle for democracy and the people’s yearning for freedom.” He warned Erdogan and the ruling party against using the putsch as a pretext to clamp down on opponents and build a “one-man rule.”

“One does not become a democrat by opposing coups only. One has to also advocate first-class democracy with no strings attached. We are against coups, but we are also against dictatorship and the government’s repression,” Demirtas said.

Turkey, he stressed, is at a critical juncture with “an historic opportunity” for national reconciliation on one side and a “minefield” down the road of more conflict on the other.

“Turkey’s people have united against the coup, which is great. But how are we going to build on this unity? That’s the critical point. A historic opportunity will be squandered if the AKP stoops to slyness and cheapness to [exploit this unity]… to build its own one-man rule,” Demirtas said.

“The second path is to put Turkey on the course of settlement, democracy and peace. The two paths are very much distinct, and which one is taken will become clear in the imminent hours and days,” he said. “We are against coups, but we are not as naive as to keep silent about the AKP’s mistakes. That’s why we’ve taken to the squares.”

Demirtas lamented that the HDP rallies had been ignored in the media, saying, “You speak of a democracy festival, but while you broadcast your own rallies live on dozens of channels, you don’t even briefly mention the HDP’s rallies in the evening news.” The Diyarbakir rally was also largely ignored by the media, barring Kurdish outlets.

At his next rally in Van the following day, Demirtas reiterated concerns over Ocalan’s well-being and pressed Ankara to allow visits. Addressing both the AKP and the two fellow opposition parties in parliament, Demirtas warned against a post-coup alliance to “crush” the HDP. “Don’t confuse us with the Gulen community and the crazed murderers [who attempted the coup],” he said. “Our cause is a legitimate one. We want our rights. Come to your senses and respond to our peace calls so we can take this state to safety together”.

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«Turkey could review all relations with the EU including the customs union deal», Bulut explained, «Readmission agreements, and all other deals could be suspended. Europe has to keep its promises».

In March Turkey concluded a deal with the EU to curb the flow of migrants in exchange for a series of incentives including visa-free travel for Turkish citizens.

The deal was largely negotiated by former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davotuglu, who quit over a rift with Mr Erdogan.

According to the agreement, Ankara is obliged to meet a list of 72 criteria by the end of June ranging from biometric passports to respect for human rights, including counter-terror laws. Changes to the legislation were among the conditions set by the EU. On May 12, the European Parliament made a decision to delay its discussion of the visa liberalization process for Turkish citizens for as long as Turkey fails to fulfil its benchmarks. On his part, President Erdogan has made clear that there will be no changes related to the anti-terror law provisions while the army is battling Kurdish militants in the southeast.

In recent weeks, Erdogan has stepped up his rhetoric toward Brussels. According to the Turkish President, Turkey's parliament will block the deal with the EU on migrants if Ankara does not gain visa-free access to the bloc – a key demand by Turkey in the March agreement.

Turkey formerly set the end of June as a deadline for the 28-member bloc to scrap visas for Turkish citizens, but sources in the EU said it is nearly impossible to meet the deadline.

On May 23, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, there might not be enough time for the deal provisions to be implemented. She expressed her «deep concern» over the state of democracy in Turkey and voiced doubt that a plan to offer Turks visa-free travel to the EU would be implemented on time. The Chancellor’s blunt comments came after the talks with Erdogan on the sidelines of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul (May 23-24). The German leader said to Erdogan that a democracy needed «an independent judiciary, an independent press and a strong parliament».

Speaking at the close of the Summit, Mr Erdogan warned: «If that is not going to happen… no decision and no law in the framework of the readmission agreement [on migrants] will come out of the parliament of the Turkish Republic».

The bilateral relationship is going to worsen even further on June 2, when the German parliament intends to pass a resolution commemorating the 1915 genocide carried out by Turkey against Armenians. Germany is actually the leader of the European Union. The deterioration of the bilateral relations between Berlin and Ankara will inevitably impact the already troubled relationship between the EU and Turkey.

Concerns over the potential collapse of the deal with Ankara have reportedly prompted EU officials to consider a ‘Plan B’ – striking a similar deal with Greece, instead of Turkey.

The EU was right to postpone visa liberalization for Turkish citizens until Turkey fulfils its end of the migrant deal. But it is time to work out a viable ‘Plan B’ in case the deal falls apart, writes Solon Ardittis, Director of Eurasylum, a European research and consulting organization specializing in migration and asylum policy.

Ever since Turkey concluded the association agreement with the EU in 1963, it has been a kind of black sheep in the family. For instance, Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974 greatly complicated the relationship with Europe. Today the ongoing war with the Kurdish nationalists in Anatolia is prosecuted brutally. In its opposition to Assad’s government in Syria, Turkey has effectively supported the Islamic State (IS), tolerating the dispatch of some supplies to it and denying the United States and its allies the right to use Turkish air bases as launching points for air strikes on it till last August. The issue of human rights violations has always been hot on the Europe-Turkey agenda. Here is the latest example – Turkey's parliament on May 23 adopted a highly controversial bill that would lift immunity for dozens of MPs. The opposition pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) fears the legislation is aimed directly against its lawmakers. The move could see dozens of HDP deputies facing criminal prosecution and losing parliamentary seats on accusations of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency in the southeast.

Turkey has never come close to European standards of individual liberties or transparent government.

Europe struck a deal with an unreliable partner. One should face the reality – the chances are slight that the agreements with Turkey will work. The EU has to envisage a much more ambitious, viable and consensual set of measures to address a possible resurgence of the migrants’ crisis. It’s not Turkey only – there is a possibility of a new migratory front expanding in Libya. It is likely that a possible suspension of the EU-Turkey agreement would lead to both additional border control measures and stepping up on-going efforts by Frontex and NATO, including surveilling migrant boats as closely as possible to the Turkish coast and getting people safely off the boats at the start of their journey. The EU could make arrangements with the Persian Gulf countries on a EU-led global resettlement scheme.

In any case, the bloc’s decision to postpone the visa liberalization till Turkey fulfils its international commitments is the right thing to do. Otherwise, the Union will renounce the very foundation it’s built on.

There is nothing new in Erdogan’s merciless treatment of Turkey’s Kurds. In 2001, for example, a US reporter wrote that «There’s no doubt the Kurds lead a tough life. They’ve basically been told to assimilate or die. They don’t have political rights, freedom of speech or even the right to speak their own language. Nearly 2,000 Kurdish villages have been destroyed… The Kurds have been shot, bombed, gassed, raped, tortured, burned and dismembered, and tens of thousands have been killed. And that’s just what Turkey has done during the past decade».

The Kurds have fought back. The PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, is the military wing of Turkey’s Kurdish-nationalist movement, and has battled against repressive governments since 1984 when it called for an independent Kurdish state. There was no international support for its stance, and in the 1990s they acknowledged that self-rule was impossible to achieve, but proposed that there should at least be a measure of autonomy, which the Ankara government will not permit.

In July 2015 the BBC noted that the PKK had «suffered a major blow in 1999 when its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was arrested and jailed for treason. In March 2013 [still in prison], he called a ceasefire and urged PKK forces to withdraw from Turkey, in an announcement he said was ‘historic’. Correspondents said it was potentially an important step towards ending the conflict, but the real test would be in its implementation. That ceasefire appeared to be over in July 2015 when Turkey launched air strikes against PKK camps in northern Iraq».

Since then the situation within Turkey has verged on civil war, with Human Rights Watch reporting that «The government’s erosion of media freedom continued. Readiness to limit freedom of expression, restrictive approach to freedom of assembly, and readiness to prosecute demonstrators while tolerating police violence against them, were among features most damaging to Turkey’s democratic credentials… Trials continued of Kurdish political activists, journalists, students, and lawyers on widely used terrorism charges such as ‘membership of an armed organization.’ The evidence against them in most cases concerned nonviolent political association and protest».

Erdogan’s position is that «For us, the PKK is the same as ISIL [the Islamic State terrorist group]. It is wrong to consider them as different from each other», and his pronouncement was echoed officially by the US when Vice-President Biden said in January 2016 that Islamic State «is not the only existential threat to the people of Turkey, the PKK is equally a threat and we are aware of that. It is a terror group plain and simple and what they continue to do is absolutely outrageous».

Not only was Erdogan given US endorsement in his attempt to link Islamic State and the PKK, he alleged that a suicide bombing in Ankara which killed more than 100 people in October 2015 had been the responsibility of many groups working together, saying that «This incident shows how terror is implemented collectively. This is a completely collective act of terror and it includes ISIS [Islamic State], PKK, the mukhabarat [Syrian secret police], and the terrorist group PYD [Kurdish Democratic Union Party] from north of Syria. They carried out this act all together».

The allegation that these totally unrelated and fundamentally different groups could have combined to carry out any sort of operation was so irrational and absurd that even the western media failed to support it, but to further confuse matters, Washington’s official position concerning the Kurds of the PYD continues to be entirely positive – which has not prevented Erdogan from ordering artillery bombardment of their camps in Syria or from making a speech in Ankara on February 10 «upbraiding the United States for its support of Syrian Kurdish rebels».

Referring specifically to the PYD and the YPG he was reported by the US online journal Veterans Today as saying «Oh America! I told you many times, you are [either] beside us, or all of these terrorist organizations. You haven’t had a good grasp of them, and that is why the region has turned into the sea of blood. We have written proof! We tell the Americans ‘it’s a terror group.’ But the Americans stand up and say ‘no we don’t see them as terror groups.’ Allies don’t tell each other my enemy’s enemy is my friend. You must have principles. But there are no principles here».

The person utterly lacking in principles is the devious and dangerously erratic Mr Erdogan, who I have already noted as having a «most important personal objective, which is to replace his country’s system of parliamentary government with an all-powerful executive presidency». If he manages to achieve his ambition he will have the right to issue executive and legislative decrees and have veto power over the parliament as well as being able to appoint ministers and judges of higher courts.

Most members of the Turkish parliament don’t want an executive president with such enormous power, so, as noted by Stratfor's analysts on February 17, «Without sufficient backing from Turkey’s lawmakers, Erdogan has had to turn to the Turkish people to push his initiative through. To this end, he has begun to court the nationalist vote by capitalizing on Turkish antagonism toward the country’s Kurdish minority».

In a cynical operation that has nothing to do with internal security, the rights of a fifth of Turkey’s citizens, or anything remotely approaching democracy and justice, Erdogan has re-energised his anti-Kurd campaign with a viciousness that would be admired by the barbarians of Islamic State. As recorded by Amnesty International on January 21 «The Turkish government’s onslaught on Kurdish towns and neighbourhoods, which includes round-the-clock curfews and cuts to services, is putting the lives of up to 200,000 people at risk and amounts to collective punishment. Research… reveals the extreme hardships they are currently facing as a result of harsh and arbitrary measures». But there isn’t the slightest rebuke from Washington or Brussels.

Erdogan’s internal repression knows no boundaries. When criticized by the opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for acting like a dictator, Erdogan ordered «an investigation into Kılıçdaroğlu’s comments on charges of ‘openly insulting the president’… a crime punishable by up to four years in jail», and on January 9 a similar criminal investigation began «against a chat show host… for ‘making propaganda for a terrorist organization’ after a caller to the ‘Beyaz’ chat show urged people not to stay silent about the deaths of [Kurdish] women and girls in the south east of the country».

The future for Turkey’s fifteen million Kurds looks bleak. For as long as Erdogan is given unconditional support by Washington and NATO he will continue to ignore basic human rights in his own country as well as across its borders. His savagery will be unchecked and thousands more Kurds will be killed. In January Amnesty International observed that «While the Turkish authorities appear determined to silence internal criticism, they have faced very little from the international community. Strategic considerations relating to the conflict in Syria and determined efforts to enlist Turkey’s help in stemming the flow of refugees to Europe must not overshadow allegations of gross human rights violations. The international community must not look the other way».

But they will. 

The incident was exposed after a shocking video was uploaded on YouTube by a Turkish journalist. In this video, a group of civilians carrying white flag is seen walking in the vicinity of an armed military vehicle that opens fire without warning, killing and injuring an unspecified number of people. The incident occurred in southeastern Turkey where 24-hour curfews have been imposed since December as the army and police conduct operations against the Revolutionary Patriotic Youth Movement, the youth wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Mr Zeid expressed his concern over the actions of the Turkish security forces and a serious clampdown on the media. When referring to the clampdown, he had in mind the life imprisonment for two well-known Turkish journalists – Can Dündar, the editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet newspaper, and Erdem Gülm, the paper’s Ankara bureau chief, Can Dündar worked as a columnist for Milliyet, a major Turkish daily newspaper, until he got fired in 2013 for «displeasing the prime minister [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan]» with his criticism on the government’s actions with regard to the Gezi Park protests – a wave of civil unrest sparked by violent eviction of peaceful protesters against development plans for Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul in late May 2013. Shortly afterwards, Can Dündar joined Cumhuriyet – an established center-left newspaper and became its editor-in-chief in February 2015.

Just before Dündar’s arrest, his newspaper was awarded the 2015 Reporters Without Borders Prize for «independent and courageous journalism». The arrest and the Prize followed the publication of Cumhuriyet’s report exposing arms deliveries made by Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MİT) to Syrian anti-government militants, that is, terrorists. After the criminal scheme was exposed, Turkish President Erdoğan personally filed a complaint against Dündar, demanding a life sentence, an aggravated life sentence and an additional 42-year term of imprisonment for the journalist. Erdoğan lambasted Dündar for the coverage, promising in televised remarks not to let the journalist go unpunished. «I suppose the person who wrote this as an exclusive report will pay a heavy price for this… I will not let him off lightly», the president said.

Importantly, the 2013 Gezi Park protests were largely downplayed and censored by Turkish mainstream media. Not for the last time, social media played a much bigger role in capturing the protests and especially the government’s actions in response to the unrest, while CNN Turk aired a documentary on the life of penguins reminiscent of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake continuous broadcast on the national TV during the 1991 coup in the USSR. To get their Manifesto out for the world to see, the protesters had to crowdfund a full page ad in The New York Times.

What was not shown by the Turkish media? Rubber bullets, tear gas canisters, water cannons and police batons. Officially, 11 people were killed and over 8,000 injured as a result of police brutality. 3,000 people were arrested.

Most disturbingly, health care professionals who volunteered to help the injured protesters were abused and later prosecuted. Nearby hospitals were raided, medical staff were brutally assaulted and forbidden to provide care to civilians in need of medical attention; anyone wearing a white coat was targeted by police during those days. Associated Press reported later that at that time Turkish authorities actually took steps to hinder formal medical care for the injured: «Repeated requests to the Ministry of Health to increase medical resources in the protest areas, especially ambulances, were ignored… Instead, doctors had to reach out to hospitals and ambulance services run by the city’s municipalities, which operate independently… government inspectors review[ed] security footage in the hospital to determine whether doctors and medical personnel had volunteered services outside shifts in the overwhelmed emergency rooms».

In its report on Gezi, Physicians for Human Rights concluded that the Turkish police «attacked independent medical personnel who courageously provided care to the injured in accordance with international medical ethical standards and Turkish law».

A few months afterwards, the Turkish parliament accepted a health bill later signed into law that criminalized emergency medical care and allowed emergency care only «until the arrival of formal health services», an outrageous restriction for many reasons, one of which is its contradiction with the over 2,000 year-old Hippocratic duty of providing care to those in need.

This was the sort of thing Can Dündar reported at that time, and this is what «displeased» Erdoğan.

Associated Press assumed that the government’s actions during the Gezi Park protests «undermined the reputation of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a democratic reformer».

The Guardian said that Erdoğan «lost much of his national and international reputation» over the Gezi Park protests. After all, there were over 3.5 million protesters of Turkey’s estimated 80 million population. So, how did Mr Erdoğan win the Presidential office in 2014? Who voted for this man just a year after he ordered police brutality to commence on the streets of Istanbul? One is left to wonder…

But it is not only peaceful protesters or journalists, or health care professionals who are under fire in today’s Turkey. On January 18, Nature – the world’s most cited scientific journal with a monthly audience of nearly 5 million people – published an article about yet another group under state attack. That time it was the scientific community. After the ceasefire between Kurdish militants and Turkish government forces collapsed last June, thousands of civilians have been killed and even more injured or left without shelter. A 1,128-strong group of Turkish scientists from 89 national universities, known as «Academicians for Peace», signed a petition calling for an end to «deliberate massacre and deportation of the Kurdish people».

Harsh reaction from president Erdoğan followed immediately. During his speech on January 12, after the terrorist attacks in Istanbul, he accused those who signed the petition of supporting and spreading terrorist propaganda on behalf of Kurdish militants, thus undermining national security. «I call upon all our institutions: everyone who benefits from this state but is now an enemy of the state must be punished without further delay», he said.

Following Erdoğan’s call, 27 academics were arrested by the police. Hundreds more are waiting to be arrested and prosecuted, just like Can Dündar and Erdem Gül. Universities have begun internal investigations with punitive actions likely to follow.

Some of the signatories have reportedly been the subject of a backlash by members of extreme right-wing groups. Erdoğan has been accused of launching a witch-hunt against the scholars.

With thousands of civilians killed and thousands arrested, with weapons suppled to terrorist groups, with ISIS support through illegal oil trade, how «bloody» is Turkey under Erdoğan’s rule? Is it bloody enough to call him a dictator or are we not there yet?

We have seen a number of cases on war crimes and crimes against humanity built with the help from global human rights whistle-blowers like Amnesty International and Human Right Watch against heads of states in recent years. How much would it take for Mr Erdoğan – who is looking up to Adolf Hitler – to do, before such case could be built against him, a NATO member-state leader?  «It is not possible for a Muslim to carry out genocide», Erdoğan said in 2009. Is he setting out to prove himself wrong?

One should give the devil his due, the arrangement with Kurds is a wise and perspicacious move on the part of President Assad. As a result, Kurdish self-rule was established in most of the north-east. On July 2012 President Assad withdrew his military and officials from Kurdish territories in a bid to bolster support as the anti-government uprising unfolded. Kurdish regions including Ayn al-Arab and Afrin in the West are now being administered by PYD committees, and the party’s leader Salih Muslim has announced elections for an interim local parliament, raising the stakes in the pursuit of self-rule. «This administration will be like a temporary government», PYD spokesman Nawaf Khalil told Reuters from his home in exile in Germany. «We need to protect our borders and our people, we need to do something to improve the economic situation». (1) The Kurds hoisted the flag of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) – the most leading political Kurdish force in Syria and the only one with teeth. 

But the Kurdish autonomy has come under threat as Islamists have emerged as a powerful force attempting to establish a religious state in the north. Kurdish fighters engaged in battles with the Islamic militants of the «Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant» and the «Nusra Front» in a number of cities in the north of Syria. The Nusra Front, which has pledged allegiance to al Qaida, has been the most militarily effective. The following battles have brought together the fractious Kurds as they prepare to hold elections that will establish the foundation of self-rule for the Syrian minority of three million. There are instances when the Syrian government troops and Kurds formations join together to repel the Islamist threat. Near the town of Tel Abyad the 93^th regiment of the 17^th Syrian army division and Syrian Air Force aircraft provided support to the Kurdish armed formations. No matter how fragile it may be, something like an alliance between the Kurds and the government forces is beginning to loom. 

The ongoing struggle with al-Qaeda-linked fighters is achieving what many Kurdish leaders in northern Syria have long been unable to do, unifying under the PYD banner an ethnic group long divided about its future between at least 16 parties. 

On July 25 all the Kurdish parties gathered in Arbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish territory in northern Iraq under President Masoud Barzani.

Signaling the new mood of unity in Ras al-Ayn, the PYD hoisted the flag of the Supreme Kurdish Council, an umbrella organization of Kurdish parties in the country, co-founded by PYD. The second co-founder is Kurdish National Committee, consisted of 15 other Syrian Kurdish political parties. The Supreme Council was formed on July 2012 by Barzani’s effort to unite the two, but was unavailing for a year.

A planned Kurdish National Conference that will gather Kurds from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria is likely to take place between Aug. 20 and 30, a lawmaker from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said on July 28.

Bitlis lawmaker Hüsamettin Zenderlioğlu has been elected to be on the committee that was established during a meeting in Arbil to decide on the technical details. «From now on, Kurds do not have the will or aim to establish a state», Zenderlioğlu said. «Up to now we have made four meetings and these meetings will continue periodically. The conference will most probably take place between Aug. 20 and 30», he said, adding that up to 500 delegates would attend the conference in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani has described the meeting as «historic». «Our main goal in holding this congress is for all Kurdish political factions to reach a shared strategy and voice», Barzani said in a speech.

The meeting will be «the first congress to be held on Kurdish land, and the first to gather all Kurdish parties and groups from across the political spectrum», Kawa Mahmoud, spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. He made precise that, «The congress isn’t meant to put in place a unified, centralized leadership, but to unify our positions in the face of the regional turmoil.» He added, «Each of the four Kurdish regions has its own different characteristics, which are mutually respected, and we don’t interfere in each other’s affairs. The Kurdish populations are free to decide their fate within their respective countries».

A wave of unrest across the Middle East has fueled aspirations among some Kurds of forging their own state in the region they call «Kurdistan», a land straddling the borders of eastern Turkey, northeast Syria, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran. The number of Kurds living in Southwest Asia is estimated at 26-34 million, with another one or two million living in diaspora. Kurds are the fourth largest ethnicity in Western Asia after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. Kurds comprise anywhere from 18% to 25% of the population in Turkey, 15-20% in Iraq, 9% in Syria, 7% in Iran and 1.3% in Armenia. In all of these countries except Iran, Kurds form the second largest ethnic group. Roughly 55% of the world's Kurds live in Turkey, about 18% each in Iran and Iraq, and a bit over 5% in Syria. 

Turkey: unease over new developments

The intention of Syrian Kurds to declare an autonomous region inside the borders of Syria has set off alarm bells in neighboring Turkey. Emergency plans are on the table to counter multiple scenarios. The declaration of autonomy or an independent federal region in Syrian Kurdistan will mean the Kurds control over 550 km of the border with Turkey. The al-Nusra Front Islamic fighters would control the remainder of the border of around 350 km. Al-Nusra Front is no friend of Ankara but rather a fellow traveler. The PYD is affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that waged a bloody separatist struggle in south-eastern Turkey for three decades until it entered a peace process with Ankara last March. If the Turkish government’s dialogue with Turkish Kurds leader Abdullah Ocalan fails, Turkey will have only bitter options in a PYD-controlled area of Syria. The autonomy for Kurds just across the Turkey-Syria border will boost separatism among its own large Kurdish minority. On July 18 tens of thousands of demonstrators in the predominantly Kurdish populated towns in east and southeast Turkey held rallies «to celebrate the revolution in Rojava», the name for the Kurdish region in Syria. 

«Turkey does not accept any formation of a de-facto region or the cutting of ties with other regions [in Syria] until an elected Syrian parliament is established, giving the political system its final shape», Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said during a visit to Poland on July 23. Quoted by the official Anadolu news agency, he warned that if the Syrian crisis starts to affect Turkey’s security, «Turkey has the right to take any measures it deems necessary to protect its borders».

The situation in Syria is regularly discussed in Turkey at the highest level. The Turkish general staff has announced an increase in security measures at the country's South-Eastern borders and is giving an amplified response to the shootings from abroad «in accordance with the rules of applying military force». Over the weekend of July 20-21 Gen. Galip Mendi of the Turkish Second Land Command inspected the readiness situation of the troops with more Turkish Air Force jets starting to patrol along the Syrian border. Turkish media reported stepped-up military surveillance flights and special forces patrols along the border. On July 26 it was reported that that Turkish F-16s will fly reconnaissance flights along the Syrian frontier highlight rising alarm over border security and suggest a further internationalization of the civil war in Syria with implications for Turkey and the region's Kurds. 

Sabah, a pro-Justice and Development (AK) Party daily newspaper in Turkey, reported that steps are being taken to establish a ten kilometer-wide security zone along the Syrian border to deal with military threats, illicit trafficking in arms and people, and other problems. These measures include reconnaissance flights by Turkish F-16s, whose pilots’ rules of engagement reportedly include permission to fly up to 5 kilometers into Syrian territory and to shoot if they feel threatened. Sabah also cited the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles and plans to construct a several kilometer-long wall near Reyhanli, in Turkey’s Hatay province, which has been the scene of cross-border firing and other problems for months.

The brewing crisis between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds is compounded by the lack of progress in peace talks with the PKK. These have run into trouble over what the Kurds say is the government’s failure to deliver on any of its promises, including reforming anti-terror laws under which thousands of Kurdish politicians and activists have been jailed. Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan retorts that the PKK has not stuck with its own pledge to withdraw all of its forces from Turkey by June. Mutual suspicions remain after hundreds of years when the Ottoman Empire first extended its reach into the Kurdish-speaking regions.

Turkey has waged a three-decade civil war against its 14 million Kurds. To prevent the appearance of anything like a Greater Kurdistan, it will do its best to counter any attempt at Kurdish unification, even if it means something more serious than just opening fire from time to time across the Syrian border. But with civil unrest, which has just taken place involving millions, and the PKK internal factor, Turkey would commit a great folly to dearly pay for in case in lets itself be dragged into combat on Syrian soil. It will spoil the perfect relationship with the KRG and receive no benefits but losses and headaches aggravating the things to no avail. The Syrian government has preferred an arrangement and benefited from it, so would Turkey in case it gives priority to dialogue instead of intimidation and sabre rattling. 

Options and Prospects

Turkey, Syria and Iran all see an independent Kurdish movement as a threat. Before the Arab Spring set in, the states had attempted to collaborate with each other to counter the Kurdish aspiration for self-identity or even independence. It’s all over now. Turkey is not an Iranian friend now; it has become a bitter enemy of Syria. For all these countries the chances to quell the Kurdish movement have diminished significantly. Baghdad still has not recovered from war. Tehran has been weakened because of the international pressure as a response to its nuclear program, so it turns a blind eye to the Kurds autonomous activities. The Arab upheavals accelerated the collapse of the Turkish-Iranian-Syrian axis. The revolution in Syria turned Ankara and Damascus into enemies and gave impetus to Syrian Kurds collaboration with their brethren in Turkey, not to speak of the PKK card, the turn of events Turkey could have easily foreseen before it adopted its hostile, anti-Assad approach. 

 Syria remains volatile and unstable with ethnic and religious groups fighting one another. Syrian Kurds are likely to draw lessons and follow the successful example of Iraqi Kurds in establishing an enclave of their own while the rest of the country is involved in war. Actually, Iraqi Kurdish forces have already started training Syrian Kurdish fighters. The Syrian war has allowed the Kurds, occupying the far northeast of the country, to carve out a relatively autonomous and stable region, free of government and, what’s more important, rebel control. Syrian Kurds are pushing for self-rule short of independence and there is nothing Turkey or anybody else can do with this reality. The tumultuous events in the Middle East, which has become the world’s most volatile region, provides an ample opportunity for Kurdish awakening. This process is gaining ground separately within each of the four communities with all corresponding specific features, but the trans-border activities are, and most probably will be, increasingly getting the Kurds national political consciousness together. The Kurdish factor appears to be on the way to shake the Middle East geostrategic lines and pillars. In Syria Kurds are demanding a federal system providing them with significant autonomy at least. The Kurds in Turkey are using the intricacies of internal situation to press for democratic autonomy, as they call it. In Iran, they are still to rise from obscurity but the start of the process is there. Thanks to US intervention and the developments it spurred, Iraq has become the heartland of Kurds’ self-identity and the establishment of the KRG, which, to call a spade a spade, rules nothing else but de facto a Kurdish state. That’s where Iranian, Syrian and Turkish Kurds increasingly look for guidance. 

* * *

Iraqi Kurdistan has all the features of a state: independent institutions, a constitution and the armed forces (Peshmerga), a thriving economy, diplomatic representation and borders between the Kurdish and Arab parts of the Iraqi state. Syrian Kurdistan has started on its way to acquire the trappings of a state. The creation of Greater Kurdistan will have to manage conflicting Kurdish aspirations in Syria, Iran and Turkey. The process of unification is not a bed of roses. The situation of Kurds in Turkey is different from that of Kurds in Iran which is different from that of Kurds in Iraq or Syria. There are also Turks, Arabs, Assyrians and other peoples and religions in the lands predominantly populated by Kurds. The unification process presupposes getting together different groups with different backgrounds, cultures and visions. A new secular, democratic non-Arab nation may appear to change the volatile Middle East. Another possibility is the emergence of a differences-torn territory with bleak prospects for future. The Kurds face a multifaceted problem with many questions to answer. But they have become a factor of the Middle East and political scene, a factor to reckon with no matter where the tide may turn in the volatile region.

The challenge posed by the «Kurdish Spring» in northern Syria is of an existential character, but, ironically, the powers from far and near who encouraged Turkey to destabilize Syria are nowhere to be seen – incapable or unwilling to get involved in what could turn out to be a regional maelstrom.

An even bigger irony is that Turkey’s best allies in the region in the struggle against Kurdish separatism have traditionally been – and still could be – Iran, Iraq and Syria – but Ankara is no longer on friendly terms with any of them and the prospects of reconciliation seem a remote possibility at the moment.

Meanwhile, the military coup in Egypt has found Turkey badly isolated in its region. The regional axis involving Turkey, Qatar and Egypt has overnight disintegrated and key Arab states view with disfavor the Turkish leadership’s affinities with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Arab Spring mutates

After days of clashes with militant Islamists the town of Ras al-Ain in northeast Syria fell into the hands of Syrian Kurdish party known as the Democratic Union Party [PYD] last Tuesday. Ras al-Ain is situated bang on the Syrian border with Turkey. Two rocket-propelled grenades fired from the Syrian side in fact hit a border post on the Turkish side while «stray bullets» from Syria struck the police headquarters and several homes in the adjacent Turkish town of Ceylanpinar. Turkish security forces have returned the fire and Ankara has reinforced the deployment on the border region.

By the weekend, PYD leadership announced its intention to set up an independent council to run the Kurdish regions in northeastern Syria, which are under their control. Simply put, yet another Kurdish entity is taking shape alongside the Iraqi Kurdistan – this time on Turkey’s border region with Syria. The PYD has a well-armed and effective militia and is linked to the separatist Kurdish militant group in Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK]. It is believed that the PKK leadership is dominated by Syrian Kurds. Unsurprisingly, Ankara dubs the PYD also as a «separatist terrorist organization».

Curiously, the PYD’s main opponent in northeast Syria is the Arab Islamist group Nusra Front, affiliated with the al-Qaeda, which is opposed to Kurdish autonomy. Thus, arguably, Turkey’s security interest lies in the al-Qaeda group regaining the upper hand. To be sure, PKK has alleged that Ankara is «directly behind» the Nusra and its allies operating in northeast Syria.

Wars make strange bedfellows but the security situation in northeast Syria nonetheless brings starkly to the fore the contradiction that Ankara may have to look with hope at an al-Qaeda group as the only credible bulwark against the rising tide of Kurdish nationalism in that strategic region bordering Turkey’s Kurdish homelands. But then, Ankara is also responsible for unleashing the turmoil within Syria through the past two-year period. From a historical perspective, this is precisely the sort of entanglement with the Muslim Middle East that Turkey’s founding father Kemal Ataturk wanted his country to avoid at all costs.

The latest clashes between the PYD and Nusra becomes yet another reminder that the genie of Islamism is out of the bottle in Syria and no one is going to be able to put it back. Turkey is supportive of the Syrian Coalition and the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army [FSA] but the Nusra has edged out the FSA from the battle zone in northeast Syria. The FSA, in fact, denounces the clashes between the Islamists and the Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria to avoid being «dragged into side battles that will definitely hinder the Syrian people from achieving their legitimate goals of obtaining freedom and building a new Syria for all Syrians». But no one listens to the FSA in that part of Syria.

Meanwhile, there is also the regional subplot of the rivalry between Qatar and Saudi Arabia playing out. The two countries fostered respective proxy groups among the Islamist groups operating in Syria. Qatar patronized the Nusra’s associates at one time and given the close partnership between Qatar and Turkey in destabilizing Syria, Turkish intelligence would have kept contacts with the extremist groups linked to Doha. This brings us back to the PKK’s allegation regarding Turkey’s links with the al-Qaeda affiliates in northeast Syria.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has gone on record that Ankara cannot accept the latest developments in northeast Syria. He said cryptically, «Any such attempts – de facto or fait accompli – within Syria would increase the existing fragility in the country and cause more intense fighting… Turkey will respond instantly to any kind of possible threats, no matter where they come from». But it is not a matter of security alone. In terms of Turkish domestic politics, too, Erdogan who is already under pressure from popular protests faces a serous crisis, since PYD’s power garb in Syria will only strengthen the hands of the PKK and in turn create complications for him at home. The point is, Erdogan has been pushing an incipient peace process with the Turkish Kurds, which also involved the established Kurdish parties as stakeholders in his agenda to draft a new constitution for Turkey under which he would get elevated as president in the 2014 poll. Erdogan was heavily banking on the support of the established Kurdish parties to lend him support to advance his game plan in the downstream of his reform package for addressing the longstanding Kurdish grievances of state discrimination and persecution.

Final warning

Without doubt, PKK gains «strategic depth» inside Syria thanks to this week’s developments, and it will now hope to negotiate with Erdogan’s government from a position of strength. Aside the psychological effect, PKK’s financial clout will also increase, as northeast Syria happens to be an oil-rich region. At any rate, an emboldened PKK issued a «final warning» to Erdogan’s government on Friday accusing it of «failing to take concrete steps» and to start implementing the reforms mutually agreed to end their 30-year conflict.

Under the planned reforms the PKK has already begun withdrawing its fighters from Turkey. As part of Erdogan’s peace efforts, Turkey is expected to abolish an anti-terrorism law (which provides for large-scale detention of PKK suspects) and allow Turkish children to be educated in their mother tongue. A wider democratization process on a parallel track demands a lowering of the electoral threshold so that Kurdish parties can be represented in the Turkish parliament under their banner rather than contest as independent candidates as has been the case so far. The PKK statement warned, «If concrete steps are not taken in the shortest time, on the subjects set out by our people and the public, the process will not advance and the AKP [Turkey’s ruling party] government will be responsible».

To be sure, Ankara demands a full PKK withdrawal from Turkish territory as a precondition to move on to a democratization process that would ultimately include the release of all Kurdish political prisoners. Now, the mother of all ironies is going to be that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has snatched the initiative from Erdogan regarding the Kurdish problem that bedevils both countries. Although out of the political compulsion stemming from the ground that a large part of Syria is no longer under control of the government in Damascus, Assad is nonetheless setting a tough precedent (which Erdogan will find it hard to emulate) by showing the willingness to grant autonomy to Kurds in northern Syria. An announcement by Assad in this direction has been expected. The Turkish reported that Assad might agree to Kurdish autonomy in an area comprising seven districts including Haseki, Ras alAin, Afrin, Darbasiyya, Ain al-Arab and Kamishli and that the PYD flag will be raised along with the Syrian national flag in these regions on August 15.

If this happens, Kurds’ longstanding search for national identity will have taken a big step forward and Turkey would come under pressure to match the appreciable level of autonomy for Kurds that exists in Iraq and Syria. It is a disconcerting sight already for the Turks across the border to see the PYD flags fluttering at its offices just 50 meters away inside Syria from across the Turkish town of Ceylanlinar in Sanliurfa province. The fall of Ras al-Ain to Kurdish militants brought hundreds of elated Kurds onto the streets in Turkey’s own southeastern province of Cizre. Trouble duly followed and police had to respond with water cannon as protesters pelted armored vehicles with firecrackers and petrol bombs. Clearly, the PYD’s ascendancy in northern Syria has electrified the political atmosphere in Turkey’s Kurdish regions as well.