(Recast) Spotlight: Analysts advise against Turkish support for Iraqi Kurdish independence bid

As the Iraqi Kurds are preparing for a referendum on independence, Turkey should not support Kurdish separation as such an eventuality would not only risk bringing further chaos into the region, but also threaten Turkey's own integrity, analysts told Xinhua.

"It's obvious that an independent Kurdistan in Iraq would pose a threat to Turkey's territorial integrity," said Cahit Armagan Dilek, director of the 21st Century Turkey Institute think tank.

It has been circulating in recent years that the Turkish government may be hoping to unite with the Iraqi Kurds under a sort of federal structure after the Kurds break away from Baghdad.

Many feel, however, such a scenario may well pose an existential threat to Turkey as it could also set the stage for the country's eventual disintegration.

Referring to the fact that Turkey is fighting a Kurdish separatism at home as well, Dilek said "a unification with the Kurds would later risk dismemberment of Turkey in favor of the emergence of a greater Kurdistan."

According to recent reports citing Iraqi Kurdish officials, the referendum for independence from Baghdad may be held in August or in the fall.

Massoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), announced at the end of March that the plebiscite would be held "in the near future."

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been waging an insurgency against Turkey for over 30 years for an autonomous if not an independent state in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Dilek, a former staff officer in the Turkish military, feels unification with the energy-rich Iraqi Kurdish region is a carrot Turkey should not fall for.

According to an oft-voiced thesis based on such a scenario, Turkey would simply serve as an instrument for the birth of a Kurdish state as Turkish and Iraqi Kurds would later, supported by Western powers, move to break with Ankara.

Turkey should realize that major powers would not allow it to have Iraq's Kurdish region just as they did not following the First World War, stated Dilek.

The last parliament of the Ottoman State, of which Turkey is the heir, declared in 1920 that the Mosul province in Iraq must remain part of the nation and not be handed over to foreign powers.

Ottoman's Mosul province included, other than the city of Mosul itself, cities such as Sinjar, Sulaymaniyah and oil-rich Kirkuk.

The Great Britain, the superpower of the time, occupied the area following the conclusion of an armistice with the Ottomans and refused to return it to Turkey during the Lausanne negotiations.

The countries in the region, including Turkey, should discourage Kurdish independence as such a step would threaten their territorial integrity, said Faruk Logoglu, a former diplomat who assumed top posts in the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

Logoglu fears that such a move would cause further bloodshed in a region already in turmoil by "dragging the region into a protracted new conflagration along ethnic lines."

The Iraqi Kurds, with a population of around five million, have been more assertive in seeking independence since the collapse of the Iraqi regime following the U.S. occupation in 2003.

KRG President Barzani said, in an interview with the French daily Le Figaro early this month, that it was time for the creation of a Kurdish state.

The autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq officially covers a significant portion of the country's northern part which borders Turkey.

The KRG has, however, de facto extended its control over much of northern Iraq as well as oil-rich Kirkuk during the past several years in its fight against the Islamic State (IS). The landlocked Kurdish region has large reserves of oil and natural gas.

Logoglu argued that the Kurds in particular would lose in such a scenario of independence, as would those countries with a Kurdish minority in the region.

"A region still facing the unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict and currently suffering the ravages of an ongoing sectarian warfare cannot possibly cope with an added layer of ethnic conflict," he cautioned.

Other than Iraq and Turkey, Iran and Syria have a sizable Kurdish minority on their soils.

The Kurdish militia in Syria, which Turkey sees as the PKK's Syrian offshoot, has also carved out for themselves three autonomous cantons along the Turkish border during Syria's civil war.

When the Iraqi Kurds once again raised the issue of an independence referendum in March, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin stated that it would be a wrong step.

Noting the effects of ethnic and sectarian-based steps would be felt as well beyond Iraq, he stressed "everybody would pay the price for that."

No comment has come so far from the Turkish government following statements about independence vote by several Kurdish figures this month.

Ozturk Yilmaz, a deputy chairman of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, called on the Turkish government last week to clarify its position on the Kurds' independence bid and whether it sincerely supports Iraq's territorial integrity.

Strongly suggesting that the government's current attitude is not supportive of Iraq's territorial integrity, Yilmaz said "if it does not support it, it's time to talk frankly about that."

The Iraqi Kurds are waiting for the battle against the IS in Iraq to successfully come to an end to hold the referendum. The extremist group is also expected to be largely eliminated this summer in Syria, which neighbors both Iraq and Turkey.

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has built strong economic and political ties with the KRG in the past ten years or so. Ankara had a spat with the Iraqi central government in the past for allowing the Kurds to sell oil through Turkey without Baghdad's approval.

As the biggest investor in business in northern Iraq, Turkey is widely seen as the regional patron of the Iraqi Kurds, while the U.S. emerges as the main sponsor.

The analysts agree that the Kurds would not dare to go independent without the U.S. support.

The U.S. is known to have several military bases in the Iraqi Kurdish region. It has also built several military bases in the Kurdish cantons in Syria and provided the Kurdish militia, known as the People's Protection Units, with heavy weapons in the fight against the IS.

It is widely argued that the oil the Kurds have been selling through Turkey for years has paved the way for Kurdish independence. The Iraqi Kurdish economy is heavily dependent on oil revenues.

As opposed to Turkey's traditional stance, the ruling AKP has long pursued a policy of lending support to Kurdish independence in Iraq, remarked Dilek.

"It is commonly believed that this (policy) is more a result of the special relations of unknown content the AKP entertains with the Barzani administration than of being based on Turkey's interests," he said.

In contrast to presidential spokesman Kalin's remarks, a leading KRG figure revealed on Tuesday that Turkey does not oppose the Iraqi Kurds' independence.

An Iraqi Kurdish news portal, basnews.com, quoted Masrour Barzani, head of the KRG intelligence and security services and son of President Barzani, as saying during a visit in Washington D.C. that neither the U.S. nor Turkey has objected so far to the independence initiative.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said back in 2015 that a potential breakup of the Iraqi Kurds with Bagdad is Iraq's domestic issue that Turkey would not meddle in.

"That's none of our business," Erdogan said during a live television interview then, indicating Turkey would not oppose such a move.

Over the years, there have been quite a few reports and columns in Turkish media that talked about the AKP's vision of enlarging Turkey's territory.

Back in October, when Erdogan's emphasis on Turkey's involuntary acceptance of the Treaty of Lausanne was a hot topic of discussion, a columnist in the pro-government Yeni Safak daily maintained that Erdogan aimed to make Turkey bigger.

Mehmet Acet, the columnist who based his claim on an anonymous cabinet minister, quoted Erdogan as saying at a National Security Council meeting at the presidential palace in early October, "Turkey can no longer remain at this point. The status quo will change in some way or other. We will either win by making a move forward or we will be destined to get smaller. Personally, I'm determined to make moves forward."

Following the quote, Acet said a new status quo would emerge in Turkey's southern neighbors in the years to come, based on the developments in the area stretching from Syria's Aleppo to Mosul.

Erdogan's oft-repeated reference last fall to Turkey's historical rights over the Mosul region in northern Iraq, together with his criticism of the Treaty of Lausanne, also reinforced doubts that Turkey may be planning to unite with the Iraqi Kurds.

In a speech back in November, Erdogan underlined that the Treaty of Lausanne is not an unquestionable text and that Turkey would make efforts to enhance it.

Noting that the balance of power that was in place during the Cold War is getting shattered one by one, he said "despite that, they still try to keep us confined to (the treaty of) Lausanne."

Following a successful war of independence, the newly-founded Turkish Republic signed the treaty in 1923 with the Allied Powers in the First World War.

Hasan Koni, head of the Department of Public International Law with Istanbul's Kultur University, feels Turkey's unification with the Iraqi Kurds is unlikely.

The major powers in the world would not like Turkey to get bigger while controlling at the same time substantial reserves of oil and natural gas, he said.

It is widely argued that the Iraqi Kurds can not seek independence without first having won the support of at least one neighboring country, as it is landlocked and can not survive if all its neighbors are hostile.

"Looking at the current picture, Turkey is the country in the region which is behind the Kurds," said Dilek.

Iran, an ally of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, is against the Kurdish bid for independence.

According to Iraqi media reports last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi will not interfere with the Kurdish referendum.

The Iraqi Kurds seek an amicable divorce from Baghdad, which has been militarily weakened by years of civil war and the ongoing battle against the Islamic State.

Many believe the process would no be smooth as the Kurds hope. To make things worse, the Kurds also claim for themselves some territories, including Kirkuk, that are designated as disputed by the Iraqi Constitution.

Iraqi Turkmens as well as Arabs strongly oppose the Kurds' seizure of Kirkuk. Turkmens in Iraq, with an estimated population of two million, are the third biggest ethnic minority after Arabs and Kurds.

"History and politics will not permit a velvet divorce. The Arabs would oppose it. The Iranians will not support it," stated Logoglu.

In the view of Koni, Turkey would risk dismemberment in future should a unification with the Kurds take place as the country would, more than today, be composed of two major ethnic identities, namely Turks and Kurds.

Noting ethnic identities have now become very prominent in the world, he said separatism based on ethnic identity continues to be a problem, even for some rich Western countries.

The Western powers are known to have plans since the fall of the Ottoman State to create a greater Kurdistan that would extend to several countries in the region.

The Treaty of Sevres the Ottoman State was forced to sign following the First World War had opened the way for an independent Kurdistan in Turkey's southeastern region, but the project was ruined by Turkey's successful independence war.

The U.S. aspiration to have a Kurdish state in the Middle East was revealed in May 2015 by a KRG minister during a live broadcast on Iraqi Kurdistan's Rudaw TV.

According to press reports in Turkey at the time, Derbaz Kosret Resul, the cabinet minister, said then U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden told KRG President Massoud Barzani during his visit to the U.S. that both of them would see the establishment of a Kurdish state in their life times.

There have been other signs about Washington's being after an independent Kurdistan. In an article published in June 2006 in the U.S. Armed Forces Journal, Ralph Peters, a retired officer, wrote that Turkey's eastern part should be seen as an occupied territory that really belonged to Kurds.

In his article titled "How a better Middle East would look," Peters wrote "as for the Kurds of Syria and Iran, they, too, would rush to join an independent Kurdistan if they could ... A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan."

According to Logoglu, Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran must come together to defend the existing borders of their countries to avoid a potential disaster, while the Kurds must seek to be recognized as a distinct ethnic community in the countries they live in. Endit