Mavi Boncuk |
19/06/2004 KurdishMedia.com
New York (KurdishMedia.com) 19 June 2004: On 17 June 2004, the Society of Turkish-American Architects, Engineers & Scientists (MIM) held a conference in New York City entitled “The Impact of Recent Developments in Iraq on Turkey’s Economy and Geopolitics”. Featured speakers were Dr. Soner Cagaptay, coordinator of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, and Mr. Orhan Ketene, the United States representative of the Iraqi Turkmen Front. The conference attendees were mostly Turks and Turkish-Americans, and, while the speeches were given in English, some questions were asked in Turkish as well as English.
Dr. Cagaptay spent the bulk of his time discussing his observations from his nine-day visit to Iraq earlier this year, when he traveled from the Turkish border south all the way to Kuwait. He spoke of relative prosperity in the north (i.e., Kurdish region) and dire poverty and lack of infrastructure throughout the rest of the country, stating that the entire country was built to serve the former dictatorship and not the people. According to Dr. Cagaptay, Iraqi society is very “weaponized”, and there are more weapons than people in the country, presenting a major problem in attempts to bring peace. The biggest problem, he said, is that “everybody thinks that other groups are being treated better by the Americans.” Most significantly, he said that the Shi’a see every gain by Iraq’s Kurds as a loss to them, because the Shi’a seem to believe that democracy is majority rule. He also stated more than once that the “window of opportunity for Kurdish independence is closing”. In looking to the future, Dr. Cagaptay stated that secularism is a sine qua non for the Kurds of Iraq, and that Kurds will not accept remaining within a non-secular Iraq. He closed his speech by stating that he remains “hopelessly optimistic” and stated that the “ball is in the court of the Kurds”, and important decisions must be made regarding the Iraqi Kurds’ relations with Turkey and their relations with the rest of Iraq.
Mr. Ketene began his speech by giving a fairly detailed history of the Turkmens of Iraq, stating that their history in what is now Iraq goes back 1200 years. By the time the Mongols invaded Baghdad, there were a significant number of Turks in Iraq, and these Turks fought against the Mongol invaders but were ultimately defeated. Mr. Ketene discussed Turkish presence and influence in what is now Iraq and addressed Saddam Hussein’s campaign of Arabization, in which Arab men were paid 10,000 Iraqi dinars to move to Kerkuk at a time when 1 Iraqi dinar was equivalent to US$3.30. As Arabs moved to Kerkuk, Kurds and Turkmens were concurrently persecuted and forcibly displaced by the Iraqi regime. Mr. Ketene claimed that, at the present moment, the Kurds can decide to establish a multi-ethnic unit in the north of Iraq which would be a “Switzerland of the Middle East”. However, he stated that Iraqi Kurds are attempting to improve relations with Turkey while worsening their relations with Iraqi Turkmen – charges rejected by Iraqi Kurdish leaders. He cited rising ethnic tensions in Iraq, and stated that, during his last visit to Iraq one year ago, a man in Khalis, an Arab city north of Baghdad, told him that the Turkmens are “honorable people” because they never turned against the Arabs but, this man added, the Arabs will finish off the Kurds. Mr. Ketene closed his speech by criticizing a lack of Turkmen representation in the Iraqi government and stated that he is opposed to ethnic rule in Iraq, rejecting the Lebanese model.
While both Dr. Cagaptay and Mr. Ketene addressed similar issues, it would be fair to say that Dr. Cagaptay was more optimistic regarding the future of Iraq and all of its constituent nations. Both believed that the Kurds had important decisions to make in the near future, and both stated that the Kurds of Iraq were improving their relations with Turkey. As violence continues in Iraq and ethnic tensions manifest themselves in savage incidents such as the murder and mutilation of the five Kurds in Arab territory just a few days ago, it is plain that there are a host of issues lying ahead for the people of Kurdistan and Iraq. Among these is the relationship between the Kurds of Iraq and Turkey, and the ramifications of this relationship that may be felt by the Kurds living under Turkish rule.
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