Washington Kurdish Institute
July 15, 2019
When Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to rally his supporters and leaders of other states that also oppress the Kurdish people, he uses a special term: “Jew”. In 2017, when the Kurds of Iraq held an independence referendum, Erdogan indulged in the language of classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theory to describe the referendum campaign, an effort aimed at achieving self-determination for the Kurds of Iraq. Erdogan, always more concerned with Kurdish gains than the rise of ISIS, a leader openly sympathetic with Hamas, has, like the Turkish leaders who came before him, steadfastly opposed any type of autonomy or independence for the Kurdish people inside or outside of Turkey’s borders. Of course, when Erdogan courts Kurdish voters, he calls the Kurds his “brothers”. Nonetheless, Erdogan has made it clear that he considers all the Kurds to be “terrorists”, including the Syrian Kurds who he accuses of being a part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that has fought for decades for the rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey.
Erdogan taken a brutal approach to the Kurdish people, consistent with the policies implemented by the Turkish state since its founding in 1923 aimed at subjugating them and questioning or completely erasing their identity. The Turkish state’s policy of persecution has been consistent and, while violence has ebbed and flowed, mass killing and forcible population transfer have always been a weapon that the Turkish state was eager to use against the Kurds. Under Erdogan, the Turkish government has not only committed atrocities against the Kurds in Turkey but in Iraq and Syria. Turkey’s most recent acts of cross-border military aggression against the Kurds has been perpetrated in Iraq, with air power and heavy weapons used against Kurdish villages near the Turkish border. After a century of denying Kurdish basic cultural rights, and after four decades of a war with the PKK, the Turkish government has launched a new wave of military actions purportedly targeting the PKK within Iraqi Kurdistan. As during previous campaigns, Turkey’s military might is being used indiscriminately, killing and injuring civilians and driving villagers from their homes. The most recent campaign of aggression is once again said to target the PKK, though civilian casualties are adding up. On June 26 and 27, five civilians were killed by Turkish airstrikes in Bradost district in Iraqi Kurdistan. Two more were killed in the first week of June and four were injured, and thousands of people have fled their villages and homes. Additionally, the indiscriminate Turkish airstrikes also apparently targeted Christian and Muslim holy places. Tens of people in Kurdistan have been injured people of and are unable to go back to their normal lives.
Since the end of the peace process between the Turkish government and the PKK in July 2015, the Turkish military has launched several military campaign against Kurds in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Since 2015, hundreds of Kurdish villages suffered displacement and mass killing by the Turkish military including historic towns. Turkish security forces have a historic record of facing accusations of war crimes, including destroying Kurdish villages and cities on many occasions since the establishment of the Turkish state. In 2018, the Turkey executed a large scale campaign of military aggression against the Kurdish region of Afrin of Syria and, working hand in hand with various jihadist groups, perpetrated grave crimes against civilians during this campaign. These violations of human rights committed against the people of Afrin persist to the present day, as Turkey works with its jihadist proxies to maintain a military occupation of the once peaceful region. The Afrin operation resulted in the death of 200 Kurdish civilians, mostly by air raids, and large scale looting of civilian property was perpetrated by Turkey’s proxy forces.
Despite the internal disagreements between the Kurdish parties, all Kurds condemn Turkish attacks against Kurdish civilians, including the Parliament of Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The Kurds realize Erdogan’s “love” for the Kurds is myth given the recent record of the Turkish aggression including against some parties that enjoy a close relationship with Turkey such as the Kurdish National Council.
Turkey’s NATO membership has granted Erdogan access to high tech Western weapons, and has also seemingly provided him with diplomatic cover to pursue an endless war against the Kurds against the backdrop of silence from the international community.
The Turkish military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan end immediately. The longer it continues, the more civilian lives will be lost. Such campaigns will never result in the Turkish state achieving its ultimate goal of silencing the Kurdish people, as a century of war has not been able to stop the Kurds from demanding their basic rights in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Campaigns of military aggression are both bloody and doomed to failure, and the only tenable solution to the Kurdish question will be found through a process of dialogue in which the Kurdish people are treated with respect and dignity by those who now oppress them.