Washington Kurdish Institute April 26, 2021
A glance at the Kurdish issue covering historical events, America’s public support, and how America’s public support for the Kurds did not translate into policy.
During a panel hosted by the Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI) about the closure case against the Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey, the speakers addressed authoritarian President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his the current crackdown on the Kurds.
The HDP is Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish party, second-largest opposition party, and third-largest party in Turkey, and has suffered immense pressure from the government since June of 2015, when Erdogan’s party, Justice and Development (AKP), suffered its first loss due to the rise of the HDP.
“Since [2016], thousands of [HDP] members have been jailed; over 150 elected officials have been forcibly removed from office and replaced with government-appointed trustees, and, after winning in 65 municipalities in the 2019 elections, the HDP now controls only five small towns. More recently, on March 17th of this year, a Turkish court’s chief prosecutor, following threats from the AKP and their nationalist allies, the MHP, filed a suit to officially and permanently close down and ban the HDP. On March 31st, the constitutional court returned the case for closure, citing procedural deficiencies. It claims that, once the deficiencies are rectified, it will re-examine the file,” said Shwan Karim, the moderator of the discussion.
Indeed, this is nothing new for the Turkish state given that, since 1990, the government has shut down five major Kurdish parties and has jailed tens of renowned Kurdish politicians on bogus charges, including merely using the Kurdish language during part of a parliamentary oath. The next target of Erdogan and his ultra-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), led by Devlet Bahçeli, is the HDP.
“Everything that is cited in the indictment is based on the previous court cases and the […] press releases [and] public talks […] made by the members of the party. So, even under Turkey’s legal courts and rules, there is nothing criminalizing. However, we do know that this is political, just like […] all other legal actions against the members of the Kurdish party. So thinking in the realm of law or the legal field is meaningless. But what the indictment asks is serious in terms of asking for five years of the political band for 687 members of the party, some of whom are deceased. This is one of the reasons why the indictment is returned to the prosecutor right now,” said Dr. Nezan Bedirhanoglu, postdoctoral fellow at Wellesley College.
The Turkish judicial system under Erdogan has suffered the most in terms of credibility, and it has become a tool for cracking down on Erdogan’s opponents – mainly the HDP, who, so far, had the most courage of the Turkish opposition to stand against authoritarianism.
“This move against the HDP also comes in the context of Erdogan’s nationalist coalition partner developed with Bahçeli repeatedly calling for it. There are different interpretations of the relationship between Erdogan and Bahçeli. Some people have argued that Bahçeli is actually pressuring Erdogan into taking this move and that his calls have created the context in which everyone was forced to make this move. Other people seem more plausible to me, suggest[ing] that there’s a more nuanced relationship that Bahçeli calls to do this, [which] either functions as trial balloons for Erdogan or simply sets the stage [and] lay[s] the groundwork for Erdogan to then go ahead and make these moves,” said Dr. Nick Danforth, author of The Remaking of Republican Turkey: Memory and Modernity Since the Fall of the Ottoman Empire.
The Kurdish regions: 2+2=1
Qazi Mohammed, the first leader to declare a Kurdish state in 1946 Iran – Eastern Kurdistan (Rojhelat) – had a famous quote: “two plus two equals one.” In a lengthy nationalist poem, the Kurdish leader explains his math as “a human’s two arms and two legs do not make up four, but in one body they operate.” He described the Kurdish nation which, due to old international treaties, has been divided into four states: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. A century later and following several genocides, destruction, and demographic changes, the majority of the Kurds face the same issues today – the same discrimination policies and oppression. However, the two smallest Kurdish regions in Iraq and Syria are somewhat in a safer position than those in Turkey and Iran, though they still face constant existential threats.
Since 1990, the world has witnessed the rise of the Kurds, especially after the first Gulf War in Iraq. The Kurds then rose up against the Iraqi dictatorship and established a regional government which was recognized in Iraq’s constitution in 2005. In 1991, the Kurdistan region of Iraq became a western partner to face extremism, while also providing a safe haven for the international community – led by the US – for strategic interests.
A similar case occurred in Syria, where the US chose to arm the Kurds as a last ditch effort to face ISIS when the terror organization controlled parts of Iraq and Syria. The Kurds heroically fought against ISIS before the US aid, and the failure of Turkey and its jihadists to counter ISIS led the Obama administration to pursue cooperation amid Erdogan’s intense refusal. The Syrian Kurds, despite the successful self-governance style they established, remained unrecognized by the international community, mainly due to Turkey’s pressure. That said, since 2012 and in spite of the recent Turkish invasions and ethnic cleansing against the Kurds, they are free from the Assad regime and Jihadist regulations – for at least half of their region.
In both Iraq and Syria, the Kurds remain a tiny population in comparison to the greater Kurdistan. For example, the largest populations of Kurds are in Turkey with an estimated 20 million and Iran with 12 million. However, the Kurdish question – or “issue,” as some call it – is still struggling to win its deserved recognition as part of a broader discourse by the international community that divided the Kurds in the first place.
There are lots of stories of the US or international community betraying the Kurds, but, undoubtedly, the first case was against the Iranian Kurds in 1946, after their establishment of the Republic of Kurdistan (aka Mehabad). Both Russia’s red army and the United Nation’s resolution II – backed by the US and Western powers – made the Kurds vulnerable to Iranian attacks, which resulted in the dismantling of their first state. Since then, Iranian Kurds have struggled to have any basic rights under the current and previous regimes. The Iranian Kurdish opposition parties still struggle to meet US officials, a policy put in place by President Obama.
After chemical weapon attacks on the Kurds in Iraq and the First Gulf War, the international community – mainly the US – imposed a No-Fly Zone to protect the majority of the Kurdistan region, but excluded Kirkuk, which suffered the most under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Despite the Kurdish partnership with the West since 1990, in Iraq, the Kurds were instantly sold to Baghdad, Tehran, and Ankara by the US and the international community when they conducted an independence referendum in 2017. Additionally, on many occasions since 2003, the US clearly chose Baghdad over the Kurds, despite the animosity they have received since the first day the US stepped into the country.
In Syria, the fate of the Kurds remains unclear, mainly due to Turkey’s aggression, the Russian– and Iranian-backed Assad regime, and the wrong policies of the US and European Union (EU). They still struggle to secure a seat in the US-backed peace talks over Syria, known as the Geneva peace talks. Furthermore, President Trump allowed Turkey to occupy a large swath of the Kurdish region in the fall of 2019, known as the Turkish invasion.
In Turkey, the Kurds have been, by far, the least mentioned or discussed by the international community, despite the continued atrocities by the Turkish state and Erdogan. The HDP closure and the ongoing, century-long crackdown on the Kurds did not change the state’s approach toward the Kurds.
How much of public support translates to policy?
The Kurds are the largest minority in the world without their own state, and, due to their history of struggle, they were able to win significant support among Americans and people across the globe. As recent as the Turkish invasion into Syrian Kurdistan, Americans have extraordinarily reacted in support of the Kurdish struggle against the betrayal by the US administration at that point. The public pressure led the US congress, media, former officials, and several major think tanks to criticize President Trump and to call for the protection of the Kurds. Further, several Republican lawmakers broke off with Trump for the first time over Syrian Kurds.
Similar public support occurred – but to lesser degree – among media and Congress when Iraq, Iran, and Turkey attacked the Kurds after the independence referendum. Furthermore, the Kurds also enjoyed significant support from Americans in 1991, when President George Bush decided to leave Iraq after his administration told the Shias and the Kurds to raise up, but they were left alone.
“What’s it going to take aside from mass casualties, the only thing that moves the needle, to really get recognition of the Kurdish question?” Karim asked the panelists.
“The discouraging thing, I think, for me, was to see that, even at a moment when I think the Kurdish cause had as much support and attention and interest from the United States as it ever has – be it then with the KRG independence referendum or Trump’s withdrawal from Syria – you actually saw how little that support meant. In many cases, very genuine, very emotional support for the cause for the Kurdish people […] actually meant [little] in terms of the policy,” replied Dr. Danforth, faultlessly.
The American supportive thought drew much attention, but did not translate into effective policies. For example, the bipartisan support the Syrian Kurds received from the average American led the House of Representatives, for the first time in the Trump era, to adopt a long and detailed sanction bill against Turkey and Erdogan to stop the Turkish invasion. The bipartisan bill passed by a vast majority, with 403 representatives voting in favor. However, once it arrived in the Senate, the majority leader, then-Senator Mitch McConnell, never released it for debate and voting to avoid embarrassing President Trump. In the end, the whole American outcry ended without any pressure on Turkey or Erdogan. Simultaneously, the policymakers, to this date, have not changed any policies for the Kurds, despite public support for the Kurds; They still side with the government and regimes ruling the Kurds.
“I think this has something to do with, first, of course, the way that international systems are operating. The contemporary system that we have, which has been going on for a couple of centuries by now, is that the nation-state system doesn’t really allow these kinds of anti-systemic movements or anti-systemic groups to be visible in this. I would like to cite Mr. Ismail Besikci here, ‘Kurds, not just being an internal colony, also given all the international developments since the fall of Ottoman empire, is also an international colony in this sense,’” said Dr. Bedirhanoglu.
America is the most compassionate and generous nation in the world, but, when it comes to foreign policy, the US government does not represent the will of the people. This might be also the case across the globe in other nations, but the results are more genocide and mass killing of minorities of the world, especially in the Kurdish case, one of the most reliable friends of America in the Middle East.
Closing the HDP is another nail in the coffin of peace in Turkey, but it won’t be the last nail, since Erdogan won’t stop at seizing the Kurdish party, but will occupy more Kurdish lands to expand his authoritarian rule in the region and has been against the US for the most part.