Mixed Messages and Conflicting Goals: Iraq Post-Turkey Elections

Mixed Messages and Conflicting Goals: Iraq, Turkey and the Kurds after Turkeys Parliamentary elections — Supporters of the Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) cheer during a gathering to celebrate their party’s victory during the Turkey’s parliamentary election, in Diyarbakir. photo: Reuters

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

HDP and MHP enjoy the election spoils – national reconciliation or increased nationalism?

Last Sunday’s elections held on 7 June which resulted in the pro-Kurdish HDP passing the 10% threshold with 13% of the vote [1] does not equate with the Kurdish question being resolved or that ethnic Kurds living in Turkey will face less discrimination or persecution.

The MHP nationalist Turkish party has also fared well and upped its share of the vote. One might predict an intensification of Turkish nationalist feeling hostile to Kurdish gains. In practice, whilst the HDP is legal and has succeeded in garnering widespread support in 81 Turkish cities, the party and its lobby will continue to face hostility from that quarter of Turkish society that is suspicious of the Kurdish movement.

That sector considers Turkey to be a Turkish State, as enshrined in the Republic’s Constitution whereby the “State of Turkey, with its territory and nation, is an indivisible entity. Its language is Turkish. Its flag, the form of which is prescribed by the relevant law, is composed of a white crescent and star on a red background. Its national anthem is the “Independence March”. Its capital is Ankara…”[2]

Without changes to the Constitution and legislation, that sector of the establishment that seeks to undermine the legal Kurdish succession of parties on the basis of their support for the outlawed PKK will likely continue. And what of Erdogan’s reference to ‘one religion’ – that of Sunni Islam being a ‘slip of the tongue’? It was not any such thing. Only one religion is recognised as the basis of the Turkish state.[3]

Turkish daily, Today’s Zaman newspaper reported the election results on 8 June according to percentages asserting that the MHP received 16.5% of the vote and became the ‘second winner of the election’[4].

The ruling AKP suffered losses and left Recep Tayyib Erdogan without the support he sought to introduce changes to the Constitution and indeed thereby also bolster his powers as President.

The HDP, spearheaded by popular young Kurdish leader, HDP co-chair, Selahattin Demirtaş, also crossed the 10% threshold securing seats for some 80 pro-Kurdish deputies in the future parliament and 13.5% of the vote[5].

HDP-PKK: ideological and strategic political links

In his post-election address, Demirtaş particularly thanked imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan. Highlighting the HDP’s backing for Ocalan’s polices, he said “Mr Öcalan has consistently supported a civil (political) solution to living together as partners (with Turkey). Emphasising the concept of a shared homeland, he was the fundamental actor in engaging for a peaceful resolution. This emerging (election) success ultimately owes to his decisive stand on the issue of peace… he will continue to play a pivotal role on the subject of (securing) lasting peace just as he has done till now…”[6]

Al Jazeera reported “thousands of Kurds in the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey celebrated the unofficial results, setting off fireworks and waving HDP flags. The political atmosphere was tense in the region before the polls, with bombings targeting HDP buildings and rallies…“[7]

And the nationalist Turkish response?

How easily will the respective deputies of the HDP and MHP sit ‘together’ in the next Turkish Parliament? Will this be the start of a fresh era of trust and co-operation or the perpetuation of deeply founded suspicions and fundamental dislike of one another’s political vision?

Demirtaş addressed the anti-HDP murmurs without specific reference to the MHP saying those that sat near them in Parliament would benefit from greater honour.[8]

MHP leader, Devlet Bahceli’s past anti-Kurdish rhetoric is well known. As one Turkish commentator, Mümtaz’er Türköne observed before the elections “What is the MHP’s solution to ‘living together”?[9]

He correctly predicted that any electoral victory enjoyed by the HDP would imply increased legitimacy of the PKK and its policies as determined in the Qandil mountains.

HDP leader, Selahattin Demirtaş, denied his older brother, Nurettin, was a fighter among the PKK guerrillas in Qandil insisting instead his brother was active in trade in Erbil but Turkish newspapers printed photographs of him armed seated among senior commanders.[10]

Öcalan’s niece, Dilek Öcalan will soon take her seat in parliament keeping the family name prominent in Turkish consciousness as also that of the PKK. [11]

In April, veteran guerrilla commander, Cemil Bayik, now also known as the Council Chairman of the KCK (Koma Civakên Kurdistan – Group of Kurdish Communities), asked for the German people to forgive the PKK for the disruptions in Germany of the 1990s that included blocking highways and acts of self-immolation were a thing of the past and that the struggle the PKK was conducting in Turkey was no longer aiming for independence but for a political solution. The PKK and the Turkish government were saying ‘enough war’ and it had failed to achieve objectives for either side.[12]

The German Social Democrat Party (SDP) has called for the PKK to be taken off the list of terrorist organisations claiming the PKK is now focused on fighting ISIL rather than the Turkish army and has played an important role restraining ISIL forces. SDP Parliamentary Chair, Rolf Mützenich, called for the organisation’s terrorist status to be reviewed based on Bayik’s disclosures.

Turkish nationalists and undercover operatives like those that set off bombs before the elections in HDP strongholds will doubtless foment new plans to combat Kurdish gains justifying such activity on the basis of Kemalism and the fundamental Turkish character of the ‘Turkish’ Republic.

Pro-combat images of the PKK-linked Kurdish Youth militia, YDG-H with their black t-shirts, obscured faces and Ocalan emblems also bring images of ISIS militants to mind[13] [14]

Islamic State militants. Photo: IS media

Twisted polices: NATO forces secretly dropping arms to ISIS?

Whilst seeking a nation of ‘equal peoples’ in Turkey, the threat of ISIS continues to cast a long shadow through the region and beyond.

In a previous article, headed ‘Distorting the Kurdish Question in Turkey’ I wrote of Turkish arms reaching ISIS. [15]

A confidential military source in the Kurdish capital, Erbil, has since confirmed to me that arms and supplies are also secretly being dropped by US aircraft close enough to ISIS in key locations around Mosul for ISIS to be the only clear recipient.

“Recently, a Chinook helicopter landed in Tal Afar, northwest of Mosul airport, and forty days before that, US aircraft dropped two boxes of heavy weapons by parachute in the south of Sinjar, west of Mosul. A week ago and two weeks previously, two helicopters landed at an airport in Thera Krah, south-west of Mosul and supplied weapons to Daesh terrorists.”

The claim that US and NATO aircraft are secretly arming Al-Daesh in Iraq and not just bombing them has not only been supported by eyewitnesses in the Kurdish peshmerga paramilitary but by Iranian sources including proxy militia group, the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq.

The Head of the Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee chief legislator, Hakem al-Zameli, also claimed the Iraqi government is constantly receiving reports from its security forces that NATO aircraft are indeed dropping weapons to ISIS.

Zameli opined that NATO seeks to prolong insecurity in Anbar Province for geopolitical purposes: “The Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL” he said.

Indeed, such claims came a week after a video was released purporting to show a US Chinook helicopter dropping at least two boxes of weapons to ISIS and flying at low altitudes unmolested over ISIS-controlled territory south of Fallujah. It is reported that this footage was filmed by the Hezbollah Brigades based in Iraq.[16]

A FARS news agency report claims that the Iraqi fighters posted a picture of the chopper and that weapons were recovered from the wreckage. However, I have noted that the same pictures are being used with different captions and different claims as to what they actually seek to show.

My confidential source in Erbil, responded saying “That video was from the city of Anbar, west of Baghdad, but I mean the city of Mosul, with drops at least three times in May. I know that aircraft supplied Al-Daesh with weapons, and two nights ago a cargo plane landed at the airport (Tal Afar) north-west of the city of Mosul (circa 29^th May).

He went on to explain that French intelligence had used Kurdish coordinates for their aircraft to bomb Al-Daesh in strategic locations. Kurdish intelligence tip-offs had also led to the No. 2 chief in Al Daesh, Abu Ala Afri, being successfully targeted and killed in that period by French aircraft”, he added.

The Telegraph observed, supporting the claims made to me: “On accurate intelligence, an air strike by the coalition forces targeted the second in command of IS, Abu Alaa al-Afari,” the defence ministry said.[17]

An independent report stated that one of Abu Ala Afri’s key responsibilities had been to provide a channel between Al-Daesh leader, Baghdadi, his inner circle of advisers, and the Amirs of towns and districts falling under IS control.[18]

So where does that leave us? The PKK seeks to end its terrorist status because it is fighting ISIS/Daesh terrorists in Sinjar and its sister organisation, the PYD with some PKK overlap, is doing the same in Kurdish heartland of Syria.

State proxies, militia and mercenaries across the Levant

If Turkey and NATO are indeed secretly arming ISIS, in some probably misguided rationale of curtailing the Assad regime in Syria and Iranian power throughout the region, this has only served to bolster the Shi’a dominated government in Baghdad to call in Iranian militia and authorise a new Shiite force to act as legitimate paramilitary force against ISIS in Iraq.

Telegraph Middle East Editor, Richard Spencer observed mid May: “Officials of both the State Department and the Pentagon said the deployment of the Shia militias was acceptable “so long as they are under the command of the army”.[19]

Anyone can see the territory is a quagmire – layers of contradictory thinking and uncertain Western policies over the war in Syria appear to have twisted both Western objectives and the methods being engaged in reaching or maintaining them.

Just who are the enemies and who are the friends?

In Turkey, in the post-election political landscape of the future, will the PKK continue fighting ISIS while NATO and MIT are allegedly arming them? The issue is not just one of ethnic nationalism and ethnic rights but of re-balancing and healing the unhealthy sectarian divide.

[1] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/ak-party-leads-turkish-parliamentary-polls-150607161827232.html
[2] https://global.tbmm.gov.tr/docs/constitution_en.pdf
[3] http://www.turkeyanalyst.org/publications/turkey-analyst-articles/item/306-not-a-slip-of-the-tongue-only-one-religion-is-recognized-as-the-basis-of-the-turkish-state.html
[4] http://www.todayszaman.com/anasayfa_nationalist-mhp-becomes-second-winner-of-election_383719.html
[5] http://kurdishdailynews.org/2015/06/08/kurdish-hdp-gets-6-million-votes-13-1-with-80-deputies/
[6] http://www.internethaber.com/demirtastan-flas-aciklama-ocalana-tesekkur-ediyorum-793043h.htm (Turkish original, my English extract and translation)
[7] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/ak-party-leads-turkish-parliamentary-polls-150607161827232.html
[8] http://www.sabah.com.tr/gundem/2015/06/10/demirtas-mhp-bize-yakin-durursa-seref-kazanir
[9] http://www.zaman.com.tr/mumtazer-turkone/mhp-ve-baris-sureci_2275366.html
[10] http://www.sabah.com.tr/gundem/2015/05/25/selahattin-demirtas-kandildeki-abisi-ile-ilgili-soruya-cevap-verdi
[11] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/record-number-women-elected-turkish-parliament
[12] http://www.sabah.com.tr/gundem/2015/04/10/pkk-turkiyeden-ozur-diledi
[13] http://www.isikkapisi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Direni%C5%9Fciler-6.jpg
[14] http://turkey.liveuamap.com/en/2015/11-january-kurdish-youth-militia-ydgh-clashing-yesterday?ll=39.96752;32.79027&zoom=8
[15] Sheri Laizer: Distorting the Kurdish Question in Turkey, at https://wordpress-1318350-4815544.cloudwaysapps.com/distorting-the-kurdish-question-in-turkey-2015-03-24
[16] http://www.globalresearch.ca/iraqi-army-allegedly-downs-a-us-helicopter-for-providing-weapons-to-isis-report/5434525
[17] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11602947/Islamic-State-acting-leader-killed-by-US-led-strike-claims-Iraqi-government.html
[18] See: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-who-was-abu-alaa-al-afri-islamic-state-kingpin-killed-iraq-1501358
[19] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11614169/Shia-militias-and-Sunni-tribal-fighters-join-forces-against-Islamic-State-in-Ramadi.html