On Monday Hurriyet published an article by Semih Idiz devoted to the Kurdish issue in present day Turkey.
"Prime Minister Erdoğan cannot have it both ways. Referring to Sunni Arabs who have risen against the al-Assad regime as “freedom fighters who are combating state terror,” but then turning and calling the equally oppressed Kurds who are making political headway now in the confusion that reigns in Syria “terrorists” is hypocritical,"the article reads.
"Developments in Syria, with Kurds controlling parts of Northern Syria along the border with Turkey, have reanimated the Kurdish phobia of nationalist Turks, who are now seething with anger over the prospect of “another northern Iraq” emerging on Turkey’s southern border."
"Prime Minister Erdoğan, who for all his “Kurdish opening,” which was supposedly aimed at alleviating Turkey’s Kurdish problem, has been relying more and more on nationalist quarters over these past few years. This is why with the news coming from northern Syria he wasted no time in playing to the nationalist gallery."
"With Syria’s “Kurdish reality” suddenly dawning on Turks, Erdoğan clearly feels he has to do this, even if his remarks are aggravating as far as Turkey’s own Kurdish problem is concerned, and also risk spoiling Ankara’s developing ties with the Kurds of northern Iraq," Idiz says.
"Ankara’s phobia, however, is not just towards the PYD alone, but to the resurgence of any Kurdish entity in northern Syria. The idea that the Syrian Kurds, with support from the northern Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), may establish their own autonomous or even independent region along the border with Turkey is simply too much for nationalist Turks who fear Kurdish separatism," the author believes.
"There is a sort of déjà vu situation here: Ankara for years used a similar approach, employing the same hostile jargon, against Iraqi Kurds, but could do nothing to prevent the emergence of an all-but-independent Kurdish entity in northern Iraq in the end. Not only did it fail to prevent the formation of such an entity, it actually went ahead and developed good ties with it, as Turkey’s relations with the Shiite-led central government in Baghdad deteriorated," he says.
"What makes it even worse is that Turkey will most likely be unable to do anything to prevent the emergence of an autonomous or independent Kurdish region in Syria, if developments in that country provide the Kurds with another historic opportunity, to complement the one they gained in Iraq," the article reads.
