Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

In last week’s briefing we looked at the possibility that Iran might be reactivating its support for Kurdish separatists in Turkey in retaliation for Turkey’s support for opponents of Iran’s ally President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.  But it is not just Iran which could be looking to the Kurdish question as a means of pressurising Ankara.  This is a card that Israel seems equally willing to play as its relations with Turkey continue to flounder.

It will be recalled from last week’s briefing that Iran is suspected of being behind the 14 July attack by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerrillas in which 13 Turkish soldiers were ambushed and killed in southeast Turkey.

Relations between Turkey and Israel have been steadily deteriorating since the Islam-based Justice and Development Party (AKP) gained power in 2002, with a serious spike in tension following the Israeli attack on the Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara during an attempt to run the Israeli-imposed blockade on the Gaza Strip in May 2010.  Nine activists were killed in the operation.

Turkey’s AKP Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan further alarmed Israel with his victory speech following the AKP’s third successive election victory in June.  Saluting the AKP’s victory, Erdogan proclaimed that “Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul; Beirut won as much as Izmir; Damascus won as much as Ankara; Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir.”  Erdogan’s determination to foster the Palestinian cause could hardly have been made plainer.

This deterioration in relations between Israel and Turkey is a serious strategic problem for Israel at a time when Egypt could be moving away from its commitment to Camp David.  It is partly Turkey, after all, that has kept Syria so quiet for so long.  In 1998, Turkey even threatened to invade Syria over its support for the PKK, and that threat was a major bonus to Israel at a time when Israel had very close relations with the Turkish military.

Now, with Turkey firmly opposed to Israel and with the possibility of a pro-Turkish Muslim Brotherhood regime coming to power in Syria, Israel is in desperate search of ways to modify Turkish policy.  Strong voices are being raised for appeasement, starting with a fulsome apology for the Mavi Marmara attack; but Turkey wants more, including a lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip.

So the alternative, of playing Kurdish hardball, is increasingly being discussed in Israel.  The Kurds have a major call on the Western conscience.  In the aftermath of World War I they were denied self-determination and parcelled out between Turkey (where they make up 20% of the population), Iran (7% of the population), Iraq (20% of the population), and Syria (9% of the population).  There are estimated to be between 30m and 35m Kurds, which is a substantial number (far more than the Palestinians, for instance) yet they are deriving little if any benefit from the Arab Spring.

Not surprisingly, some powerful voices in Israel can see there is mileage to be made here and are advocating a concerted raising of the Kurdish question as a counter to Turkey and also, in part, as a way of highlighting that it is not just the Palestinians who lack nationhood in the Middle East.  An editorial in The Jerusalem Post put it this way on 24 July: “There’s no reason not to express unstinted Israeli support for Kurdish self-determination – as we did for South Sudan’s.  This isn’t merely the right thing to do as a quid pro quo for Turkey’s own conduct, but because the Kurds deserve it.”

Note: Sources in Jerusalem are saying that there is little comfort to be drawn from Turkish-Iranian differences over Syria.  Turkey and Iran are still, these sources point out, co-operating on aiding the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere, on spheres of influence in Iraq, and on weakening the US position in the Middle East.

There does appear to be some opposition in conservative circles in Iran to President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s forceful regional policy.  However, he appeared to answer these critics in a speech made on 25 July in the northern province of Golestan, in which he argued:?“It is impossible for a nation to build a wall around itself.  It is impossible.  We still remember the Soviet Union.  Could it safeguard itself?  No, it collapsed.  We cannot close doors and say we have nothing left to do with the rest of the world and let others rule the world they way they like it.  It is not possible.”

In the meantime, Iran is continuing to make further progress in its quest for nuclear weapons according to Israeli assessments.  The latest expert assessment is that Iran will have enough high-grade enriched uranium for 5-6 atom bombs by the end of 2012.