Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Since the beginning of the Arab revolutions we have been urging subscribers to keep an eye on Kurdish developments.  It has been clear to us from the outset that the Kurds would seek to maximise their gains from any reordering of the Middle East subsequent to the Arab uprisings, and that this could involve destabilizing complications, partly because of divisons between the Kurdish factions.  This remains our position despite the moves towards peace between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerrilla movement and the Turkish government.

The optimists on the Kurdish question can point to two developments in particular.  First there is the good relationship that has been established between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, under Masoud Barzani, and Turkey.  Then there is the peace process between Ankara and the PKK.  Yet, as the past week has shown, these two developments are capable of upsetting each other.

On 27 May it was reported by Iraqi Kurdish sources that the sixth batch of PKK guerrillas had arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan as part of the group’s negotiated withdrawal from Turkish territory.  Yet the KRG has been complaining that this is happening without any prior consultation between Ankara and the KRG. 

It is true that Iraqi Kurds have historically shown sympathy for the PKK, but this has not always been the case with the KRG’s dominant Barzani-led faction: the Kurdish Democratic party (KDP).  The KDP has often had a difficult relationship with the PKK because its main areas of support border with PKK areas, and because the KDP is seen as a conservative, even tribal, organization, in contrast to the leftist nationalism of the PKK.

The PKK is also suspicious of the KDP’s pretensions to Kurdish leadership, much boosted by the autonomy it has achieved in northern Iraq since the downfall of Saddam Hussein and by the support it has been receiving from Ankara.  The trouble is that the Iraqi Kurds amount to less than one-third of the number of Turkish Kurds and less than one-sixth of the total Kurdish population.  The PKK is much irritated by KDP-supporting media referring to Barzani as the “president of Kurdistan” as opposed to just the leader of the KRG in northern Iraq.

On top of all this, there is now the added complication of Kurdish assertiveness in Syria as the Assad regime’s grip weakens.  The strongest Kurdish faction in Syria is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is an offshoot of the PKK.  The PYD’s armed wing, the People’s Defence Units (YPG), is the dominant security force in the Syrian Kurdish regions. 

The PYD’s main rival is the Kurdish National Council (KNC), which is the creation of Barzani, and the Kurdish regions of Syria are now being seen as a likely battleground for influence between the PKK and Barzani’s KDP.  It is a battle for influence that is likely to be won by the PKK given that the Turkish and Syrian Kurds are closer to each other culturally, speaking the same Kurmanj dialect.  The Kurds of Iraq and Iran speak the Sorani dialect.

Turkey’s hostility to the PYD further complicates the picture, particularly given Ankara’s present moves towards the PKK.