A Report from (Kurdistan Anarchist Forum) about the events and the present situation in different parts of Kurdistan to the Tenth Congress of the IFA

 

KAFs activities continuous in translating, clarifying anarchist idea and publishing anarchism in Kurdish-Sorani language. We feel that our responsibilities  getting more and more difficult.

Bashur: Iraqi part of Kurdistan

° A part of Iraq and Kurdistan are still occupied by the Isis, liberating them depends on the plans and satisfaction of the US and its allies.

° From June 2014 to end of 2015 there was an independent mass movement in the towns and the cities that later on fell under control of Isis. As soon as the Isis invaded them the protesters became the victims of Isis brutality. However, from the beginning of 2016 the similar movement appeared and still continuous in the towns and cities were under control of Iraqi central government especially Baghdad. Although this movement is not self organised but steps towards radicalisation.

we heard in Mid and South of Iraq there are individuals  and anarchist groups but unfortunately so far we have not had a chance to find them and make a contact.  Hopefully the opportunity will be coming up to meet them to support each other in this difficult time &  situation that Iraq goes through.

° From 2015 to present the protests in Kurdistan, the part under control of KRG are on rise but have not achieved its demands. The police, Peshmarga, security forces, the retired people and pensioners have been taken part in the protests. After occupying Shangal and Ezidins massacre by Isis in Aug 2014 to the end of last year every a few months KRG only paid the wage/salary to its employees. However, from beginning of this year the people work in public sectors just gets around third of their salary. In the meantime KRG cut off the benefit of disable people.

° The Demos and public meetings are suppressed especially in Erbil, the KRG capital.

° Local groups and social network are emerging and on rise.

° The reformist group, so called, The Movement For Change (Goran) split from the Patriotic Kurdistan of Union (PUK) in 2006. However in May of this year they got closer to each other. They agreed on a few major points to work together to improve their relationship to do some reforms. We predict this agreement between them is the first step towards unity. Although this agreement between them has disappointed many people from both sides, but in the meantime many more realised that the political parties and their leaders cannot be trusted.

° from 2015 to 2016 there were so many long strike by the teachers. And also from time to time there were short period strike by hospital staff and workers. But the strike did not become a serious issue for the workers in the private sectors. Most of the private sectors have been owned by the politicians, political parties and their leaders. The KRG never had a plan to improve the agriculture in Kurdistan, instead it destroyed it. The KRG mainly is more concerning about Oil, Gas Cement and Tobacco.

During the demos and protests there was some sort of attempts that made for general strike in whole Kurdistan. While the teachers, workers and the rest of public sectors were not self-organised but affiliated to one of the political parties so that the demos and protests failed to have major impact on the situation.

° At the present many people are supporting anarchism and the numbers of people who contact us are on rise. There is a hope in near future that the independent radical local groups emerge. We as anarchists support the individuals and also working on translating the events and experiments around to Kurdish language. We are hoping building these local groups can be the basis of future movements. Obviously this task demands more work and serious struggle.

° We are writing in the Kurdish Websites and social networks about the importance of working collectively and the cooperative economy, and Ecology issue, [Individual freedom, Women liberation, children right, antiracism, anti-sexism, fascism and chauvinism]. We argue about self efficiency in economy in order to be independent. We also involve in discussion about anarchist education, culture, people self-rule, rejecting the political parties, its militias and the state and its rule.

Rojhalat , Iranian part of Kurdistan

° Rojhalat of Kurdistan like elsewhere in Iran has invaded by the Islamic regime. The Kurdish people have been deprived from being educated by their own language and enjoying their own culture. There has been no freedom of expression in Iran and the regime is continuing suppressing and oppressing whoever arises against the regime. The unemployment, poverty, increasing the price of the daily necessities is the real issues for the majority of people in Iran.

Due to above issues many people have immigrated to industrialised cities in Iran or to Bashur, Iraqi part of Kurdistan. Some of those people who have immigrated to Bashur engaged in smuggling stuff/goods on the borders from Iran to Iraq and vies versa. Obviously, immigrating the worker from Iran to Bashur like any other immigrants in Iraq have deprived of human and worker rights, like, discrimination, low paid, difficulties in renewing their residence document and they live in the worse condition and high rent accommodations. They also face racism.

° There are mass movements of ecology/environment and protecting animal right in Rojhalat. There are also many active groups, like, women right, children right, human right and the group of prisoners. These groups are radical and are getting bigger.

° The unions in whole Iran are very active in the cities and towns. They try to be independent of leftist organisations.

° In the end of 2015 a “Kurdistan anarchist movement” appeared and announced itself in facebook as a movement. Later on they changed their name to “Kurdistan anarchist organisation”. It seems to us they are lack of experience and their activities just strict on internet. They do not have much anarchist background or knowledge about anarchism . They look like radical leftists, centralist an ideological. We do not know how many they are exactly, but look like they are not many. We are aware that there are anarchist activities outside of them but mainly working and remaining as individual.

In Rojhalat, like any other activity, anarchist activities are not allowed and the paying price is executing for whoever involves in activity, so that the anarchist movement can only appear as an individual activist and doing some sort of publicity.

The above mentioned origination/group has appeared very centralist . In our opinion this is a sort of illness among a few of Persian speakers responsible of announcing and ordering people through the facebook to do this and that. The idea and activities of these people are closer to the leftist centralist and hierarchical organisation rather than anarchist and anarchism. The same statement that Malatesta at the time used it for “Bolshevistic anarchist” applies to these Kurdish and Iranian comrades.

We see that among the Iranian Comrades in Europe, there is a wave of anarko-leftist- Marxist. Whether it is deliberate or not, these comrades are selling out leftists and Marxists idea under the name of anarchism. There is a background for this type of thinking. Ten years ago a group of people announced themselves and claimed as “Anarcho-Marxist”.

Rojava, Syrian part of Kurdistan

Liberating of Kobane was a starting point for building a diplomatic and military relationship between US, its allies on one side and the Kurdish forces on the other side. This warm relationship caused confusion among the Kurdish people

° From the very beginning we were against this relationship and cooperation between the Democratic Self Administrations (DSA) in Rojava and US & its allies. There is a possibility of using this relationship by Rojava as a tactic or might have been a matter of desperation but we felt worry and sceptical about it because the US and its allies have serious intention to move their projects of economy, health, social and education following their military cooperation to Rojava.

° To support the state of Turkey against Rojava the KRG from time to time closes the entire borders. The most recent one was happened this year between March and June . It lasted almost for 3 months. In addition, for about a year the KRG asking Rojava forces“ YPG/J HPG “ to leave Bashur and its borders. Even after opening the borders in June is still very hard for people in Rojava to receive medicines, foods and the humanitarian aid. The KRG also using blockade against Qandil Mountain, the headquarters of PKK.

° The KRG actively supports its Kurdish allies political parties (ANKS) against the Rojava Cantons. These Kurdish political parties continuously are in conspiracy against Rojava Cantons .

° In May of this year one of our comrades wanted to go to Rojava, but all the borders were closed so that he could not make it. While we do not have a regular contact from Rojava all the news we have about Rojava are received from different channels.

Anarchists in Rojava

As far as we know there is no anarchist groups call themselves anarchist in Rojava but there are individual anarchists. We think it may be not necessary for them to have groups under anarchist name because there is opportunity for a kind of anarchist activity.

 

 

Bakur, Turkey part of Kurdistan

° A few months ago a few self-administration announced in Bakur (Geverê, Nisêbîn, Cezîre, Silopî , Serd, Veranşar, ) then the street fighting started. This has given the perfect excuse to State of Turkey to destroy most of the historical places. This has pushed more people to involve in demonstrations and protests.

We are from very beginning criticising them in both announcing the Self-Rule and the army struggle. In our opinion the self -Rule has to cover every aspect of the community life and extending to many places. And also this should have formed from the assembly of people not by making announcement from the politicians and people in power. We believe that the arm struggle against the State of Turkey in the towns and cities are not in the interest of the existing social movement. It is not just achieving anything, in fact it has caused losing many of the achievements that PKK gained during the peace process in the last couple years. The army struggle given a perfect excuse to Erdogan to stop peace process and starting war again. Erdogan and his political party AKP know very well starting war with PKK is the best way to divert the social movement to an army struggle. Erdogan knows the army straggle is the way to get support from so called “international community” and make PKK less popular and finally forcing them to meet his demands.

In Bakur , more than the other parts of Kurdistan to certain extent the social movement there are anarchist idea. last year this idea appeared in different forms, for instance: as a group, as website and anarchist magazine issued under the name (Qijka Reş), and there are other anarchist groups in Bakur, like (Kurdistan Anarşist Komünizm Hareketi), Anarşîstên Kurdistan Komunîstên Anarko , DİYARBAKIR ANARŞİST TEAM [D.A.T], Anarşîstên Kurdistan Kulmên Reş , Kurdıstan Anarchism , Anarchy in Kurdistan , Support Anarchists in Rojava, West-Kurdistan , Kurdistan Anarşi , Kollektîfa Anarşisten Kurdistan – Bahdîn and also in German there is anarchist Kurds speakers group.

 

Although so many anarchist groups are exist in Bakur but we do not know their popularities, their daily activities and the other struggle they are involved because our contacts with them only have been through internet . Only once a few years ago we met the comrades of Magazine of (Qijka Reş) and knew them closely.

KAF                01.08.2016

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In retaking Mosul YPG/J and the Guerrillas must be aware of the hidden agenda

By Zaher Baher

August 2016

The plan and conspiracy between Turkey, Qatar and The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) against Rojava will never end.  Documents disclosed by Wikileaks recently regarding the meetings and agreements between the three of them and a special meeting between Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Barzani, the head of  KRG,  proves the truth if we were previously in doubt. Please see the links at the end of article.

When ISIS invaded Mosul it was to the benefit of Turkey, Qatar and KRG.  The liberation of Mosul will also be to the benefit of the above unless YPG/J (people and women protection units) and Guerrilla forces are aware of the changing tactics.

Turkey, Qatar and KRG have completely failed in their previous polices in defeating the social movement and destroying the Cantons in Rojava, no matter how hard they’ve tried.  Starting by invading Mosul, attacking Kobane, committing terrorist acts, setting up a no-fly zone in Rojava and finally Turkey failed in joint action with Saudi Arabia to enter Syria and Rojava to fight Kurdish forces  under the pretext of fighting the terrorist groups.

The current plan is to “retake Mosul”.  The plan involves conspiracy and hidden agenda. This could be brutal; if YPG/J and the Guerrillas do not change their tactics, we may lose whatever was achieved so far in Rojava.

What is the plan/hidden agenda?

There were few reasons for Turkey militaries to cross the border of Iraq in the last year and stationed close enough to Mosul.  One of these is the historical reason; Mosul was one of the regions of the Ottoman Empire in the olden days.  Other reasons: after defeating Turkey and ISIS in Kobane, Turkey considered it important to defend ISIS if they come under attack in Mosul in order to return to al-Raqqha and their territory safely.  It was also to protect the oil tankers that are transferring the cheap oil to Turkey and al-Raqqha, to pressurise YPG/J and the Guerrillas that they are protecting Ezidis community there and also to support and help Barzani’s Peshmarga if the fighting break up between them and the forces of YPG/J and The Guerrillas. More importantly comes the “big plan or hidden agenda”, in an attempt to regain control of Mosul.  It is anticipated the outcome of the fight would defeat ISIS, as a result it would force ISIS to withdraw towards Jazerra. This is the primary goal and original plan.

In my opinion this plan was made long time ago. It is hoped that when ISIS is defeated, they will have nowhere to go but to withdraw towards al-Rabia.  Al-Rabia and the areas around it are under control of Barzani’s Peshmarga.  In this situation it is easy for them to penetrate Jazeera.  Once they arrive there the plan that already designed will be executed by launching the war against YPG/J in Jazeera and its citizens.  What makes the plan goes perfectly well is existing of the Kurdish National Council—the umbrella organization composed of Syrian Kurdish parties created under Barzani’s sponsorship, (ENKS). While the ENKS are Barzani’s allies  if they do not support ISIS directly, they certainly will support them indirectly.

The YPG/J, the Guerrillas and the Ezidis forces in retaking Mosul should try to defuse Turkey and Barzani tactic.  They should take part in this operation only very lightly.  Their main tactic should be gathering all their forces in the region behind the war line to resist withdrawing ISIS towards Jazeera borders. Here it is extremely important to prevent from entering Jazeera.  They should be destroyed, if not, to be forced to withdrew to inside Iraq and Bashur (Iraqi Kurdistan).  Let the Iraqi government and KRG to deal with them as initially both of them just did nothing when ISIS entered their lands and invaded Mosul, in fact they let ISIS carried out genocide to the Ezidis.

I believe it is very necessary for the YPG/J and Guerrillas to stop this war that targets the heart of Rojava, Jazeera; by defusing Turkey and KRG tactic in order to protect and maintain what have been achieved so far there.

Links for reference:

ISIS survives largely because Turkey allows it to: the evidence …
https://undercoverinfo.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/isis-survives-largely-because-turkey-allows-it-to-the-evidence/>*

WikiLeaks Reveals Saudi Arabia, Turkey & Qatar Secret Anti-Sy
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&ved=0ahUKEwjz3KjH9KLOAhXmDsAKHby7CQoQFghbMAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mintpressnews.com%2Fwikileaks-reveals-saudi-arabia-turkey-qatar-secret-anti-syria-plot%2F211542%2F&usg=AFQjCNHbdfCLl9mLswG2fxhF87gsAnRdqQ

Yerevan Saeed one of the Rudaw TV staff  that financed by the Prime minster of KRG, Necheravan Barzani passed information on MIT about the PKK movement and its relationship with the Kurdish political parties in Bashur.

https://wikileaks.org/…/1446311_-fwd-re-guidance-questions

In the link below Yerevan Saeed informing MIT about the movement of PJK ( the PKK sisterhood in Iran) on the  Iran/ Iraq borders

https://wikileaks.org/…/1824264_re-s3-g3-iraq-turkey-iran-c

In the link below  Yerevan  Saeed  informed MIT that PKK wants to have relationship with Israel.

https://wikileaks.org/…/1147093_re-insight-pkk-and-alledged

zaherbaher.com

 

 

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July 17, 2016

The coup, which has been an inevitable reality of the state presence in this geography since the military coup of 1980, arose after 36 years, on the night of July 15. Many state buildings were blocked for a few hours during the military mobilisation based in Istanbul and Ankara. The coup started with flypast of fighter jets in Ankara and blocking of bridges in Istanbul by soldiers, and continued with taking hostage of chief of general staff and tank noise and gun shots in the streets. Many state buildings were shot by F16s and helicopters including the parliament building and the headquarters of National Intelligence Organisation; There were clash of arms in many places between soldiers and police. Following the events, national state television broadcast was cut and the coup declaration signed ‘Peace at Home Council” was read. When the ”5 Hour Coup” ended, more than one hundred soldiers, more than eighty police officers and more than eighty anti-coup protesters died. 2839 soldiers, among them many high ranked ones, were taken into custody.

During this 36 years period, the coup as a tool of political oppression, violence and suppression, has been used as a threat by the army over and over again. No doubt, for us, the oppressed, the coup means torture, suppression and massacre of the peoples in this geography in these periods. It’s evident that a structure which takes its power from the massacres it makes, would continue making massacres in the name of “protect the indivisible unity of the country”. The recent coup is a result of power groups fighting for power inside the state. Perhaps, the hidden existence of power groups outside the state pushes its definition to a wider scale. However, there is no doubt that the ones who reinforced their power as a result of this 5 hour coup are the current government and the head of state.

The night that started as a military coup was made into a “democracy holiday” while the state power gained control. Ruling party, AKP, gained the title of “repelled a coup” with its victory against the coup, on top its legitimacy over its “being elected”. Throughout the night, all TV channels made broadcasts that served this victory and made the propaganda of the illusion of democracy personified on Tayyip Erdoğan. This propaganda was also made continuously by the media that was known to be opposing. It this fight for state power, media not only took side with Tayyip Erdoğan, but also played the role of channelling people to the streets.

As well as the media, the opposing parties in the parliament which did not “spare” their support for AKP since the start of this process; fell into the “prevent others from making politics” trap of state power. Their stance “taking sides with democracy against the coup” as a mask of their political unawareness. This indicates clearly that in the short term, they will not mobilize other than reinforced state power politics. Defining the ones who “will die when Tayyip Erdoğan says die, will shoot when he says shoot”, filling the squares with “we want death penalty” slogans, focused on lynching anyone who comes across, as “democracy supporters”; isn’t this a sign of political stagnation of the same opposing parties?

With this coup and the victory against the coup, AKP now has the environment that it needs to create the ideological transformation on society. The “50% that hardly contained themselves at home” which was shown as threat by Tayyip Erdoğan during the Gezi Protests, were on the streets. The fascist culture which is an important part of the ideological transformation taking place from the law system to social life, was awakened with the ones mobilized by the state onto the streets. Not only that, they were guised as people trying to hold their power of democracy… It’s not hard to guess how these “democratic mobilizations” will face the oppressed in different ways in different places. We have already heard news of lynch activity towards the ones not taking sides with reinforced power of the state.

This fight of power groups trying to acquire the state power which operates on top of rising economic and political injustice; is nothing but the perpetuating of authority of oppressors on the oppressed, in order to destroy the freedom of the oppressed. There is no doubt that neither the visible or invisible dictatorship, nor the military of civil structures, nor the coup, nor the elections of political powers that are the enemy of the people, has anything to do with the will of the people. We, who believe that free life cannot be created by a coup or by elections, recognize the existence of the state as a coup to freedom and our revolt will continue until it creates a free world. The state is the coup, revolution is freedom. What we all need, is not get hopes up on the fights between authorities, but to known that hope is revolution for freedom.

Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet (DAF)

Erdogan policies have played a major role in the Region

By Zaher Baher

July 2016

In this article I will try to show how the regional policies, executed by Erdogan and his AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – Justice and Development Party) in respect of Rojava, Bakur and Iraqui Kurdistan, meet the goals of the Turkey’s president.

None of these policies are in the interest of Turkey. They already have suicidal impact on the country’s social, economic and political situation. In future it may even cause a military coup in Turkey.

As for the economic situation, the biggest damage is done to the tourism sector.

• 8% of the workforce working in the tourist industry generates 12.9% of Turkey’s GDP.

• According to Burak Cosan, The Daily News Istanbul, in 2014 almost 42m people visited Turkey.

• Murat Ersoy, the head of the Tourism Investors Association in a press meeting on the 1^st of June 2016 said “Our country’s loss in tourism revenue may increase up to $15 billion over this year and the decline in tourist numbers by 30 percent compared to 2015”.

• The number of foreign arrivals visiting Turkey declined by 28% in April to 1.75 million compared to the same month of 2015, marking the steepest decline since May 1999, according to data by the Tourism Ministry.

• The number of foreign people visiting Turkey decreased by 16.5% to 5.82 million in the first four months of this year compared to the same period of 2015.

• In the first three months of 2016, tourism revenue decreased to $4.07 billion with a 16.5% drop, according to data that was released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) on April 29.

• Tourism revenue was $31.5 billion in 2015, an 8.3 percent decline compared to the previous year. Leading Turkish tourism player expects $15 bln loss in revenue

We can all see at present that the social and political situation is getting worse as well. I believe the problems Turkey is currently facing are caused by ISIS which Erdogan has based his entire policy on.

How did that come about?

From the very beginning I said and believed that the main aim of invading Mosul by ISIS was because of Rojava and its social movement. The Democratic Self Administration (DSA) in Rojava up to this moment is exemplary not only in this region, but can be said for other parts of the world. As much as Erdogan is unhappy with the type of administration like the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), compliant in meeting his demands completely, he deeply hates DSA, which does not yield to his will.

The so called “international community” may have approved Erdogan’s war against Rojava in 2014. But instead of getting Turkey involved directly, he decided to use a proxy – a terrorist group, ostensibly independent from Turkey. The problem was the terrorist groups supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar were not strong enough to defeat YPG/J (the people and the women protection Units). Erdogan had to choose the most fanatical, brutal and ideological one, ISIS, to achieve all his plans with a very little risk.

Why Erdogan and his National Intelligence Organization (MIT) have chosen Mosul for ISIS?

There were many reasons for Mosul chosen to be invaded by Erdogan and his MIT plans. The historical reason is, Mosul was one of the regions of the Ottoman Empire in the olden days; it is very close to both Turkey & Syria; it is also well connected by public transport with both of these countries. The Community of Ezidis mainly situated in that area, and also the closeness of Mosul to Kurdish towns like Erbil, Duhok, Tikrit and Kirkuk. The region of Mosul is very rich with oil. It was one of the weakest points in the country, probably second to Falluja. The vast majority of its residents are Sunni who resent the central government. They were marginalized and having very difficult time on the hands of the Iraqi army, police and the security. There were also several minor reasons in favor of this option.

Using ISIS to invade Mosul

The important point in this article is the invasion of Mosul. Without this operation it would have been impossible for Erdogan to carry out the rest of his plans successfully and to play a major role in the region.

Following the invasion of Mosul, ISIS declared al-Raqqah its Caliphate capital. The connection between these two cities is strong. The land controlled by ISIS has expanded, al-Raqqah became stronger. The invasion has made it easy for Turkey to support ISIS politically and militarily. In the meantime, ISIS supported the state of Turkey by supplying it cheap oil and caused an influx of refugees, used by Erdogan as a bargaining chip in trading with Europe. Erdogan made it easy for ISIS to enter Turkey to terrorize the Kurdish and killing innocent people.

ISIS forces were under 5000, whereas the Iraqi forces were over 60.000 and equipped with new weapons including helicopters and tanks. It appeared, there was a conspiracy between Erdogan, KRG, Qatar and the Iraqi military generals in Mosul. Mosul was an easy victory for ISIS. There was no bloody battle; the entire town was taken within less than 24 hours. ISIS managed to gain many new powerful weapons easily that nobody could have expected. This boosted the confidence of ISIS and it then made its next move, to Kobane.

Why was Kobane, not Jazeera?

In order to execute their plans, Erdogan and MIT had to choose Kobane or Jazeera as their target. Distance wise, Qamishli in Jazeera is closer to Mosul at around 150 km, whilst from al-Raqqah is around 370 km. However, there were many other reasons to choose Kobane instead.

• Kobane is smaller than Jazeera in size and in population, as such it would be easier to control.

• Secondly, Kobane is between Afrin and Jazeera. Taking Kobane would cut the communications between remaining cantons.

• Thirdly, Kobane is poorer than Jezeera economically; its YPG/J forces are smaller as compared with Jazeera. Furthermore, Assad’s has an army stationed in Qamishli and it is still there up to now; the army controls a few kilometers within Qamishli, the postal service and the airport. Kobane is free from Assad’s control.

• The state of Turkey could support ISIS in Kobane and around Kobane through Sruce easier and better than supporting ISIS though Nusaybin, neighbor of Qamishli.

• Finally, al-Raqqah is much closer to Kobane than Qamishli to Kobane.

I believe until the defeat of ISIS in January 2015 in Kobane, Erdogan and MIT policies were successful. In June and July of last year Erdogan adopted a couple more policies. Both policies were created to terrorize Kurdish people.

First, they did not approve the outcome of the general election held in June 2015 while the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) achieved excellent result well above the election threshold and gained 80 seats.

The second policy was his fascist attitude towards Kurdish people by terrorizing them, killing innocent people, arresting activists and creating a climate that was easy for ISIS to use suicide bombers. In July 2015, the suicide bomber attacked a gathering of a large group of leftist youth, communists and anarchists in Sruce; many people were killed and injured.

Erdogan was the beneficiary of using terror policy for three reasons. First, grounding a lot of forces there and restricted the freedom of movement to people. Second, made claim to his own people,Europe and the world that ISIS is his enemy too. Third, provoking PKK to start a war that gave him the justification to cancel the peace process and entering the war with Kurdish people all the way.

Alas, Erdogan was very successful and managed to provoke PKK and go with his tactic. Now the killing, arresting people, enforcing Curfew in Kurdish towns and cities, starving people withdrawing the political immunity on the HDP MPs continues. He also sacked 134 of the heads of Municipalities and replaced them with his supporters. All of this has been carried out in the eyes of US and the Western countries. All of this damaged the social movement in Bakur and were in the interest of Turkey government, its MIT, the right wing and racist groups.

Another success of Erdogan’s was that since 05/07/15 he hasn’t let Ocalan to be seen by any of his people including his own lawyers. This cut off the entire communication between Ocalan and PKK or other forces. This policy has again served the state of Turkey but not the Kurds from Rojava or Bakur.

Erdogan Policy in regards to Syria and Rojava

In this point of my article I draw the attention of the readers to both successful and failed policies of Erdogan.

Failures:

• Bringing down a Russian fighter Jet and killing its pilots was a disaster for Erdogan. He was not able to participate in the war in Syrian skies, and it also economically and politically damaged Turkey. In effect, president Putin introduced boycott of Turkey as a tourist destination.

• Erdogan also failed in convincing US and Western countries to set up a none-fly zone in Rojava. His main aim was just to fight the YPG/J forces there.

• Another failure policy was he could not go ahead with the joint plan with Saudi Arabia to take their forces into Syria to support the terrorist group against Assad’s forces and YPG/J in the same time. By supporting ISIS and other terrorist groups damage was done to diplomatic relationship of Turkey and the USA.

At the same time, Erdogan scored some successes.

• Economically, ISIS supported Turkey by providing very cheap oil, letting some of the companies in Turkey using the Syrian children labors, and also using refugees as a bargaining chip with Europe.

• Normalizing diplomatic relationship with Egypt and also with Israel.

• Erdogan and MIT managed to form a military group from Syrian Turkmen against Assad and use them directly, supporting and providing them everything to make them powerful enough to claim that they represent all Turkmen in Syria.

• He also managed to make Kurdish opposition political parties (ENKS), the Syrian Kurdish National Council (that occasionally commit terrorist act especially in Jazeera), stand up against YPG/J and DSA.

• The most successful policy of Erdogan and MIT was making ISIS so powerful against YPG/J that pushed them in line of US and jointly fighting ISIS. YPG/J now are facing the most terrible war perhaps after Kobane, with support of US forces to liberate the Caliphate capital, al-Raqqah.

Erdogan policy in regards to Iran:

Erdogan and MIT have a double policies towards Iran. On one hand the Kurdish question became a common problem for both of them, that can make them friends. On the other hand the same issue can make them enemies if Iran starts supporting PKK or PYD.

In the meantime, it is quite obvious that a big number of Iranian solders are taking part in the war side by side with Assad’s forces and Assad received other help from Iran. Assad also relies on support from Lebanese “Hezbollah” who are supported by Iran as well. Meanwhile Turkey is indirectly working on weakening Iran as a close ally of Iraqi government by supporting ISIS against Iraq. At the moment Iran-Turkey economical relationship is getting better and that is helping them to improve their political relationship too.

Erdogan’s policy in regards of Iraq and KRG

Erdogan and MIT used ISIS not only in Syria and Rojava. In fact ISIS was the most powerful and active group that Turkey has been using to execute their policy against the Iraqi government and KRG.

ISIS managed to invade Mosul, the second town of Iraq and became a major threat. Invading Mosul meant the other towns and cities in that region, like Erbil, Tikrit and Kirkuk faced a big threat as well. ISIS managed to control entire oil fields and refineries in the area; the income from their production fueled ISIS’ war effort instead of the government. Invading Mosul revived the old historic question of Mosul that always was in Erdogan’s mind. He wanted to annex it for Turkey.

I believe this can be one of the reason as to why Erdogan last year before the eyes of so called “international community“ brought 5000 heavy military forces with variety of different weapons, including tanks, to the border of Iraq close enough to Mosul. Since then Iraq keeps demanding Turkey to withdraw its forces, while Erdogan keeps ignoring these demands.

By invading Mosul ISIS controlled the dam of Mosul that can threat flooding Baghdad and many small towns and villages in the middle of Iraq. In supporting ISIS in invading Mosul, Erdogan managed to give strength to Arab Sunni tribes in the region at least if they do not support ISIS, they abstain to support the Iraqi government. Invading Mosul pushed the Iraqi government into deep debt by borrowing lots of money and buying more weapons. ISIS became more powerful and started to threaten to occupy Baghdad.

In 2014 ISIS rendered nearly a third of the country out of government control by taking more cities like Fallujah, Tikrit, Ramadi, Hit, Rutba and Telafar, with many villages. The threat of ISIS to Iraq was very real, up to this moment there has been no peace, no security in Baghdad and a few more towns in middle of Iraq.

In addition to all that Erdogan fighter jets since July of 2015 and even before that every week regularly crossed the borders and bombed heavily Qandil Mountain and the villages in the bottom of the mountain. This has caused the killing of so many people, injuring many more, displacing hundreds of family and killing their cows, cattle, dogs, sheep and destroying the environment.

In regards to Kurdistan and KRG, Erdogan brought them endless war. In this war Kurdish Peshmerga became the main forces to fight ISIS. The war between the Kurds and ISIS made Kurds an enemy of Sunnis and to certain extent to Arabs as a whole and the Iraqi government. In the meantime the war made KRG be more dependent on Turkey and closer to US and Western countries. In effect Iraqi Kurdistan has become a big military base for Turkey and US.

By using ISIS in the region of Mosul so successfully, Erdogan managed to make KRG in particular and Kurdistan in general almost a part of Turkey. He is working on Iraqi Turkmens as well to increase the dispute between them and Kurdish communities and to escalate the tension. The dependence from Turkey made KRG, particularly Barzani Party, KDP, the main enemy not just of PKK and PYD, in fact to whole Kurdish society in Rojava and Bakur. From time to time, obviously at the order of Erdogan, Barzani even closes KRG borders completely. The most recent embargo was almost for 3 months between March of this year and June. Even worse is the fact that Barzani became silent about everything that happens in Bakur and Rojava. He neither supports the Kurds there, nor protest against the state of Turkey.

ISIS also put the Kurdish Islamic political organizations under pressure. They must clarify their attitude towards ISIS, either “with us or against us“. In Iraqi Kurdistan we have a couple of Islamic political organizations and both have their own MPs in KRGs’ Parliament. However one of them is very pro-Erdogan and both of them so far have not denounced ISIS as a non-Islamic group. The vast majority of Kurdish does believe they are sleepy cells of ISIS. They might be right.

One more important effect of arriving ISIS to Mosul and the rest of Kurdish areas, was preservation of the position held by Barzani and his government. Despite the bad situation of KRG economy, people there are reluctant to protest. They have made people scared to go on strike, protest, even demanding their wage, salary. At the moment the KRG employees are getting less than half of their salary even they do not get that regularly. They are three to four months behind. This has affected the markets badly, whole services, projects have been stopped and poverty for many people will soon become unavoidable. Whenever and wherever people try to complain and protest they were told “they have to be grateful, at least they do not live under ISIS control and should not rock the boats because this is in the interest of ISIS and other our enemies”

Erdogan and his MIT policies for the time being were right and met their aims, even if they create a damage for Turkey in the long run. They were good for Erdogan, AKP and bad for Kurdish people and the rest of the region. It looks like Erdogan and his AKP now want to change their policy from war to peace with everybody except the Kurdish society. His future peace policy in the region certainly will be if not aimed to eliminate Rojava cantons, at least to reform them in the KRG manner.

Zaherbaher.com