Kurdish groups unite as Turkey watches, warily

With the prospect of an American-orchestrated regime change in Iraq growing closer, rival Kurdish factions in northern Iraq – key potential allies of the US in any military action – are burying their differences.

The joint Kurdish parliament will reconvene Friday in the Kurdistan National Assembly building in the city of Arbil. High on the agenda is the consideration of a new constitution that lays out the Kurdish vision of a future, federated Iraq, post-Saddam Hussein.

Weather-worn front lines marked by rocky trenches have separated Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) for most of the past decade. But the civil war, spurred by disputes over sharing revenue and power, and mixed strategies toward Baghdad, went quiet after a US-brokered peace accord in 1998.

The revival of the regional assembly is one of the last key steps of that deal and is the first meeting of the group since 1996, when inter-Kurdish fighting was nearing its peak.

"This will send a very powerful message to Baghdad and to our neighbors that the Kurdish front is solid, is unified, and that we will move forward," says Hoshyar Zebari, a senior KDP strategist contacted in northern Iraq.

"There are some attempts in America, in some quarters, to marginalize the Kurdish role," says Mr. Zebari. "This meeting will convince our American friends, if they had any doubts about the unity of the Kurds, that the strength of the Kurdish front is reestablished."

But while Kurdish unity may bring a sigh of relief in Washington as war looms – and US war planners look for viable allies on the ground – it is rattling Turkey.

Turkish forces have frequently conducted armored operations into northern Iraq to root out Kurdish guerrillas from Turkey of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. The group waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish rights from the mid-1980s. Several thousand Turkish troops remain inside Iraqi border areas now.

"We are there to make sure [the Iraqi Kurds] stay within bounds," says Seyfi Tashan, head of the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute in Ankara. "We are there, and can intervene at any time. We have the capability to do that."

The Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq operates largely beyond Baghdad's control, protected by the US- and British-enforced no-fly zone. Kurdish leaders insist that they see their future as part of a federated Iraq, and long ago gave up as unrealistic the idea of forging an independent Kurdish state.

"As we move along, our Turkish neighbors and others will realize they have nothing to fear from our aspirations," says Barham Salih, prime minister of the PUK. "We aspire to have a peaceful, democratic, and federal Iraq, and that is good for them also. We have a flourishing self-government process that can be a catalyst for all Iraq."

Page: 1 | 2