Through the center, Turkish and Iraqi Kurdish military and intelligence officials will coordinate efforts and share intelligence on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which operates mainly from remote bases in northern Iraq's Kandil Mountains. The command center is also intended to ensure border security and prevent the PKK's cross-border attacks on Turkey.
Turkey has long sought cooperation, mainly from the US, in Iraq to render PKK terrorists ineffective in the region so that they would no longer be able to infiltrate Turkey to stage lethal attacks. Turkey began launching mainly air operations against PKK bases in northern Iraq in December 2007, a move that became possible when the US supplied Ankara with real-time intelligence, which was critical in accurately pinpointing PKK bases and avoiding collateral damage.
In the meantime, mainly as a result of the US advising Turkey to intensify dialogue with authorities in Iraq since the US will finally leave the country, Ankara has initiated talks not only with the Iraqi central authority in Baghdad but also with the Iraqi Kurds. Though Ankara launched talks with both authorities in Iraq, always bearing the PKK in mind, it later realized that this neighbor, rich in oil and gas, stands to become an important trade partner as well.
But the main motivation behind Ankara's dialogue with Iraqi Kurds has always been to render the PKK ineffective. Though Iraq's ethnically Kurdish foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, described the PKK as a poisonous element in the relations between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds in particular during a visit to Ankara last month, it would be naive to think that the Iraqi Kurds are going to share intelligence about the PKK -- a Kurdish organization -- with Turkey. This is mainly because the PKK is composed of Kurds, and the Iraqi Kurdish authority in northern Iraq will not betray this organization even if it sees the PKK as a poisonous element in relations.
That explains why Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan was cautious about the benefits that can be reaped through the command center in Arbil. He confirmed last week that cooperation with the Iraqi Kurds against the PKK was slowly getting under way. He said the cooperation mechanism would aim at coordinating military efforts and intelligence sharing among Turkey, Iraq and the United States. But Babacan cautioned against overestimating the office in Arbil, saying it is just a natural extension of Turkey's cooperation with Iraq against the terrorist organization. (Today's Zaman, Feb. 24).
My caution, meanwhile, is not intended to claim that the command center is a bad idea due to the possibility of Iraqi Kurdish reluctance in making this center an efficient unit in the fight against the PKK. On the contrary, creation of the center is a very good decision, both strategically and politically, since it marks the promotion of dialogue between Turkey and the KRG, though Ankara still does not officially recognize it out of fear that an independent Kurdish authority nearby will have a spillover effect on its own Kurds, estimated to number around 12 million, and that it would encourage them to secede.
But tactically, the center may not be functional since the Iraqi Kurds are not expected to share intelligence about the PKK, which they see as their own brothers and sisters.
Therefore, any meaningful solution to minimize the PKK problem lies in Ankara's policies toward its own Kurds. After decades-long denial of the Kurdish entity as well as its language, some steps -- though minor -- continue to be taken, with the latest being around-the-clock Kurdish TV broadcasting since January by the state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT).
Ahmet Türk, a deputy and the head of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), by giving a speech in Kurdish in Turkey's Parliament last Tuesday, has reignited the Kurdish debate, which was already a hot one in the run-up to the upcoming local elections scheduled for March 29.
Türk gave the speech in Kurdish though it was in violation of parliamentary bylaws as well as the Constitution, which bar speaking languages other than Turkish in Parliament in particular.
But many Kurdish mayors and high-profile Kurdish personalities are still put in jail or face prison terms over alleged offenses of using the Kurdish language and disseminating propaganda in their native language outside the premises of Parliament.
Last year the European Union to which Turkey aspires to become a member, used more specific language on freedom of speech on the Kurdish issue as there has been, in the words of a Western diplomat, a permanent harassment of those including Kurdish mayors in the Southeast despite the fact that they have been expressing nonviolent opinions.
But Türk, giving a speech in Kurdish in Parliament, reminded us once again that if Turkey is sincere in ending the PKK violence, it has no other way but to address its own Kurdish problem, which stands as a major roadblock before Turkey's democratization.
