Ankara Warns Against Kurdish Autonomy in Syria

Until Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan was put to trial before a Turkish judge in 1999, it was perceived that the whole point in this more than three-decade-long war with the Turkish state —  which cost more than 30,000 dead — was all for establishing an independent Kurdistan taking land from Turkey.

When Ocalan said during the hearings that he had been fighting for cultural and linguistic rights, it came as a surprise. Many wondered whether it would be really possible to persuade Kurdish men and women to go up into the mountains for reasons other than seeking independence.

Now that Ocalan has become the leading figure at the negotiating table with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to resolve the Kurdish issue, members of opposition parties are casting doubt on the trustworthiness of Ocalan’s words. The ultimate concern rises above the hectic developments involving Turkey’s neighbors in Iraq and Syria; many opposition politicians in the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), believe that an arch of autonomous Kurdistan is in the making around Turkey’s borders and that it will be impossible not to expect this to affect the expectations of Kurds within Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, however, said today, July 19, that a de facto declaration of an autonomous Kurdish entity in Syria will only make the region pregnant with more crises. “Surely (the Syrian regime) is taking some tactical steps to create trouble between Kurds and Arabs, Arabs and Turkmens, or different ethnic and sectarian groups. No one should fall into such games,” he said in Ankara. “It’s not possible to accept any de facto declaration of an autonomous entity in Syria, and that could only lead to further crisis.”