Risking Turkey’s ire, Iraqi Kurds back Syrian brethren
The oft-disunited Kurds of Iraq, Syria and Turkey are united against Turkey's invasion of areas in Syria where Kurds had achieved self-rule.
An oft-cited reason for why the Kurds do not have their own state is the unremitting disunity among themselves.
But Turkey’s Oct. 9 assault against a US-backed Kurdish militia in northeastern Syria has prompted an unprecedented display of pan-Kurdish solidarity. The Iraqi Kurds are at the vanguard of protests against Turkish belligerence, with many boycotting Turkish products. Unusually, their leaders are taking a harder line too.
The chill was on display — not coincidentally, some speculated — Oct. 29, which marked the 96th anniversary of the founding of modern Turkey. Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), made it known that he had “no plans to visit Turkey this week.” The news leaked by a prime ministry official was apparently in response to comments by Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, who suggested that Barzani would be visiting Ankara — on Oct. 30, according to the Turkish media — but that it wasn’t clear whether he would be received by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. ,
Turkey remains critical to the KRG’s economic well-being, some argue its survival. Oil, the Kurdish statelet’s main source of income, is exported through a pipeline that runs to loading terminals on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.
