U.S role of Turkey and Kurds decades’ old war
News Time
Henry Kissinger, considered the most powerful Foreign Secretary of the United States, was the man most welcomed by President Richard Nixon, King Mohammad Raza Pahlavi of Iran. In the 1970s, King Muhammad Raza Pahlavi was considered very strong in the Middle East, in addition to the increasingly expensive oil reserves, following the policies of President Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the Middle East. King Iran wanted the United States to value Iran as much as West Germany and Britain. It was the responsibility of Henry Kissinger, President Nixon’s National Security Advisor and later as Foreign Minister in 1973 that they should continue to praise the Iranian ego and make them believe that they are also kings of kings.
When US President Richard Nixon visited Tehran in May 1972, King Iran called on President Nixon to support Kurdish rebel leader Mustafa Barzani against the Ba’ath party’s government in Iraq. King Iran convinced President Nixon that the Ba’ath party in Iraq, Iraq, was trying to form a coalition of Kurds and communists, if Moscow succeeds in this endeavor, then the Kurds will become an asset to those who have so far become part of the Iraqi ruling Ba’ath party. At the meeting, Henry Kissinger asked what America could do. Shah responded that America should help the Kurds financially and militarily so that they can continue to fight Soviet-backed Iraq. The US President and Henry Kissinger agreed that the Soviet Union had advanced far in Iraq and its influence would have to be broken. One week after the visit, Shah Iran sent a message to Henry Kissinger via the CIA Idris Barzani and Mahmoud Osman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party is coming to Washington to welcome him.
Henry Kissinger and the White House were already ready, but instead of meeting the Kurdish leaders at the highest levels, it was decided to employ a different method. Henry Kissinger also kept the State and National Security Office unaware of these matters, so it was decided that CIA Director Richard Helms would meet him. Before the Kurdish leaders arrived in Washington, President Nixon sent a message to Tehran that Washington is ready to help the Kurds. Kurdish leaders meet with Richard Helms to demand that the United States support the cause of Kurdish sovereignty and give them financial, military and intelligence support so that they can prepare a Kurdish army and overthrow the Ba’ath party in Iraq. Richard Helms assured Kurdish leaders of full cooperation but stipulated that US cooperation would not be brought to the fore.
The Kurds demanded $ 60 million a year for military needs. The CIA only recommended 16 million annually and had to give $ 9 million to Iran. The US was to provide $ 3 million in cash plus $ 2 million in arms, while $ 4 million was to be donated by Britain and Israel. The purpose of the Americans was not to create a Kurdish state but to weaken the Iraqi army and keep the country busy. With this cooperation, US relations with allied countries in the Middle East, as well as their proxies, began.
The purpose of all this is to say that the cry of infidelity from the US Kurds in northern Syria, which is being cried in Washington today, is not new. At the same time, concerns about the Kurds of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq are also decades old. Doubts have a similar history to the American ambitions regarding the Kurds. The Kurdish race has been settled for over 100,000 years in the mountainous region of northwestern Iran from the mountainous regions of southeastern Turkey to an area of 91,000 square kilometers. Currently 10 million Kurds are in Turkey, 6 million Iran, 3 and a half million Iraq and more than 2 million are in Syria. The Kurds are not only divided between borders but also tribal, politically divided, and regional powers have a role in this division.
The Kurds first attempted to establish their own identity as a community in the early 20th century. This process of national identity began exactly when the Turks and Arabs abandoned the notion of being a citizen of the Ottoman Caliphate or a member of the Ummah and began to realize their ethnic identity and replaced the concept of a nation with the concept of a nation. Unlike the Turks and Arabs, the biggest problem for the Kurds in creating a national identity was not to have their own cultural and linguistic heritage.
Residents of New Turkey adopted the concept of nation based on national identity rather than ethnic identity. The Kurds were fluent in Turkish while living in Turkey. About 50% of Iran’s population was of Iranian origin, the rest consisted of Azeri Turks, Arabs, Balochs, Turkmen and other ethnic groups but by imposing Persian as a national language, Iran recognized all Persian speakers as Iranian nationals. The Kurds were also not allowed to be Iranian citizens, except that they recognized their language as a sub-language originating from Persian. Another problem for the Kurds in Iran was the division of the profession. The majority of the Kurds belonged to the Sunni faith. For the Kurds in Iraq, the situation was more politically difficult. Iraq was a complete Arab country that was inclined to uphold the concept of Arab nationalism, and for them the Kurds must have been native backers of the land but not Arabs.
The general concept of a nationality is that it is inherently a nation, ethnic or linguistically a group, this is probably why the Kurds have long been denied the status of a nation. The Kurds did not have their own Muslim land and state, but for them there was a problem with national identity. The discovery of oil reserves in Kurdish areas after World War II made it difficult for Kurds to separate their homeland and nationality. Difficulties for the Kurds intensify due to American intervention. Kurdish and American romance was broken and connected several times. The Soviet Union’s relations with Iran and Iraq and the increasing influence of the Soviet Union led to the unification of the US Kurds, which was aimed at stopping the Soviet Union.
In 1972, relations between Saddam Hussein and the Soviet Union began for military, economic and political cooperation and as a result of these contacts, the April 9, 1972 agreement became a friendship. Concern for Iran and the United States increased when Saddam Hussein took over the Iraqi Petroleum Company. Raza Shah forced Americans to cooperate with the Kurds for fear of Iraqi intervention in Iran and Jordan.
Both Iran and the United States were not serious about breaking the Kurdish state or Iraq on the contrary; they thought the Kurds could not stay in Iraq long enough. King Iran and the United States were only interested in engaging the Iraqi forces, and the result was predictable. The romance of the United States and the Kurds soon broke down, but the financial and military support of the Kurds was the starting point for US use of non-state elements. The US controlled the Middle East by using non-state elements as well as states the policy it adopted spreads to other parts of the world and it is because of this policy that the world is fighting the war on terror today.
In the 1970s, US policy on Kurdish aid provided the results that Americans have been suffering to this day. As a result of this policy, Britain had to leave the Gulf in 1971 and witness the Khomeini revolution in 1989. In that decade, the US used the Kurds against Saddam’s rule and tried to stop Russia. But at the same time, the Iranian Kurds also began to influence the US, and the US used the Kurds for their own interests in the Middle East.
In 1975, King Iran signed an agreement with Iraq, exercised its rights in several areas, and Saddam regarded all conditions as a weak side to prevent the Kurds from receiving aid from the US, Iran, Israel. As a result of this agreement, the Iranian Kurds gained control of the Iranian Kurds. The Saddam government promised the Kurds limited sovereignty that was never fulfilled. With the signing of the deal, Mustafa Barzani’s political party was scattered because the Kurds were no less prepared for a separate state after receiving US support.
From 1977 to 81, President Jimmy Carter’s government left the Kurds alone and focused on the protection of oil-rich Arab states and Israel’s security. After Khomeini’s revolution, the United States tried to stop Shi’ite Islam and Russian Communism by making Saddam an ally. During this time, the policy of the United States was that the establishment of a separate Kurdish state would destabilize the region. And for the Kurdish state, Turkey, Syria and parts of Iraq will have to be separated, and the US policy remained in place until the First Gulf War.
The second military coup in Turkey led to the intervention of the American Ashirabad and the CIA on the emergence of political Islam in Turkey and the recognition of the Kurds as a separate nation by Turkey’s left.
The Turkish elite became skeptical about American ambitions, and on the other hand, the Ba’ath Party and Hafiz al-Assad in Syria increased the Kurds’ sarcasm as well as banned the Kurdish language and imposed Arabic. Names of Kurdish names and regions were added to Arabic. All these measures resulted in the formation of 12 Kurdish groups, including the Kurdish group PK in Turkey.
After the revolution in Iran, non-Iranians were denied rights and on March 18, 1989 a war broke out between Kurdish militias and backers. In February 1980, the Iranian Kurds gave a six-point plan, including sovereignty. Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan sympathized with the Kurds despite strong opposition to Ayatollah Khamenei, allowing Kurdish to teach the language and representing the Kurds in the assembly, which fears that extremist elements may be disturbing in the guise of the Kurds. In August 1989, a declaration war was made against the Kurds. The Kurdish party was declared a devil’s party and the Kurds preferred to take up arms rather than compromise.
After Ronald Reagan became president, US policies changed drastically from 1981 to 1989. The United States strengthened its cooperation with Iraq against Iran, abandoning its policy of destabilizing Iraq. The US has begun economic and technical assistance to Iraq. In the 1980s, the United States helped Iraq in the manufacture of chemical weapons. A special cell was set up at the US Embassy in Baghdad aimed at supporting Saddam Hussein’s power. Iran, Iraq the United States assisted Iraq greatly in the war, but in 1986 also supplied arms to Iran. In the meantime, the Kurdish problem went into the cold box. In February 1983, Turkey and Iraq signed an agreement under which the two countries cooperated against armed groups operating on each other’s territory, and this was against the Kurds.
In 1984, Saddam allowed Turkey to launch military operations against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, 15 kilometers away. Throughout this period, the Kurds were divided into several groups; one group was an ally of Tehran, one was in Baghdad, while some were with Turkey. In September 1980, the United States sponsored a third military coup in Turkey, and General Canaan Avern came to power. During this period, more restrictions were imposed on the Kurds. Turkey imposes sanctions on ethnic groups, all citizens were declared abandoned and Kurdish language banned. Martial law was imposed in Kurdish areas and special powers were given to Turkish security forces.
In 1986, Saddam Hussein launched an operation against the Kurds on charges of ties with Iran, and later Saddam was accused of Kurdish genocide. 63,000 Kurds migrated to Turkey and Turkey accepted them as displaced persons. It was the first migration of the Kurds to Iraq. The alliance with Iran against Iraq, the first half of the 90′s to be Turkey’s NATO ally, was a period of continuity with US policies.
Meanwhile, Turkey and Syria have been straining relations with the Kurdish rival Abdullah Ocalan, disputing the rivers of the Houthis and Euphrates. Turkey’s Kurdish group PK launched a guerrilla war. The PKK announced its intentions to make the Kurdish region a confederation in the four countries. Syria continued to use the PKK against Turkey for a decade. Iraq too joined hands with the PKK against its rebel Kurds. Iran, too, started supporting the PKK. Syria recruits the Kurds from their area into the Turkish PKK. After a long proxy war, rivers were compromised in Syria and Turkey and Abdullah Oklan was deported.
After George Bush became president in January 1989, US policy changed and the United States took seriously the threats of Saddam Hussein to Israel and the Gulf States. And in Saddam’s area, the task of curbing monopoly ambitions began. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the US withdrew with Iraq and bombed it upside down. After Hashmi Rafsanjani became president in Iran, Iranian policy on Kurds became more stringent, but PKK was allowed to build bases on Iranian soil. President Tughrat Ozal in Turkey accurately understood the Kurdish problem. Not only lifted the ban on the Kurdish language but allowed it to be taught as a second language. Discrimination rules were eliminated, Kurdish publications were allowed, Kurdish language radio and TV programs were broadcast. The Kurds are allowed to form a political party. After the death of Tughrat Ozal in 1993, Turkey’s policy regarding the Kurds not only stopped but returned to some extent.
Obama annexes Kurdish militias to fight ISIS Trump initially continued the policy, but before ISIS was defeated, Trump took the credit of defeating ISIS and declared victory. It was the Kurds who brought the war against ISIS to an end, but Trump left the Kurds alone on the announcement of Turkish military operations. Now Turkey wants to create a safe zone in the Kurdish region and to place Syrian Arabs there so that its borders are protected by the Kurds. For this purpose, Turkey has asked the Kurds to evacuate the area and a short ceasefire has been completed. The Kurds came out of a confined area but Bashar al-Assad’s forces have replaced the Kurds.
Instead of placing the Kurds inside the wall exactly inside the country, Tayyip Erdogan gave them political rights, but even today the Kurds in Turkey are not politically satisfied. Several Kurdish mayors have been removed and administrative officers charged. A Kurdish province has gained sovereignty in Iraq, but the Iraqi government has taken control of Kirkuk’s oil reserves. This has shocked the dream of a separate Kurdish state. No one, including the United States, is serious about giving the Kurds a separate state, but all countries need to use them for proxy war.
