The Restive Triangle: Turkey, Iran and the “Kurdish Problem”

Iran and Turkey’s shared Kurdish regions have played a complicated and vital role in the two countries’ bilateral relations throughout much of their recent history, as Kurds in both countries aspire to independence or autonomy and greater cultural recognition. Now, as the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq steps up its oil exports to Europe and provides a safe haven for Iraqis fleeing ISIS, Seevan Saeed, lecturer in Middle East politics at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, talks to IranWire about how Iran and Turkey relate to their Kurdish minorities, and to each other.

How would you compare Iran and Turkey in terms of how they relate to their respective Kurdish populations?

The Kurdish population in Turkey is far larger than in Iran, and the Kurdish question in Iran at the moment is rather different to the Kurdish question in Turkey. But both countries have dealt similarly with the Kurdish question from the 1930s through to the present day—through denial.

The Turkish manner involves directly denying the Kurdish question’s existence. Turkey’s formal way of dealing with the Kurdish question is to say that there are no Kurds in Turkey. They are all Turkish citizens. They used to call them Turks or “Mountain Turks,” but more recently they call them Turks of Kurdish origin. They are Turkish citizens only, and they can enjoy all of the associated rights as long as they do not talk about their ethnic distinctions. That denial policy is a mainstream policy of the Turkish state, which, despite the  guerilla warfare waged by Kurdish separatists over the last 30 years, has made little progress in terms of openness or acceptance of the Kurdish reality.

In 2009, for the first time, Turkey allowed a Kurdish TV and radio station to broadcast in Kurdish and the prime minister [Recip Tayyip Erdogan] said one sentence in Kurdish just to say that Kurds are allowed to speak their own language. However, the government stills bans education in the Kurdish mother tongue, and the undertaking of political, social and cultural activities with the name of “Kurdishness”. All institutions must be under the umbrella of the Turkish state.

The Iranian way is through indirect assimilation and regarding Kurds as part of Persian culture and the language as part of Farsi. There are six to seven million Kurds living in Iran, and they call them Kurds. There’s no problem if they speak their own language or wear their own clothes, but mother tongue education is not permitted. Education in Iran has to be only in Persian—not in Kurdish, not in Arabic, not in Turkish or the other languages of ethnic minorities in Iran.

Kurds are the main source of opposition to this policy, but still the opposition is very weak. Constitutionally there is no provision to for Kurds to retain their own social and political rights. However, informally Iran says that they have a Kurdish people, and one of the provinces in the Kurdish region of Iran is called the Kurdistan province.

What have been the common interests of Iran and Turkey in their respective Kurdish regions?

The common interest is in suppressing their shared problem. The Kurdish national movement is becoming [more connected] thanks to the internet and social media. The Kurdish national movement in Turkey has an effect on the Iranian part of Kurdistan. When you see in Diyarbakir, the major city of Kurdistan in Turkey, riots against the Turkish state, this affects Iranian Kurds.

Having a very pan-Kurdish party, the PKK—the Kurdistan Workers’ Party—in Turkey, affects all other parts of Kurdistan. This political party now has branches in every Kurdish area, and even in other countries in the world where Kurds live. So this is no longer an internal issue for Iran itself or Turkey itself.

How porous is the Iran-Turkey border and how do Kurds in both countries relate to each other?

The Iran-Turkey-Iraq border is very long, and we call it a triangle. There are about 300 or 400 kilometers that are very hard for governments to control. There are very high mountains, always covered in snow, and there are always guerrillas—or Peshmerga as we say—there, and smugglers. Some Kurdish areas are relatively free of central government oversight, and they can promote their own way of life. This border region enables Kurds to better resist the surrounding national governments.

How does Iran regard Turkey’s relationship to the PKK, and how does Turkey regard Iran’s relationship to the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK)?

It’s very interesting. The PKK on the one hand has a very good friendship with Iran, and PJAK is part of a main entity called KCK—Group of Communities of Kurdistan. PJAK is fighting directly against Iran, but under the PKK command, PJAK with the agreement of the PKK, has had a ceasefire with Iran for the last two and a half years. In recent weeks, PJAK started killing some Iranian soldiers again, but this is not essential, because PJAK is nothing but a little branch of the PKK. When it is necessary, PJAK can be used by the PKK against Iran. When it is not necessary, it can be silenced by the PKK. For the last 20 years, the PKK always kept on friendly terms with Iran and Syria, and they helped the PKK directly against Turkey. But there is not any particular Kurdish political party in Iran that has help from Turkey. So in this case, Iran is the winner.

How would you describe each country’s relations with the main Kurdish parties in Iraq, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan?

The KDP in Iraq, which is the main political party, and occupies the presidency and prime ministership of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government, is very close to Turkey, mainly because of the oil trade. This is due to Prime Minister Nechervan Barzani, who is the second person in the KDP after President Masoud Barzani. But this doesn’t mean that the KDP is not close to Iran. Just this week Nechervan Barzani rushed to Tehran to talk to Iran’s security chief about Daesh, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which are very active now in Iraq. The KDP, while being a good player for Turkey, still has a good relationship with Iran as well, so Iran has more allies than Turkey in the region.

In Iraq, the PUK and all Shia groups are very much connected to Iran, and they have to be blessed by Iran before building a relationship with any country, including the U.S. or the central government in Baghdad. The PUK has very weak relations with Turkey. That’s just because the main communication between the PUK and anywhere else in the world has been through the president of the party, Jalal Talabani, the former president of Iraq, who is now in a coma in Germany. Talabani had a very personal friendship with former Turkish presidents Turgut Ozal, with Suleyman Demirel, and with Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul. But when “Mam Jalal” is not there, the PUK doesn’t have the charisma to deal with Turkey.

How do Iran and Turkey view the prospect of an economically prosperous, western-aligned Kurdish region in northern Iraq?

We can see the Kurdish oil policy getting successful because of the chaos in Iraq. This week the third ship of Kurdish oil has been exported to Europe from Ceyhan port in Turkey. Turkey is mainly responsible for the birth of the oil policy of the Kurds, and the Kurds get a very good percentage of this. Still, Iran has a good share with a different way of sending oil from Kurdish regions, not through pipes, but through tankers.

Iran still benefits from Kurdish oil policy. What is going on now in Turkey and Europe with Kurdish oil policy is not based on ignoring Iran. Iran was always aware of this and accepted what was going on. So Turkey hasn’t done anything against Iran and the oil minister of Turkey said this many times, including last week: “We are not doing anything against Iraqi policy.” When they say “Iraqi policy,” it means “Iranian will,” because the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is very much under Iran, and Iraqi oil policy is always under Iranian command. Turkey doesn’t want to do anything with Kurdish oil that is against Iran, so in this respect there are good relations between Iran and Turkey.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.