Barzani, the Dream of State… and Israel
Maher Othman Al-Hayat - 23/03/07//
In an interview with 'Al-Hayat' published yesterday, Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, said the dream of a Kurdish state was a legitimate right and that the Kurdish state would one day become a reality. He considers the borders of the states that interrupt the geographical extension of the areas with Kurdish population to be "artificial". In response to a question about the economic and security infiltration of Israelis into Kurdistan and Israel's exploitation of the issue of minorities in the region, Barzani says: "(…) I can say with certainty that no Israeli activity exists in Kurdistan".
Considering the international regional boundaries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria as "artificial", only because they separate Kurds who are nationals of these countries, Barzani is ready to embark on armed struggle, similar to the Peshmerga's in northern Iraq and the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK)'s in Turkey, in order to secede geographically and demographically of these four states. The central government in Baghdad has given its Kurdish subjects an autonomy they have never received, for instance, in Turkey, where the number Kurds amounts to 15 million.
In Iran, the Kurds, amounting to four million in the areas bordering Iraq and Turkey, have demonstrated a separatist inclination since Safavid monarch Shah Abbas, in the 17th century. For a while, Mahabad remained a center for the insurgency against the central government in Iran. However, Tehran managed to tighten its grip on the Kurdish region after the insurgency that followed the 1979 revolution.
Turkey's stance was to suppress any separatist attempt by the Kurds on its territory through relentless war. Ankara was excessive in its oppression of any sign of rebellion to the extent that it prevented them from using their language or demonstrating any of the aspects of their culture; rich in dancing, singing, poetry and other things.
In Syria, Damascus has never, at any point in history, considered the Kurds a problem; although they are a smaller minority there than in Iraq, Turkey or Iran. There was never any discrimination against them. On the contrary, Syrian Kurds have held positions in the government, for example Husni al-Zaim and Adeeb Al-Shishakli. Many Kurds took up distinguished leading positions like Khalid Bakdash, leader of the Communist Party, and Ahmed Kaftaro, former Mufti of Syria.
Following the US invasion of Iraq, four year ago, a Kurd took up the Iraqi presidency - Jalal Talabani - and Barzani took over as president of the Kurdish region, lifting the flag of Kurdistan high in all official institutions in Arbil. But suddenly news began to surface about disturbances in the areas where Kurds live in northern Syria. Such disturbances were said to have been planned and encouraged by Kurdish groups in Iraq.
There is an alternative to armed struggle and the destabilization of countries that host Kurdish (or non-Kurdish) minorities, namely granting them equal citizenship rights to those enjoyed by other citizens. But this alternative in specific is rejected by racist countries like Israel, which refuses to consider its Arab citizens equal to its Jewish ones and encourages minorities in neighboring countries to secede and rebel. Israel did this in southern Lebanon through Major Saad Haddad, and then through General Antoine Lahad.
It is really strange that the president of the Kurdistan region never heard of the Israeli penetration of his region, even though it is a commonly known fact that was tackled by distinguished Western journalists like Seymour Hersh.
Hersh wrote that Israel, realizing that the US adventure was on the verge of failure in Iraq, worked to benefit from this invasion by strengthening its relations with the Kurds and encouraging them to establish their own independent state that hopefully will become its future friend. He adds that Israel has been training Kurdish commando units and utilizing them to plant their intelligence operatives in Iran to collect data on its nuclear program.
He says that the objective behind training these commandos is to use them to gather intelligence on and liquidate the leaders of the resistance against the US occupation. Israel has cemented its trade relations with Kurdistan, and its exports to the region have exceeded $5 million annually.
The best guarantees of the region's stability and prosperity are that the citizens of each state receive equal treatment and the partitioning of the region into weak entities be avoided.
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