Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the error the decision on carrying out on September 25th referendum on independence for Iraqi Kurdistan. Erdogan said that they support the territorial integrity of Iraq and praised the referendum as a threat to a unified Iraq. Ankara is more worried about the preservation of the territorial integrity of Iraq than Iraq itself. Although the United States, Iran, Germany is also opposed to a referendum of the Iraqi Kurds, but Turkey’s concern expressed in the last three days, the country’s top leadership, more like panic. It has its objective reasons.
The formation of a Kurdish state in the immediate vicinity of its borders is a serious threat to the security and territorial integrity of Turkey, because it could become a serious impetus for separatism of Kurds in Turkey. The Turkish authorities have declared war on the Kurdish ethnic group within its borders, just may be facing the threat of losing the South-Eastern regions of the country, which are historical Armenian lands, or in front of a gradual loss of control over these regions.
The formation in Iraq of a Kurdish state, which, regardless of the timing, is considered inevitable, may become for Turkey a lifeline in the sense that it would be a reason to suppress Kurdish separatism in the country or support the immigration of that element in Kurdistan. If not for one important factor.
The problem is that despite the fact that the U.S. has officially opposed the referendum for the independence of Kurdistan, they under the pretext of fighting terrorism actively arming and funding of Kurds, contributing to the strengthening and consolidation of the Kurdish factor in the middle East. In the global context, the formation of Kurdistan is one of the tools USA new cartography of the Middle East.
Despite the fact that Washington and Ankara continue to act as strategic partners, between them there was a serious trust deficit because of the policies of Tayyip Erdogan to transform Turkey into a regional superpower, completely independent of Washington, with strengthening economic and political ties with Russia.
This crisis publicly demonstrated the US President Donald trump, conducting forum of Muslim countries in Saudi Arabia and stating the obvious support of the company against the Arab countries friendly to Turkey Qatar. Ankara understands that these trends eventually can lead to a split of Turkey by using the Kurdish factor it as part of US policy for delineation of the Middle East.
On the other hand, the formation of an Iraqi Kurdistan would significantly weaken the influence of Ankara in Iraq and will be a huge barrier to totalitarian, neo-Ottoman plans of Erdogan. In 2015, Turkey, violating the inviolability of the borders of Iraq without the consent of Baghdad, imposed to Iraq military group that was stationed in the Northern province of Iraq Nivana, in the area of BA’shiqah, under the pretext of training local national forces to combat radical Islamist groups.
This military group can actually be considered illegal military base of Turkey to Iraq, which Ankara has decided the issue of ensuring military presence in Iraq and began to use it as a political tool. The formation of the Iraqi Kurdistan will be forced seriously to reconsider this policy if Ankara does not want in addition to the Kurds of Syria and Turkey, have problems with the Iraqi Kurds, which still was relatively friendly.
The achievement of the Iraqi Kurdish de jure independence is problematic for Turkey in the context of the Karabakh problem, because it will affirm the priority of self-determination of peoples, and will add further legitimacy to the demands of the Armenians of Artsakh on the international recognition already achieved independence.
Given these factors, Ankara will try to use the entire political Arsenal to prevent the referendum on the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, although in legal terms, has no leverage. This problem will be to ensure that Turkey tried to suspend its own tactical conflicts with Iraq and particularly with Iran. In the framework of the Kurdish issue Tehran and Ankara have become temporary partners. The problem is that the formation of a Kurdish state is a new initiative to create a new round of destabilization against Iran. Don’t forget that in five provinces of Iran, mainly in the border with Turkey and Iraq, are clustered according to different estimates, from five to ten million Kurds. Anyway, really strange that the leadership of Kurdistan decided to hold a referendum under these hostile to Iran and Turkey regional-political conditions, using, primarily, the fact that Baghdad is not able to prevent it.
However, the process will directly touch the interests of Armenia. Must be extremely serious from a deep analysis of the negative and positive effects, because it is not so clear.
Superficially the impression that the formation of a Kurdish state creates a new regional player, which limits the role of Turkey and contributes to the process of internal schism in this country. In addition, the independence of Kurdistan will serve the process of international recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. However, on the other hand, the closure of the ring around Iran, the risk of involvement of Iran in a possible new conflict, and especially the specification of the Iranian-Turkish cooperation is absolutely not stem from interests of Armenia, as if the short was not the nature of these relations.
