Erdogan’s Backsliding: Opposition to the KRG Referendum – By Michael M. Gunter

MESOP NEW SCIENTIFIC : TODAYS GREAT ANALYSIS BY MICHAEL GUNTHER

Middle East Policy, Vol. XXV, No. 1, Spring 2018 – © 2018, The Author Middle East Policy © 2018, Middle East Policy Council – Dr. Gunter is a professor of political science and sociology at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville.

One does not need to be a confirmed Turkophobe or Kurdophile to see something has gone amiss with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Kurdish policies. I refer specifically to his self-defeating negative reaction to the advisory referendum on independence held by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) on September 25, 2017.1 Given Erdogan’s earlier attempts towards ameliorating the Kurdish problem to the mutual benefit of both Turkey nd the Kurds, why this unfortunate contretemps?2

FAILURE AND CAUTIOUS REFORM

During Ottoman times and even into the early republican periods, the Kurds were granted a type of separate status befitting their unique ethnic identity. Around the time of the Sheikh Said Rebellion in 1925, however, Kemalist Turkey abruptly canceled this policy and initiated one of denial, assimilation and force. Indeed, even in foreign policy, the Saadabad Treaty of 1937 with Iran and Iraq, as well as the Baghdad Pact in 1955 with those two states plus Great Britain and Pakistan, had in part the aim of keeping the potentially volatile Kurdish issue quiet. The fear was that the Kurds might challenge Turkey’s territorial integrity and divide the state.

Only gradually, beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, when this position of denial, assimilation and the fist had clearly failed, did Turkey cautiously and incrementally begin reversing course and granting the Kurds some type of recognition. Turgut Ozal’s domestic and external proposals for Kurdish rights in the 1980s — although followed by a return to what was essentially denial by Suleyman Demirel, Tansu Ciller, Bulent Ecevit and Ahmet Sezer —

adumbrated Erdogan’s domestic Kurdish Opening and subsequent peace process with the Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan (PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party) as well as the de facto alliance with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. This demonstrated Erdogan’s initial willingness to pursue imaginative new policies for the benefit of both Turkey and the Kurds, including the KRG. Indeed, in August 2005, then-Prime Minister Erdogan declared that Turkey had a “Kurdish problem,” had made “grave mistakes” in the past, and now needed “more democracy to solve the problem.”3 Never before had a Turkish

leader made so explicit a statement on this subject. As then-progressive Islamists, however, Erdogan’s Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP, the Justice and Development Party) was increasingly opposed by the Kemalist establishment, which included the influential military, fearful of losing their long-held privileged positions.4

This situation eventually led to the crisis of 2007 over the election of the AKP’s Abdullah Gul as Turkey’s new president.

The AKP triumphed by winning an enormous electoral victory on July 22, 2007 (even slightly outpolling the pro-Kurdish Demokratik Toplum Partisi [DTP, or Democratic Society Party] in the southeast) and then electing Gul as president. Gradually, the AKP began to reduce the political influence of the military and the secretive deep state,5 which opposed Turkey’s democratization and Kurdish rights.

Behind Erdogan’s policy of cautious change, however, remained the pull of continuity. He still saw Turkey’s Kurdish problem and the KRG as one of security, while the Kurds viewed it as one of achieving human rights, democracy and —in the case of the KRG — eventual independence.

Moreover, the sudden explosion of the Kurdish problem in Syria, due to the anarchy the civil war created there, presented Turkey with a whole new security concern at the very time Ankara was supposedly trying to implement change in its Kurdish dealings. In Syria, Turkey correctly viewed the Partiya Yekita ya Demokratik (PYD, or Democratic Union Party) and

its armed militia, the Yekineyen Parastina Gel (YPG, or Peoples Defense Units) as

affiliates of the PKK, the enemy that had begun its insurgency against Turkey in August 1984. In addition, the new, more inclusive, pro-Kurdish Halklarin Demokratik Partisi (HDP, or Peoples Democratic Party) became the first pro-Kurdish party to cross the high 10-percent threshold and enter the Turkish parliament in the election of June 7, 2015.

 

The HDP’s success helped to deny Erdogan’s AKP its governing majority and led him to seek ultra-nationalist support to regain it. This he accomplished in the snap election of November 1, 2015.

“However, Erdogan’s turn against the Kurds helped lead to the failed cease-fire between Turkey and the PKK and a return to bloody struggle in July 2015.”6 Selahattin Demirtas, co-chair of the HDP, also made a strategic error by declaring that Erdogan would never achieve his ambition of becoming a powerful executive president.

The Kurdish leader, possibly alluding to the required repetitions of the traditional Islamic formula for divorce, three times declared: “Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, you will never be the head of the nation as long as the HDP exists and as long as the HDP people are on this soil. …We will not make you the president.”7 This unwise stand against Erdogan’s ambitions clearly helped to provoke the Turkish leader’s anti-Kurdish reaction.

 

ERDOGAN BEFRIENDS THE KRG

By 2005, the peaceful situation in the KRG had begun increasingly to attract Turkish business interests.8 Turkish firms became heavily involved in such projects as constructing international airports in Irbil and Sulaymaniya and building cement plants, among others. Erdogan supported these initiatives for at least two reasons: First, such projects would help alleviate the economically depressed situation in southeastern Turkey and lessen Turkish

Kurds’ support for radical Kurdish groups such as the PKK. Second, Turkish-KRG economic relations would help bind the two together — with Turkey, of course, as the senior partner. By the end of 2005, Turkish-Iraqi trade (much of it involving the KRG) had reached $2.6 billion.9 On March 11, 2010, Turkey, in its own words, even opened a consulate in the KRG capital of Irbil “towards bolstering and advancing the friendly ties and cooperation between

Turkey and the KRG in every field.”10

 

Turkey’s inherent entrepreneurial spirit and the KRG’s establishment of a business-friendly climate soon began to promote an “undeclared economic commonwealth”11 between the two. In 2011, the KRG became the sixth-largest export market for Turkey, with exports

of $5.1 billion. This had expanded to $8

billion by 2013. The KRG had become

Turkey’s third-largest market for exports.

When Sinan Celebi, the KRG minister of

trade and industry, visited Turkey in April

2012, he declared that 25 Turkish companies

were being launched every month

in Iraqi Kurdistan, while — incredibly —

more than a half of all the foreign companies

registered in the KRG were Turkish.

The 485 Turkish companies in the KRG in

2009 had by 2013 grown to approximately

1,500. “From shopping centers to housing

projects to furniture stores and ubiquitous

consumer and commercial … goods, Turkish

trademarks are to be seen everywhere,

… including agriculture, banking and

finance, construction, education, electricalpower

systems, health care, oil/gas extraction

and services, telecommunications,

transportation, tourism, and the water

industry.”12 Turkish soft power seemed to

promise a better life for both Turkey and

the KRG.13

Economic cooperation inevitably

began to lead to political cooperation. In

2013, Erdogan invited Massoud Barzani,

the president of the KRG, to Diyarbakir,

Turkey’s de facto Kurdish capital. There

Barzani was addressed as the president of

the KRG, instead of being a mere warlord

from northern Iraq, as previously described.

Twice the then-prime minister of Turkey

also used the heretofore forbidden term

“Kurdistan” while addressing his audience.

Erdogan and Barzani appeared hand in hand

on the podium before hundreds of thousands

to declare “the brotherhood of Turks

and Kurds,”14 as Erdogan proclaimed: “We

are building a new Turkey, dedicated to all

ethnicities and faiths.”15

What at the time seemed a historic

rapprochement made the KRG one of Turkey’s

closest regional allies as well as its

third-largest export market after Germany

and the United Kingdom. At the same

time, the Turkish-PKK peace process that

had begun the previous March emphasized

the concept of Turkey as the joint homeland

of both Turks and Kurds. Turkey had

become one of the main states supporting

the KRG’s economic independence,

serving to facilitate its selling oil and gas

to the world market by circumventing

Baghdad. Erdogan even went so far as to

declare that KRG independence was an

internal Iraqi affair.16

However, Erdogan’s support for

Barzani was in part a mere tactic to win

conservative Kurdish domestic support

against the PKK, not a full-blown backing

of the KRG. That Erdogan was not fully

on board with all this apparent new thinking

also arose when the Turkish leader

failed to send military aid to the KRG

after it was suddenly attacked by Islamic

State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in August

  1. Indeed, only timely U.S. air support

stopped the jihadists, who had driven

within 20 miles of Irbil. Earlier, Erdogan

had also allowed the ISIS recruits to traverse

Turkey to Syria to join the group.17

Apparently, the Turkish leader saw ISIS as

a tool to combat the PKK and its affiliate,

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Gunter: Erdogan’s Backsliding

the PYD/YPG’s Rojava, in the Syrian civil

war, as well as a means to help bring down

the Assad regime.

Despite Barzani’s strong opposition,

the Syrian Kurds’ campaign to establish

Rojava as a de facto Kurdish state on

Turkey’s border with northeastern Syria

possibly became conflated with Erdogan’s

inherent fear of any Kurdish state — such

as the KRG.18 Already, Devlet Bahceli,

the leader of Turkey’s rightwing nationalist

Milliyetci Hareket Partisi (MHP, or

Nationalist

Action Party),

had decried

Erdogan’s

November

2013 Diyarbakir

meeting

with Barzani:

“The day

Erdogan went on stage with the murderer

Barzani was truly a day of historical high

treason. We Turks have never seen such

a betrayal in the history of the Turkish

Republic.”19 Thus, it only remained for the

pro-Kurdish HDP to help deny the AKP a

ruling majority by entering parliament in

the elections of June 7, 2015, for Erdogan

to take up a strong Turkish nationalist

stand against the Kurds and regain his

ruling majority. Kurdish politics in Turkey

and Syria hit the KRG when it announced

its intention to hold the referendum on

independence on September 25, 2017.

ERDOGAN BACKSLIDES

Although Barzani had long made clear

his intention to eventually seek KRG independence,

his announcement in June 2017

that an advisory referendum would be held

at the end of September incited outrage

from Erdogan as well as from leaders in

Baghdad and Tehran. Even the United

States voiced opposition, largely on the

grounds that it would splinter the alliance

against ISIS.20

Erdogan accused Barzani of

“betrayal,”21 threatening to starve the

KRG’s population and even claimed Israel

had a hand in the matter: “Once we put our

sanctions in place, you’ll be out in the cold.

… If we turn off the [crude oil] valve, it’s

over. If trucks do not take stuff to northern

Iraq, they won’t find food or clothing. How

then will Israel send them anything?”22

At a forum

in Istanbul,

the enraged

Turkish leader

added: “After

this, let’s see

through which

channels the

northern Iraqi

regional government will send its oil, or

where it will sell it.”23 Feisal al-Istrabadi,

the former Iraqi ambassador to the United

Nations, identified the ancient Turkish

fear of the Kurds dividing and destroying

their state when he added that, particularly

for Turkey, the KRG referendum was “an

existential threat. … How Turkey will deal

with an independent … Iraqi Kurdistan,

but deny their own Kurds independence is

a problem requiring Solomonic wisdom.”24

Ali Cinar, the president of the Turkish

Heritage Organization in Washington, DC,

and normally a voice of reason, threw additional

fuel on the flames by supporting Erdogan:

“It’s time that the Kurdish Regional

Government listened to its neighbors and

the international community and did what

is right. The necessary action is to cancel

the referendum vote in order to prevent

bloodshed, a potential civil war, and major

destabilization of the region that can have

catastrophic consequences.”25

Even Washington voiced displeasure,

a position the KRG found particularly

galling given that the United States had

in effect birthed the KRG by destroying

Saddam Hussein.

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Middle East Policy, Vol. XXV, No. 1, Spring 2018

The Iraqi and Iranian governments

joined in the denunciations, with Baghdad

closing the two KRG international airports,

in Irbil and Sulaymaniya, an action that

immediately hurt the KRG’s important

international travel links and lucrative

tourism. All three bordering states held

military exercises along the KRG’s borders.

26 As already noted, even Washington

voiced displeasure, a position the KRG

found particularly galling given that the

United States had in effect birthed the

KRG by destroying Saddam Hussein.27

However, since Turkey was the KRG’s

largest trading partner as well as the transit

country for the oil pumped out of the areas

controlled by the Kurdish authorities, Erdogan’s

threats were paramount.

CONCLUSION

As fallout from the negativity of Turkey,

Iran and Iraq toward the KRG referendum,

Iraqi forces with strong Iranian

support and Turkish and U.S. compliance

quickly occupied Kirkuk and other disputed

territories, closed the KRG’s international

airports, and took over its border

crossings, among other things. Massoud

Barzani resigned as KRG president, and

the Kurdish region toppled from the

heights of ambition back down to earth.

Despite its denunciations of the United

States and others for this disaster,28 the

KRG was partially to blame. It had badly

miscalculated by including Kirkuk and

other disputed territories in the referendum

in an overly aggressive attempt to unilaterally

implement the Iraqi Constitution’s

Article 140 on the future of the city.29 The

failure to put up a fight for Kirkuk also illustrated

ongoing Kurdish disunity — despite

the KRG’s 25 years of existence. The

Kurds had also grossly exaggerated their

military power.30 Despite the appearance of

strength, based on its success against ISIS,

the KRG Peshmerga remained divided

between Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan

Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani’s

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

They lacked heavy weapons, as Baghdad

controlled the materiel Irbil received from

foreign sources, and had achieved recent

victories only because of indispensable

U.S. air support, assistance that was lacking

when Baghdad reclaimed Kirkuk in

October 2017.

This did not mean, however, that

Kurdish hopes for eventual independence

were forever crushed. More likely, it was

simply another setback along the road to

that eventual achievement, which even

strong Turkish supporters have recognized.

For example, in the case of Turkey, M.

Hakan Yavuz and Nihat Ali Ozcan recently

suggested that Kurdish autonomy can be

considered a solution: “For the first time,

some Turks are thinking about separating

from the Kurdish minority,”31 and that

“a Kurdish state seems to be inevitable,

given the current political fragmentation

throughout the Middle East.”32

The current defacto anti-KRG alliance

among the strange bedfellows of Iran, Turkey,

Iraq and the United States is not likely

to last. The situation might even allow the

KRG to use imaginative divide-and-rule

tactics against its opponents, an ironic

reversal of the usual case. For example,

Sunni Turkey is not likely to continue to

countenance Shiite Iran’s domination of

Iraq and the KRG region, especially after

Turkey had earned a special position for

itself there. Nor is Sunni Saudi Arabia

likely to look with favor upon Iran’s fitting

another piece into its jigsaw puzzle of a

Shiite crescent reaching to the Mediterranean

Sea. Iraq, of course, remains divided

between the ruling Shiites against Sunni

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Gunter: Erdogan’s Backsliding

Arabs and Kurds. In addition, influential

Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s recent

turn from Iran to Saudi Arabia has further

fragmented the de-facto anti-KRG alliance

by weakening Iranian control over Iraq. In

addition, the United States will not continue

to allow Iran to call all the shots in

Iraq and the KRG. Nor will Israel permit

Iran or Hezbollah to sit on its borders in

southern Syria. So the anti-KRG alliance is

not likely to keep the KRG down forever.

Meanwhile, Erdogan’s knee-jerk, anti-

KRG reaction to what was a delayed and

merely advisory popular referendum on

whether the Iraqi Kurds wanted to pursue

eventual independence hurts Turkey in

the long run as much as it does the KRG.

His lack of vision or historical context

has damaged Turkey’s own economic and

political interests. They are based on the

incorrect assumption that competition

with the KRG is a zero-sum game instead

of a win-win relationship. This article

has argued that Erdogan largely took his

imprudent actions for narrow political

goals involving Turkish nationalist politics

in the run-up to the next Turkish elections,

scheduled in 2019.

In his and, more important, Turkey’s

own long-term interests, Erdogan needs to

reverse his losing strategy and begin reimagining

Turkey as the multiethnic country

he had earlier recognized it as. Rather

than returning to the old, tired paradigm

of a Turkey battling against the Kurdish

reality, he should see eventual KRG

independence and general Kurdish rights

in Turkey, Syria and Iran as inevitable and

morally justified, and become the Kurds’

natural leader and protector. A strong and

democratic Turkey might offer the vast

majority of Kurds in the world a bright

future. For their part, the Kurds, ironically,

would offer Turkey the Kemalist security

it has always sought — before, to the detriment

of the Kurds, but now with their support

and cooperation. What just a decade

ago might have seemed counterfactual

would become reality. This is not a novel

idea; it has been presented elsewhere.33 Indeed,

U.S. President Donald J. Trump has

already recommended that Turkey and the

Kurds work together. During a talk about

the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July

16, 2016, he declared: “I’m a big fan of the

Kurdish forces. At the same time, I think

… we could have … potentially very successful

relations with Turkey. And it would be really wonderful if we could put them

somehow both together.”34

 

 

1 For a wide-ranging collection of chapters analyzing the KRG’s situation leading up to the referendum, see Sasha Toperich, Tea Ivanovic, and Nahro Zagros, eds., Iraqi Kurdistan Region: A Path Forward (Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2017).

2 For earlier analysis of Erdogan’s precipitous decline into authoritarianism and paranoia regarding the Kurds,Gulenists, and other perceived enemies, see Michael M. Gunter, “Erdogan and the Decline of Turkey,”Middle East Policy 23 (Winter 2016): 123-35.

3 Cited in “The Sun Also Rises in the South East,” Briefing (Ankara), August 15, 2005.

4 For background, see Michael M. Gunter and M. Hakan Yavuz, “Turkish Paradox: Progressive Islamists versus Reactionary Secularists,” Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 16 (Fall 2007): 289-301.

5 On Turkey’s deep state, see Michael M. Gunter, “Turkey, Kemalism and the ‘Deep State,’” in Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East, eds. Mehmet Gurses and David Romano (Palgrave Macmil102

Middle East Policy, Vol. XXV, No. 1, Spring 2018 lan, 2014): 17-39.

6 The PKK’s callous strategy of fighting in the cities added to the civilian losses. For further thoughts on the failure of the Turkish-PKK peace process since July 2015, see Michael M. Gunter, “The Kurdish Issue in Turkey: Back to Square One?” Turkish Policy Quarterly 14 (Winter 2016): 77-86. The entire issue of this journal was devoted to an analysis of the failed ceasefire.

7 “We Will Not Make You the President, HDP Co-Chair Tells Erdogan,” Hurriyet Daily News, March 17, 2015, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/we-will-not-make-you-the-president-hdp-co-chair-tells-erdogan-79792 , accessed November 15, 2017.

8 For background to this situation, see Michael M. Gunter and M. Hakan Yavuz, “The Continuing Crisis in Iraqi Kurdistan,” Middle East Policy 12 (Spring 2005): 122-133.

9 See www.Kurdishmedia.com , May 2, 2006.

10 Cited in “Erbil Turkish Consulate,” http://erbil.co/listing/erbil-turkish-consulate, accessed October 5, 2017.

11 This citation and the following data were gleaned from Soner Cagaptay et al. “Turkey and the KRG: An Undeclared Economic Commonwealth,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Watch 2387, March 16, 2015, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/turkey-and-the-krg-an-undeclaredeconomic-commonweahth , accessed October 5, 2017.

12 Ibid.

13 For background, see Mesut Yegen, “The Kurdish Question in Turkey: Denial to Recognition,” in Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue, eds. Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden (Routledge, 2011), 67-84.

14 Mehmet Umit Necef, “Barzani and Erdogan Meet in Diyarbakir: A Historical Day,” Center for Mellemøststudier, December 2013.

15 Cited in Asli Aydintasbas, “Why the Kurdish Referendum Is None of Turkey’s Business,” Washington Post, October 2, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/10/02/why-the-kurdishreferendum-is-none-of-turkey’s-business/?utmterm=.497dd6d9e372  , accessed October 2, 2017.

16 Galip Dalai, “After the Kurdish Independence Referendum: How to Prevent a Crisis in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, October 2, 2017, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2017-10-02/after-kurdish-independence-referendum?cid=int-now&pgtype=qss  , accessed October 2, 2017.

17 Monica Marks, “ISIS and Nusra in Turkey: Jihadist Recruitment and Ankara’s Response,” Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2016. See also the comments of Marc Pierini, the former EU ambassador to Turkey, and John Kerry, the former U.S. secretary of state, in John Vandiver, “Europe’s Fear: Turkey’s Porous Border Serves as Gateway for ISIS’s Spread,” Stars and Stripes, July 5, 2014; and the comments of Joe Biden, the former U.S. vice president, in Deborah Amos, “A Smuggler Explains How He Helped Fighters along ‘Jihadi Highway,’” NPR, October 7, 2014, http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/10/07/354288389/ a-smugglerexplains-

how-he-helped-fighters-along-jihadi-highway , accessed January 8, 2017. See also Tim Arango and Eric Schmitt, “A Path to ISIS, Through a Porous Turkish Border,” New York Times, March 9, 2013, http:// www.nytimes.com/2015/03/10/world/europe/despite-crackdown-path , accessed January 9, 2017; Emrullah Uslu, “Jihadist Highway to Jihadist Haven: Turkey’s Jihadi Policies and Western Security,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 39, no. 9 (2016); and Hardin Lang and Mutah Al Wari, “The Flow of Foreign Fighters to the Islamic State,” Center for American Progress, March 2016.

18 See, for example, Hande Firat, “We Will Not Allow a Kurdish State on Our Borders: Erdogan,” Hurriyet Daily News, August 24, 2017, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/we-will-not-allow-a-kurdish-state-on-ourborders-

erdogan-.aspx?pageID=517&nID=117059&NewsCatID=352  , accessed August 30, 2017, where Erdogan was quoted as declaring that the term “Kurdish state” is an “insult to my Kurdish brothers. … We will send those who want to break this nation [Turkey] apart to the grave.”

19 Cited in Necef, “Barzani and Erdogan Meet in Diyarbakir,” 3.

20 U.S Department of State, “Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government’s Planned Referendum,” September 20,

2017, https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/09/274324.htm , accessed October 8, 2017.

21 Cited in Mustafa Gurbuz, “Does Turkey Really Want to Punish Iraqi Kurdistan?” October 3, 2017, http:// www.Arabcenterdc.org/policy-analyses/does-turkey-really-want-to-punish-iraqi-Kurdistan/ , accessed October

4, 2017.

22 Cited in Aydintasbas, “Why the Kurdish Referendum Is None of Turkey’s Business.”

23 Cited in “Iraqi Kurds Vote in Independence Referendum,” Al-Jazeera, September 25, 2017, http://www.103

Gunter: Erdogan’s Backsliding

aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/iraqi-kurds-vote-independence-referendum-170925032733525.html , accessed

September 27, 2017.

24 Cited in ibid.

25 Cited in Ali Cinar, “The Kurdish Referendum Will Destabilize the Region More,” September 24, 2017,

http://augustafreepress.com/kurdish-referendum-will-destablize-region/ , accessed September 27, 2017.

26 Dalai, “After the Kurdish Independence Referendum.”

27 Interview with Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, KRG representative to the United States, September 27, 2017.

However, once the referendum was held, the United States made it clear that it would take no sanctions against the KRG. David Ignatius, “The U.S. Owes It to the Kurds to Help De-escalate Tensions after the Independence Referendum,” Washington Post, September 28, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/

post-partisan/wp, accessed October 8, 2017.

28 See, for example, “Barzani: No U.S. ‘Support’ for Kurdish Referendum If Postponed,” Rudaw, November

11, 2017, http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/11112017 , accessed November 15, 2017.

29 For background on Kirkuk, see Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield, Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).

30 For further penetrating thoughts on the KRG’s miscalculations, see Denise Natali, “Iraqi Kurdistan Was Never Ready for Statehood,” Foreign Policy, October 31, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/31/iraqikurdistan-was-never-ready-for-statehood , accessed November 15, 2017; and Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, “Iraq Kurdistan’s Crisis: A Failure of Strategy,” American Spectator, October 22, 2017, http://www.meforum .

org/6976/iraqi-kurdistan-crisis-a-failure-of-strategy , accessed November 15, 2017.

31 M. Hakan Yavuz and Nihat Ali Ozcan, “Turkish Democracy and the Kurdish Question,” Middle East Policy 22 (Winter 2015): 76.

32 Ibid., 78.

33 See most recently Michael M. Gunter, The Kurds: A Modern History, 2nd ed. (Markus Wiener Publishers, 2017): 58-60; and Michael M. Gunter, Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War (Hurst & Company, 2014): 119-128.

34 “‘I Am a Big Fan of the Kurds,’ Says Donald Trump,” Rudaw, July 22, 2016, http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/ 22072016, accessed January 8, 2017.

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