Iraqi Kurd political heavyweights' new battlefield: Syria

The worsening health condition of jalal Talabani, president of Iraq, but more to the point leader of the Kurdistan’s Patriotic Union (PUK), has put his party on the defensive. The PUK, after years of resistance against Saddam Hussein, quickly followed by a bitter war among Kurds, agreed to divide what is now Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan between itself and its rival, the Barzani clan’s PDK. They distributed ministries, resources, government postings among themselves, each ruling its own fiefdom: Erbil and Dohok governorates for the PDK, Sulaimaniya governorate for the PUK. But the PUK, not unlike its leader’s health, has been declining for years and the party is now clearly the junior partner in the PDK-PUK-shared Kurdistan Rergional Government. The relationship between the two “allies” is now entering a new dynamic. With Mam Jalal incapacitated, the party is said to be under the rule of Hero Talabani, his wife. She is the daughter of Ibrahim Ahmed, a key PDK figure who joined the PUK after being sidelined by the Barzanis. Hero Talabani has a deep distrust of the Barzanis: no way for her to let them taking advantage of Mam Jalal's illness to realise their long-time ambition and absorb the PUK, bringing the whole Iraqi Kurdistan under the authority of Massoud Barzani, leader of the clan and already the autonomous region's president. And now the two Iraqi Kurd heavyweight parties are taking their rivalry on a new field: Syrian Kurd politics. Syria has a sizeable Kurdish population, estimated between 10 to 15% (if one believes the official statistics or the ones compiled by the internal security agencies, not made public), occupying the north-eastern al-Jazirah province, on the Turkish and Iraqi borders. Obviously refusing to fight alongside a dictatorship which permanently oppressed them, especially since the al-Ba’ath party seized power in 1963, the Kurds nonetheless didn’t side with the Free Syrian Army, which they fear could perpetuate the Arab nationalist trend which has prevailed in Syria until now. They have carefully kept themselves away from the conflict. And with Syria breaking up in rebel or government-held areas, sunni or druze or alawite strongholds, following political, sectarian, ethnic or tribal lines, it is the moment for the Kurds not only to demand for equal rights but as well -as are thinking some of their political parties - to gain a federal status for their region -creating their own autonomous Kurdistan, so to say, Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan being seen as a model by numerous Kurds across the middle east. The Syrian crisis is, for the KRG president, a fantastic opportunity to extend not only his influence, but maybe even his territory towards the West. A Syrian Kurdistan now detached from Damascus' central government, isolated in a country ravaged by civil war, could become an addition to autonomous Kurdistan itself. Falah Mustapha, an official of the KRG's foreign affairs department, tellingly said, when asked about Erbil's position concerning Syria's territorial integrity, that the border separating Syrian and Iraqi Kurds was “artificial” and didn't have to be respected (http://www.mesop.de/2013/02/20/kurdish-refugees-in-iraq-have-mixed-feelings-aboout-syria/). Massoud Barzani so held a conference in Erbil in late November 2011, gathering Syrian Kurd political parties and establishing the Kurdish National Congress (also known as the Kurdish Patriotic Conference), widely seen by its critics as being merely the autonomous president’s tool to forward his personal agenda. "There has not been any Erbil conference", said Sardar, a Syrian Kurd journalist in Erbil, talking about the KNC's founding event. "It was not a conference, but a show, set to demonstrate that Massoud Barzani dominates the Syrian Kurd political scene. The ”conference” was organised to provide him a public to nod and applause him." Moreover it is now known that the leadership of the parties forming the coalition were paid by the KRG president to attend the conference, the amount of money they received depending from the attendant' and his party's importance (http://www.kurdwatch.com/html/en/interview9.html).“The KNC”, added Sardar, “is nothing more than a name.” Despite these accusations, Massoud Barzani has the possibility to become immensely popular in the eyes of Syrian Kurds. He can send to al-Jazirah, the Kurd-populated province in north-east Syria, close to the autonomous Kurdistan region, a lot of supplies, which would make him appear as a saviour in a Syrian Kurdistan severely hit by war-related food shortages, threatening to turn in actual famine. He started, similarly, to build a peshmerga force made of Syrian Kurds, deserters of the junta’s army, recruited in the refugee camps; a troop destined to become the KNC’s army. He so continued with his plan, the KNC becoming more and more an instrument. “At a recent meeting between KRG and KNC representatives, all KRG officials were PDK people.”, said in late January 2013 a Syrian Kurd with connections with a KNC party. “It was striking.” Already in a weak position, the PUK is aware of Massoud Barzani’s views on Syrian Kurdistan and that, would he be successful, it would be unable to oppose any more his hegemonic ambitions. Revealingly, the scandal about the Erbil conference corruption was made public by Haji Darwish, the only attendant to have refused Massoud Barzani’s bribe and whose party, the Kurdish Democratic People’s Party, is funded by the PUK. “The leadership of the KNC has different political leanings, everyone does his own thing and doesn’t worry about the others” said Mustafa Jumma, leader of the KNC-member Azadi party, so laying bare the core problem undermining the coalition: the different parties inside the KNC are under the patronage of the PUK and the PDK, and the paralysing squabbles affecting it are part of the two Iraqi Kurd parties’ struggle for power (http://www.kurdwatch.com/syria_article.php?aid=2612&z=en&cure=240). In the same interview Mustafa Jumma mentioned the curious initiative taken by Haji Darwesh and Mustafa Musa, leader of the Kurdish Leftist Party. They went to the Kandil mountains, the PKK fortress, in the north of autonomous Kurdistan, to talk to the organisation’s leadership. The two politicians, said Mustafa Jumma, were not part of the KNC’s contact committee set to handle relations with the PYD, the PKK’s Syrian branch. None of this committee’s members were present with Haji Darwesh and Mustafa Musa. Given that both the KDPP and the KLP are financed by the PUK, one can safely assume their leaders went to hold talks, not on the KNC’s behalf, but on the PUK’s. For the PYD, the Syrian version of the PKK, is the main player in Syrian Kurdistan. In summer 2012 the Syrian junta’s army withdrew in its barracks there, de facto handing over the day-to-day control of al-Jazirah to the organisation. The party benefits from the long time presence of the PKK there: until he evicted it in 1999, general-president Hafez al-Assad allowed the party to open training facilities and recruit volunteers for its war against the Turkish state, just over the border. “When we created the PYD in 2003, it has not been too difficult.” was saying Saleh Muslim, the party’s chairman, in an interview the 18/03/2011. “A lot of Kurds families were involved with the PKK: Syrian Kurds gave 4000 martyrs to the cause. The PKK has been present during 20 years in Syrian Kurdistan; it was then something normal for a young Kurd to become a gerillaand go to fight in Turkey . So when we created the PYD, families of our fighters, or even veterans of the PKK who came back, naturally joined the party.” But the circumstances in which the PYD took over the administration in al-Jazirah has been fuelling accusations of collusions with the regime, coming from the other Syrian Kurd parties, despite the severe repression the PYD had to face from the dictatorship until the start of the Syrian uprising. The KNC parties accuse the PYD to have resumed with the al-Assad government the relation the PKK had with it. “The government lets the PYD take over the areas it leaves behind”, said in an interview with the Iraqi Kurd newspaper Rudaw Abdulhakim Bashar, leader of the PDK-Syria, one of the main parties of the KNC.“The (government) offices are functioning without any problems. They have not changed except the PYD flag has been raised on their roofs (…). The Syrian government still pays (the state employees).” While admitting he didn’t have any evidence of it, Abdulhakim Bashar said the PYD had an agreement with the dictatorship, and that it was “viewed as the regime’s partner.” And the PYD has effectively kept Syrian Kurds from joining the insurgency against the dictatorship. It also keeps an absolute monopoly on power and armed force, refusing to allow any other militia than its own. The PYD, say its detractors, sends its militants to attack demonstrations held by other political parties (http://www.kurdwatch.com/syria_article.php?aid=2612&z=en&cure=240). The party is also wary to let KRG-supplied relief in. The opening of a border crossing between the PYD-controlled Syrian Kurdistan and the KRG territory was, in January 2013, the matter of delicate negotiations. The PYD wants the crossing point to be under its exclusive control, while Massoud Barzani was demanding a common supervision by both the PYD and KNC. In front of the well-organised, disciplined PYD, the KNC revealed itself a chaotic amalgam crippled by inefficiency and divisions, unable to even formulate a coherent programme. Asked about their project for Kurdistan in a post-war Syria, some parties advocate federalism, while some others reject it, claiming Syria must remain one and can not be divided. The PYD made a clever use of these divisions, as is explaining a representative in europe of the Azadi party, one of the PYD's most vocal critics: “In Afrin (the province, not the town itself), where Azadi has a strong presence, we started to hold meetings. Our members were attacked by the PYD’s militants. There is another KNC party in Afrin, Sheikh Ali’s Democratic Yekiti party. It is a small party, without too much relevance inside the KNC. By not reacting nor voicing any opposition against the PYD’s actions, it intends to entice itself towards the PYD, and be associated to its power.” Asked about his party’s relationship with the PYD Mohamed Mahmoud Abou Saber, the Democratic Yekiti’s representative in Erbil, said it advocated a “total cooperation” with the PYD. “We do not believe the PYD could be an auxiliary of the dictatorship” did he say. “Kurds have avoided being dragged into the civil war. The PYD has maintained security in our territories. But now war is at our gates. We can not afford division among Kurds, we are in danger. We must cooperate with the PYD, now. The situation demands it.” he said, clearly referring to the fighting in Sere Kaniye border town where the PYD faces different Free Syrian Army groups - presenting itself as the defender of the Kurdish territories and rallying Kurds, even those uneasy with its power, under its banner. The divisions inside the KNC and the inaction resulting have led to the formation, in mid December 2012, of the Kurdish National Political Union, an inside-KNC movement grouping the two Azadi factions, the PDK-S and the PYKS. “We want to go over the KNC’s paralysis”, said the European Azadi representative. “We want a more practical and proactive KNC. We want to be efficient. And we want, too, a firm attitude towards the PYD.” Unsurprisingly the KNPU is not welcomed by some of the other KNC parties. “We already have a political union, it is the KNC”, said Mohamed Mahmoud Abou Saber. Sarcastically he pointed out that the “union” was actually dividing the Kurd parties. “And this at the moment we need to remain united” did he repeat. But, said the Azadi representative, “The creation of the KNPU doesn’t mean the end of the KNC”, tellingly adding “Massoud Barzani wants the KNC to remain.” “The KNPU has been created under the impulse of Massoud Barzani.” explains one insider. The relation between the Abdulhakim Bashar’s PDK-S and the PDK, does he add, is the same than between the PYD and the PKK. “This movement is conceived to be a vector for the PDK-S, the three other parties are there to bring a bit more consistency, that’s their only purpose.” “The PDK-S is the main party in the KNPU, and is privileged.” are we said. “All these parties were to receive a training, provided by the PDK, about political discipline, use of medias, that kind of things. To date only the PDK-S had been trained.” Making it, so, the dominating element in this“alliance”. And there is more. There are, says this insider, PDK-S moles in the PYKS and Azadi(s) parties, ready to put their parties under the control of the PDK-S when judged suitable. “As a result there is grumbling in the ranks of these parties (PYKS and Azadi) but they stay in the political union because they want weapons, and only the PDK can give them some - but very few, naturally. They must remain dependent.” Why these weapons? “To defend themselves, against the PYD.” "There is not just the fight in Sere Kaniye and a war against the Arabs which is threatening us", concludes this friend. "There is the danger to see a war among Kurds, with factions fighting for power. It is my fear, personally." The tensions, and their exploitation by the rival Iraqi Kurd political parties, are reflected by the reports on the Sere Kaniye fightings broadcasted by GaliKurdistan TV, the PUK’s propaganda TV station supervised by Mala Bakhtyar, a close associate of Mrs Talabani. Reporting on the Sere Kaniye combats, GaliKurdistan emphasises the support, presented as enthusiastic and unconditional, Kurds are bringing to the PYD. Interviewing, for example, Mustapha Musa (often quoted by www.pydrojava.com, the PYD information website), who said that all the KLP volunteers joined the PYD militia in its fight against Jabhat al-Nusra (which prompted dismissive comments from a Syrian Kurd friend, who didn't know the KLP had enough members to have an armed wing: "I am not sure they were aware they had one themselves"). Secondly, when asked by the GaliKurdistan journalists, or the TV stations linked to the PYD, who joined this party in its battle against the invaders, the interviewed invariously answer that everyone did, "except the PYKS and Azadi": the KNPU parties. "They avoid attacking the PDK-S", says one insider. "This party is under Massoud Barzani's personal protection. It is easier, and safer, to hammer on the other KNPU parties."