The volatile situation in northern Iraq is beginning to cause trouble on the other side of the border. Gareth Jenkins reports The recent announcement by Iraqi Kurdish leaders that they were postponing local polls in the northern city of Kirkuk has again raised fears in Ankara that the Iraqi Kurds are preparing to establish a breakaway political entity in the wake of the January nationwide elections. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul last week bluntly warned the Iraqi Kurds not to postpone municipal elections due to be held in January 2005 amid growing concern in Ankara that the ongoing chaos in Iraq could lead to the de facto partition of the country. Turkey has long feared that the general elections due to be held in January 2005 could be followed by an increase in violence, with the focus shifting from attacks on the central interim government and US-led occupation forces to factional infighting. Such a development could in turn prompt the predominantly Kurdish north of the country to declare autonomy or even independence. Turkey has long maintained that it could never allow the establishment of a Kurdish political entity on its southern border for fear that it would rekindle separatist aspirations amongst its own substantial, and still restless, Kurdish minority. Last week Iraqi Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani announced that they had agreed to postpone local elections in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which had originally been scheduled to be held at the same time as the January nationwide poll. They said that more time was needed to settle the issue of Kurds displaced under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in an attempt to weaken opposition to his rule. These sections of the Kurdish population, who were replaced by Arabs and Turkmen, now wish to exercise their right of return. Privately, Iraqi Kurdish officials candidly admit that, although they are prepared to be patient, their ultimate ambition is to establish an independent state with Kirkuk as its capital. Last week's announcement by Talabani and Barzani has been interpreted in Ankara as an attempt to buy time to register more Kurds on the electoral rolls and ensure that, when the local elections are finally held, ethnic Kurds will take complete control of the city. "They are not the ones who make the decision," said Gul last week, referring to Talabani and Barzani. "The elections have not been delayed." According to Gul, responsibility for making any decision related to the polls still lies with the election commission appointed by the interim Iraqi government. But, even if Talabani and Barzani eventually back down, the fact that they publicly announced the postponement of the polls is seen in Ankara as proof that the Iraqi Kurds regard themselves, rather than the interim government in Baghdad, as the ultimate political authority in northern Iraq. In reality, there is very little Turkey can do to curb Iraqi Kurdish political aspirations without incurring the wrath of the US, which has already warned Ankara that any armed intervention in northern Iraq would trigger a military response. Yet, if the government of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) fails to act, it is likely to face a severe internal political backlash, particularly as the main domestic challenge to its rule is now coming from the Turkish nationalist right. Looming tensions over northern Iraq come at a time when the JDP is also facing the prospect of increasing pressure from both sides of the Islamist-secular divide inside Turkey. Until now it has been able to use Turkey's candidacy for the EU both to chip away at the political influence of the staunchly secularist Turkish military, and to persuade its predominantly pious grassroots to be patient over reforms such as easing the ban on women wearing Islamic headscarves in state institutions, most critically in Turkish universities. Erdogan has been able to argue that the closer Turkey edges to EU membership the weaker the political influence of the Turkish military will become, and that it would be counter-productive to push through controversial measures such as lifting the headscarf ban until Turkey is locked into the membership process. The EU is widely expected to give Turkey a date, probably early 2005, for the beginning of accession negotiations when its holds its next summit in the Netherlands on 17 December. Once the date has been secured, the JDP's grassroots will expect Erdogan to deliver. Privately, many of those who voted for the JDP when it swept to power in an electoral landslide in November 2002 are already beginning to lose patience with Erdogan and looking around for alternatives. The parties of the nationalist right, for whom religion has always been a major component of national identity, are seen as the most likely winners from this disaffection. But recent attempts by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to defuse growing unease amongst the JDP's grassroots have set alarm bells ringing in Turkey's still powerful secularist establishment. In mid-November, he issued a coded reassurance to impatient Islamists by declaring that: "Secularism is also open to redefinition." Such words sent a tremor of alarm through Turkey's secularists, who have always suspected that the JDP is merely biding its time before implementing an Islamist agenda. Yet Turkey's secularist political parties remain ineffectual and mired in internal feuding; with the result that many secularists may well expect the Turkish military once again to take the lead in preserving the status quo. Since he was appointed in August 2002, Turkish Chief of Staff General Hilmi Ozkok has tried to walk a thin line, avoiding either endangering secularism or jeopardising Turkey's chances of getting a date for the opening of accession negotiations by intervening in the political process. Yet the granting by the EU of a date for the beginning of accession negotiations will make it very difficult not just for Erdogan but also for Ozkok to justify continuing inaction.
