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Iraqi Kurds Keep Nervous Eye on Turkish Election Race

A Turkish citizen living in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, casts his ballot for the presidential and parliamentary elections, at the Turkish embassy. SAFIN HAMED / AFP
A Turkish citizen living in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, casts his ballot for the presidential and parliamentary elections, at the Turkish embassy. SAFIN HAMED / AFP
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Iraqi Kurds Keep Nervous Eye on Turkish Election Race

A Turkish citizen living in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, casts his ballot for the presidential and parliamentary elections, at the Turkish embassy. SAFIN HAMED / AFP
A Turkish citizen living in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, casts his ballot for the presidential and parliamentary elections, at the Turkish embassy. SAFIN HAMED / AFP

As Türkiye’s presidential vote nears, Iraqi Kurds are keeping a close watch on the tightest electoral battle yet for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the outcome of which could have major security and economic implications for their region.

For many years, fighting between Türkiye’s armed forces and Kurdish fighters has spilled over into Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north, a rugged mountain region where both sides operate military bases, AFP said.

Many Kurds in war-scarred Iraq sympathize with the ethnic minority in Türkiye, but their own region also relies on the big neighbor for business, with its crucial oil long exported via a pipeline that runs through Türkiye.

Political leaders in Arbil are not officially commenting on Türkiye’s tight electoral race between Erdogan and his challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who has pledged to "bring democracy to this country by changing the one-man regime".

But, whatever the outcome of the Turkish presidential vote, with the first round to be held Sunday, Iraq's Kurdish region will look to preserve its strategic partnership with Ankara, analysts say.

"The media, the political scene, everyone is highly preoccupied with the Turkish elections," said Adel Bakawan, director of the French Centre for Research on Iraq, who stressed that Ankara's role in the region is "fundamental".

Iraq's Kurdish leaders have built relationships with Erdogan, he said, adding that, if "the president changes, the whole relationship between Arbil and Ankara changes... The diplomatic world hates the unknown."

'Direction of the war'

Erdogan, after two decades in power as premier and then president, has strengthened Türkiye as a regional player that at times challenges Europe and the United States and negotiates with Russia on Syria's war.

When he first took office, Erdogan launched talks aimed at ending the Kurdish armed struggle for broader autonomy in Türkiye’s southeast. But the community, estimated to be 15 to 20 million strong, came under pressure when those talks collapsed, and violence resumed in 2015.

Türkiye’s battle against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), classified as a "terrorist" group by Ankara and its Western allies, has long since flared again across its borders into Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Turkish military maintains dozens of bases in northern Iraq and carries out air strikes and ground operations against the PKK, which operates rear bases in the region.

Iraq's regional Kurdish government rarely rebukes Ankara, despite Türkiye routinely bombarding its territory and causing civilian casualties. Instead, Arbil usually limits its public response to press releases condemning violations of Iraq's sovereignty and their impacts on the population.

Kilicdaroglu, while making no concrete proposals to resolve Türkiye’s Kurdish question, has accused Erdogan of "stigmatizing" Kurds.

He has also pledged to free the Kurdish leader of the left-wing Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, who has been incarcerated since 2016 for spreading "terrorist propaganda".

According to Bakawan, given the gestures Kilicdaroglu has already made to the Kurdish community, there is "the possibility of appeasement" in the conflict should he win.

"The result of the election will directly impact the direction of this war," said Bakawan, a French-Iraqi political scientist of Kurdish origin.

'Betting on relaxation'

Political scientist Botan Tahseen argued that Türkiye's opposition is "betting on relaxation" and wants "to turn a new page" after Erdogan, at a time when the Middle East is thirsty for "political, security and economic stability".

If Erdogan is re-elected, he added, Türkiye will still "need an initiative to normalize its relations with its neighbors, especially (Iraqi) Kurdistan".

Ankara remains a strategic economic partner to Arbil. For years, all of Kurdistan's oil exports -- some 450,000 barrels per day -- were sent to Türkiye, without the approval of Iraq's federal government.

A legal dispute between Baghdad and Ankara interrupted the trade, but it is expected to resume once technical and financial details are settled.

"Whoever governs in Ankara will obviously have an influence on this issue," said Bakawan.

Illustrating the close ties between Ankara and Arbil, a Turkish HDP parliamentarian was on Sunday turned away from Arbil's airport, local media reported. The provincial government later explained he had been subject to a Baghdad-issued "travel ban".

For Iraq's Kurds, notions of ethnic solidarity and hopes for an end to discrimination of Kurds in Türkiye are tempered with caution.

"We hope that the next Turkish government will sit down at the dialogue table with the Kurds," said Nizar Soltan, 60, who works at a university in Arbil.

"Dozens of times they tricked the Kurds and used them to achieve their ends," he said, sitting in a cafe, complaining that the minority invariably ends up being "marginalized".

"This time let's hope they keep their promises, and that the Kurdish regions will regain security and stability".

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Arab World

EU to Discuss Normalization of Relations with Syria

Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
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EU to Discuss Normalization of Relations with Syria

Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)

Some European Union countries are pushing to normalize ties with Syria in order to facilitate the deportation of Syrian migrants as mainstream leaders look to replicate anti-immigrant far-right parties’ surging popularity across the Continent, according to a report by POLITICO.

The report noted that these efforts are led by Italy, whose Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday to the Italian Senate ahead of the EU leaders’ meeting, “It is necessary to review the European Union Strategy for Syria and to work with all actors, to create the conditions for Syrian refugees to return to their homeland in a voluntary, safe and sustainable way.”

After President Bashar Assad’s violent crackdown on protesters in 2011 spiraled into a bloody civil war, his government was accused of using chemical weapons on its own people and was accused of torture, the report said.

The EU cut off diplomatic ties with the country in 2011. The regime survived and its operations continued in major part due to the military support of Russia and Iran.

The civil war has since ground to a standstill and the Syrian president has faced near-total global isolation.

Two EU diplomats told POLITICO that Meloni plans to raise the relationship with Damascus during a meeting of the 27 EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Those calls from one of the EU’s largest countries come on top of a concerted push by a group of others, some of which have hard-right or far-right parties in government (or supporting government), such as Austria and Hungary.

The push to normalize relations with war-torn Syria and its president comes after a surge in support for anti-immigrant parties after the European election in June, namely France’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

In recent weeks, POLITICO said that Poland’s prime minister has drawn a rebuke from the EU executive for saying that Warsaw would suspend asylum rights for migrants coming to Poland via Belarus.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has shut his country’s borders to EU neighbors following a knife attack allegedly involving a migrant and France’s newly appointed prime minister, Michel Barnier, has said EU rules on deportations should be revised to speed up expulsions.

One EU diplomat echoed Meloni, saying Israel’s ground operations after its invasion of Lebanon in early October added momentum to the push for deporting Syrian migrants.

Nearly 200,000 Syrians and Lebanese have fled to Syria since the start of October, according to the UN.

In Europe, more than 1 million Syrian refugees and asylum seekers have arrived in the past 10 years, according to 2021 data from the UN Refugee Agency.

The POLITICO report said Assad’s government, for its part, is eager to return to the embrace of its neighbors and other global leaders.

He has led a charm offensive for years, telling Syrians who fled it is now safe to return.

More recently, Syria has been bankrolling a campaign by Syrian and Western influencers to clean up his country’s image and jumpstart tourism, which has been largely dead for a decade.

But officials have not mapped out how such a shift to normalizing ties might happen. “There is no one who says: we will pick up the phone to call Assad,” said one EU official. “Nobody dares to raise that, but it is a hidden suggestion by some.”

In July, seven EU countries (Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece, Croatia and Cyprus) called on the EU’s foreign policy chief to review the EU’s strategy for Syria. The goal, they said, was to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria as well as help return migrants to certain regions of the country.

For others, it’s more complicated.

The Netherlands is not ready to back plans for restarting negotiations with Syria as it is not considered a safe country according to the Dutch domestic assessment, its Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told POLITICO.

“The Dutch policy is that Syria is not secure to return asylum seekers. If that will happen in the future, [it] depends on the whole mechanism which is depoliticized [for] the Netherlands to decide to what extent Syria is secure, safe enough for the return of migrants,” he added.

The EU foreign policy chief’s response to the letter from seven EU countries was curt.

“How the Syrian regime has been operating for decades is well known and documented, including with the direct support of both Russia and Iran,” Josep Borrell wrote in a letter dated August 28 and obtained by POLITICO.

“That said, rest assured that the EU has always been ready to explore ways to better support the Syrian people and its legitimate aspirations.”

But some within the EU are adamant it is time to, at the very least, start a discussion, even if it is “too early to say whether we can succeed in anything,” one senior EU diplomat said.

“Assad is there, there is no whitewashing of him but Europe has taken in over 1.2 million Syrian citizens,” said Austria’s Alexander Schallenberg, federal minister for European and international affairs.

“Our proposal is an open-minded assessment: where do we stand, where should we go, because we are simply not achieving the results we would like to achieve.”