Evaluation of Turkey’s policy towards the Iraqi Turkmen (Part XIV):

A history of continuous humiliation

Date: September 12, 2015

No.: Art.3-I1215

The articles written by the SOITM foundation on the Turkish policy towards the Turkmen of Iraq, which lasted about seven years, required frequent communication with the most of the Turkmen politicians and leaders, in order to convey the truth to the public opinion and gain the credibility. As well as relying on multiple sources represented by Turkmen politicians who had rich experiences in the Turkmen politics, to ensure that the views match and the correctness of the information to present a reliable document on the Turkmen political history.

In one of the contacts with one of the Turkmen leaders to collect information related to the subject of one of the articles, he informed us about a very sorrowful situation shaking the conscience of man. He said, “Once we entered into talks with Iraqi authorities on the involvement of Turkmen in the administration of the state. After discussions and negotiations and exchange of views we got from the Iraqi negotiators a good share for Turkmen in the administration, but at the last moment, we received an order to withdraw from the negotiations and we did, losing important rights in the administration of the state”. When we asked him, who gave you the order to withdraw from the negotiations? He said, “A simplest Turkish employee was able to give very harmful orders to the Turkmen politicians about the issues related to the fate of the Iraqi Turkmen”. This was in the nineties of the last century, being there a lot of such cases in the history of the Turkish policy towards the Turkmen of Iraq, lead to write this article.

Assignment of the presidents of the ITF before the general Turkmen congresses

The collapsed Iraqi Turkmen political system was never able to stand on its own two feet during its two and half decades of life. It has suffered continuous defeats, rendering it an almost completely useless system for the Turkmen of Iraq, who have survived the darkest period of their history as they have been exposed to a real ethnic cleansing processes.

Having almost completely dominated the Turkmen political system since its foundation, Turkey’s role in the failure and sufferings of the Turkmen has been instrumental.

The extent of Turkish domination of the Turkmen political system is not disclosed, mainly due to the fact that this domination is unlawful, and considered as interference in Iraqi internal affairs and violation of international law. This makes Turkey administer its policies towards the Turkmen of Iraqi through its Intelligence services.

Factors helped Turkey to establish hegemony over the Turkmen

Several factors that have helped Turkey to control the Turkmen of Iraq and to dominate the political system, such as:

-     Absolute trust of the Iraqi Turkmen in Turkey helps the later to easily find Turkmen people who are willing to implement the Turkish national policies.

-     Turkish intimidation and threat of those who oppose its national policies and pun?shment of the disobediences.

-     Fear to criticize the ruling regimes, which the people of non-democratic dictatorial communities develop, strengthened by the lack of security and stability in Iraq. The Turkish government is present in Iraq, particularly in the north, through its army and intelligence services since the establishment of the Safe Haven in 1991, and it has become much strongly after the fall of Baath regime at 2003.

-     Failure of Iraqi Turkmen to ally with other regional and international powers. This is primarily due to subordination of the Iraqi Turkmen to Turkey and Turkish domination of the Turkmen political system.

Several irrational lines of the Turkey’s Turkmen policy and continuous manipulation of the Turkmen political system by Turkey have deviated the Turkmen political movement from its sound path, and hampered its development, rendering it completely ineffective system.

Irrational lines of Turkey’s Turkmen policy

·      Restriction of funding sources

Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), which is dominated by Turkey, included formerly almost the entire Turkmen nationalist community, and still represents the skeleton of the Iraqi Turkmen political system. It has been prohibited by Turkey from getting any type of financial support from any source other than those allocated by Turkish government or army:1, 2 This inhuman Turkish policy has deprived the Turkmen of Iraq of huge sums of financial supports, for example:

-     Turkey prevented the Turkmen of Iraq from participating in the New York conference in the mid-1990s, during which 13% of the income of the oil-for-food program was allocated for Kurdish parties. Thirteen percent is the percentage of Kurdish populat?on in Iraq. Iraqi opposition accepted 6% as the percentage of the population of the Iraqi Turkmen. Thus, Turkey prevented the Turkmen of Iraq from a huge permanent income.1

-     Turkey castoff the financial support, which the kin country republic of Azerbaijan allocated for the Turkmen of Iraq in 2007.

-     As result of such Turkish policies, the Iraqi Turkmen were deprived of huge amounts of funding, which were spent in Iraq by international civil society organizations and countries after the establishment of the Safe Haven in 1991, particularly in the north of Iraq.

·      Subjugation of Iraqi Turkmen to the red lines of Turkish policy

Under the hegemony of Turkey, the Turkmen of Iraq were submitted to the red lines of Turkey’s Iraq policy, which were majorly in contrast to Turkmen interests, for example:

-     The Turkish army and government, which administered the Turkmen dossier in different periods, banned the cooperation of the two major Turkmen political groups, the conservative nationalists and the religious Shiites.

-     From 1991 until 2011, The Turkish army and Turkish government, who administered the Turkmen dossier in different periods, forced the Turkmen to refute several basic Kurdish national policies. For example, the use of term Kurdistan and the recognition of Kurdish administration in the north of Iraq. Such act rendered the north of Iraq, which was the major political arena for the Iraqi opposition groups and intertwined with the Turkmen regions, insecure for the Turkmen organizations. This exposed the Turkmen organizations in the north of Iraq to various attacks.

-     In contrast to the policies of the former Turkish governments and Turkish army, the policy of the Erdogan’s governments was almost completely changed. The Turkmen were forced by new Turkish policy to cooperate with the Kurdish region and with Sunni groups in the Iraqi Parliament, which was against the Turkmen interests.

Major manipulations of the Turkmen political system by Turkey

Turkey frequently manipulated the political history of the Turkmen of Iraq treating the Turkmen political system and the Turkmen politicians as puppets. The Turkmen politicians lived periods, where a simple Turkish soldier or an intelligence agent made the most harmful decisions in fateful issues of the Turkmen of Iraq. The Turkmen politicians were forced, prohibited, prevented, dismissed and refused, for example:

-     The Turkmen Union Party was the second Turkmen party established out of the control of the Turkish authorities in the late 1991 by Ahmad Güne?, who had no any past political history. By support of the Turkish intelligence services this party was handed to Riyaz Sarikahya in late 1993 and its name was changed to Turkmeneli party in 1996.3

-     Turkey compulsorily established the ITF in 1995, despite the strong opposition of the two major Turkmen organization’s executives, who were kidnapped by Turkish intelligence agents and were intimidated.

-     In August 1996, the Iraqi Army of Baath regime in cooperation with Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party invaded Erbil city. Before the event about a week the first line Turkmen politicians of the Iraqi Turkmen National Party and Turkmeneli party, who were in direct contact with Turkish authorities in north of Iraq, left to Turkey. This let the Turkmen politicians who remained in Erbil city suspicious about Turkish authority’s knowledge of the attack and informed only the first line leaderships of those parties.

-     During the invasion, the Turkmen politicians who left behind in Erbil city exposed to serious threats and dozens of staff of Turkmen parties including Iraqi National Turkmen party and Turkmeneli party were arrested by the ?raqi army and disappeared. The offices were destroyed and vanished.

-     Turkey prevented cooperation between the two major Turkmen political groups, the conservative nationalists and the religious Shiites, which the Turkish orders were often coercive, for example:4

o   In the Iraqi parliamentary elections of December 2005, all the attempts of Turkmen politicians to convince the Turkish army office in Erbil to allow the ITF to participate with the Turkmen Shiite politicians who were part of the Iraqi Shiite coalition, were rejected, which caused the Turkmen to lose many parliamentary seats.

o   In the Iraqi parliamentary elections of 2014, the Shiite Turkmen representative, who was sent to Ankara, failed to convince the Turkish authorities to allow participation of Iraqi Turkmen in a consolidated list in the elections.

o   Almost the same policy continued in all the Iraqi elections.

-     In the early months of year 2000, a commission from the ITF held several meetings with the Kurdish authorities to participate in the fourth regional government of Nechirvan Barzani. The Kurdish authorities agreed with most of the Turkmen requirements. Turkey ordered the Turkmen commission to abandon the meetings and prohibited the Turkmen participation in the Kurdish regional government.5

-     In 2000, the Turkish army determined a new president for the ITF, several months before organization of the second GTC, which is considered the legal authority to elect the president of the ITF. The new president was from out of the ITF, which was against the will of the executive committee of the ITF, who preferred election of a president from and within the ITF.

-     Shortly before the fall of Baath regime in March 2003, President Bush's envoy to Iraqi opposition, Khalil Zadeh, requested the politicians of the ITF to accept the legal status of the Kurdish region, which was admitted by the Iraqi opposition congress of London and registered in the Iraqi constitution. In return, for the Turkmen being granted a role in the Iraqi administration, and one of the six members of the Iraqi ministerial council was going to be a Turkmen. The Turkish Iraq policy at that time did not allow the Turkmen to accept Kurdish regional status and to use the term ‘Kurdistan’, which were accepted by the Iraqi constitution. Thus, the Turkmen were ordered by Turkey to leave the offer of Khali Zadeh unanswered. This led to marginalization of the Iraqi Turkmen in building of new Iraq, and later on exposed them to years of violation of their human rights in the insecure Iraq.

-     With the dismissal of the president of ITF, Faruk Abadullah, in 2005, by the Turkish army, Turkey silenced the already ineffective opposition of presidents of the ITF under the Turkish oppressive administration. Abdullah refrained to sign cheques of large sum of money, which were brought by Turkish authorities who administered the Turkmen dossier. Abdullah had no idea how the money was used or spent. However, Erge? later on signed the cheques after overtaking Abdullah’s position as the president of the ITF.

-     To penalize members of the executive committee of the ITF, who dismissed the president of the ITF Saad al-Din Erge?, Turkish army organized the fifth General Turkmen Congress (GTC) in 2008. The statute of the ITF and ITC were violated in all stages of the Congress and Erge?, who was the loyal man of Turkey, kept his post as the president of the ITF.6

-     In 2010, Turkey dismissed the head and all the staff of Baghdad branch of the ITF, when he argued with Erge? the president of the ITF about the results of the Iraqi General elections.

-     Turkey has dominated the organization of all the GTCs. In May 2011, the Iraqi Turkmen council was terminated by Turkish embassy in Baghdad and since then all the attempts of the Iraqi Turkmen to rebuild the council on a professional bases were hampered by Turkey.7

-     After 2010, the refusal of the Turkish dictations exposed the ITF to series of punishments, led to almost dissolution of the ITF.

o   The severe and frequent reduction of funding by Turkish governments decreased greatly the activities of the ITF. Noting that ITF was prevented by Turkish government to accept any kind of financial support from any source other than that of Turkish government.

o   Turkey created a group in the executive committee of the ITF to serve its sectarian policies, dividing the committee into two disputing parts. This lead to lowdown of the meetings of the executive committee before about a year rendering the ITF to almost completely a non-functioning organization.

o   Financing the branches of ITC directly from Ankara bypassing the headquarters made the branches of the ITF almost completely independent from headquarters, in some cases guiding disputing policies.

Conclusions

Turkey’s Turkmen policy is authoritarian and exploitative.

Turkey commandeers the Turkmen political system and guide a humiliating policy toward the Turkmen of Iraq taking advantage of the chaos that pervades Iraq, exhaustion of Iraqi Turkmen community as a result of decades of suppression, and unquestionably trust of the majority of the Turkmen of Iraq in Turkey.

As a result the Turkmen political system has been almost completely collapsed and disappeared from the Iraqi political arena and the Turkmen were exposed to ethnic cleansing.

Recommendation

The problem of getting rid of the Turkish domination on the Turkmen of Iraq and on their political system necessitates that the Turkmen of Iraq should internationalize this illegal policy of Turkey to enlist the support of the international community.

 References

1.    SOITM foundation, “Evaluation of Turkey’s Turkmen Policy (Part VI): Turkey broke the backbone of the Iraqi Turkmen by depriving them of monthly incomes estimated to be millions of dollars”, October 25, 2013.

https://turkmentribune.com/Article-7/1-Book_TTP-6th.pdf

2.    SOITM foundation, “Evaluation of Turkey’s Turkmen policy (Part VIII): Threw them hand-tied in the sea and said: Beware! Never get wet with water”, April 19, 2014, P. 5-6.

3.    Saray Newspaper, “After twenty years Ahmet Günesh talks”, Issue no. 71, 30 may 2012, P. 3

https://www.bizturkmeniz.com/publications/saray71.pdf

4.    SOITM Foundation, “Evaluation of Turkey’s Turkmen Policy (Part X): The Role of Turkey in the failure of the Turkmen in the Iraqi elections”, November 15, 2014.

5.    Türkmeneli newspaper, “Iraqi Turkmen Front have indicated their willingness to participate in the fourth cabinet of KRG”, issue dated January 19, 2000. https://www.turkmen.nl/1A_Others/ITF-krg.pdf

6.    Details of organization of the Fifth General Iraqi Turkmen Congress will be presented in the Part XV of this study of SOITM.

7.    Details of the last five years of the Iraqi Turkmen council will be presented in the Part XVI of this study of SOITM.

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