Turkey and Iran stage joint military operation against Kurds

Turkey and Iran launched a joint military operation on March 18 against members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is widely known as PKK.

The operation came in response to a previous attack by the party on Turkish army troops. Iran too shares Turkey's fears from the potential establishment of a state by the Kurds on the joint borders between Syria; Iraq; Iran, and Turkey.

The operation attests to growing fears on the part of both Turkey and Iran from the potential Kurdish state. This is especially true with the Kurds receiving support from the United States. The two countries also have interests in obliterating Kurdish presence on their borders with Iraq and Syria.

No state

The Kurds are native residents of southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and southwestern Armenia. They make up a distinguished united society whose members share the same ethnicity, culture and language. Nonetheless, the Kurds do not speak one language. They also follow a number of different faiths. However, most of them follow the Islamic religion.

The Kurds started thinking of establishing their state of Kurdistan as of the beginning of the 20th century. Soon after World War I and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, victorious Western allies decided to establish a Kurdish state. They stipulated this desire in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres.

However, these plans were dashed three years later when the Treaty of Lausanne, which defined the borders of the modern Turkish state, did not include an article about a Kurdish state. In the following eight years, Kurdish plans for the establishment of an independent state were dealt with very brutally.

Kurdish insurrection

Between 1925 and 1938, the Kurds living in Turkey staged ten insurgencies, which opened the door for political and security instability in the country. The same insurgencies led to a marked deterioration in relations between the Kurds and the Turkish state. The Turkish elite viewed the Kurds as a bunch of insurgents and thieves who deserve to be punished. This turned Turkey into an enemy of the Kurds.

The PKK emerged while the Marxist left thrived in Turkey. The appearance of this political trend helped the Kurds discover themselves even more. The Kurds living inside Turkey received support from those living in northern Iraq. Those Kurds succeeded in neutering the Iraqi government in the 1980s.

In February 2019, Turkish police blocked rallies to support the release of the historical leader of the Kurdish rebellion, Abdullah Ocalan who serves a life sentence in Turkish prisons. Ocalan is not only a symbol of the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey, but he is also the symbol of the Kurdish movement in the region, especially in Syria.

Kurdish insurgency in Tehran

After allies entered Iran in 1941 with Russian forces to eliminate the rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi and declare Iran a neutral state during World War II, Azerbaijan declared Iran as an "independent left-wing government" led by the Azerbaijan Democratic Party, which received support from Russia.

However, the Kurds pursued peaceful means to express their aspirations and defend their rights, especially under former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. There were several indicators for this. 

1 - Strengthening the status of the Kurdish middle class in Tehran and then in the north. The number of Kurdish students in schools and universities increased, which led to the formation of a class of Kurdish intellectuals.

2 - The participation of Iraqi Kurds in the political process in their country encouraged the Kurds of Iran to pursue the same peaceful policy.

3 - The Kurdish elite believed that their peaceful struggle would be better and more effective than violence.

Nevertheless, many analysts point to a change in this peaceful situation, especially after the American withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran. This was accompanied by a deterioration of the conditions of the Iranian people, in general, and minorities living in the Islamic Republic, in particular.

In September 2017, all Kurdish cities were furious; in protest against the brutal killings by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard of Kurdish workers in the border areas with Iraq.

The Kurds participated in anti-regime protests at the beginning of 2018.

Underlying message

The Turkish-Iranian operation against the PKK reflects a great deal of concern about the growing strength of the Kurds in the Middle East and the potential establishment of the so-called Kurdish state on the borders of Turkey; Iran; Syria, and Iraq.

Thus, the Iranian-Turkish agreement comes against the background of the realization that the presence of a Kurdish authority close to their borders will strengthen the presence of Kurdish groups and parties opposed to them, and will make them play their role more flexibly, as shown by the Turkish position on the PKK in northern Iraq.