On June 5, a group of Peshmerga fighters were driving in their armoured vehicle in the Metina area of northern Duhok province. As they approached the foothills of Mount Metina, something struck their vehicle, killing five soldiers. Kurdistan Region authorities accused the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of attacking the Peshmerga, a charge the PKK denied. Whatever happened that day, the incident renewed the possibility of an intra-Kurdish war – a conflict pundits warn could reverse achievements made by Kurds in both Iraq and Syria.
Tensions have been brewing between the Kurdistan Region’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the PKK for nearly a year, both sides trying to assert territorial control in areas that have seen regular clashes between the PKK and Turkish army. The KDP and its leaders in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have repeatedly called on the PKK to leave the Kurdistan Region. But the PKK says that, as Kurds, this is their land too.
All sides have voiced strong opposition to a civil war, but a veteran politician, who has previously mediated between the KDP and PKK, told Rudaw English the situation seems to be “out of control,” blaming Turkey’s large scale invasion of the Kurdistan Region.
“We have been and are trying to de-escalate the issues, but this time it seems that the thing is out of control because Turkey has invaded land 100 kilometres long and 35 – 40 kilometres deep in its offensive into Southern Kurdistan [Kurdistan Region]. It has also based its troops there, set up military bases, cleared paths, and brought all the military technology it has from NATO. This is their first plan. Their second plan is creating a civil war between Kurds to end the Kurdish question,” said Mohammed Ameen Penjwini, who is a friend of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
When the PKK was founded in 1978, its focus was political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey, but when a coup took place in the eighties, its fighters fled to Syria and Iraq, what is now the Kurdistan Region. The group struck a deal with the KDP in 1983 allowing it control over areas bordering Turkey. However, relations between the two Kurdish parties soured when the PKK began to grow and sought more territorial control in KDP-dominated areas as it expanded its fight against Turkey and wanted more influence in the Kurdistan Region.
In the mid-1990s, the KDP and PKK fought a deadly war over control of land. The KDP joined forces with Turkey to try and oust the PKK from the mountains. They ultimately failed, and the two remain bitter rivals to this day.
The Kurdistan Region, the KDP in particular, enjoys good economic relations with Turkey. Erbil sells its oil via a pipeline through Turkey and Turkish products are popular in Kurdish markets, considered better quality than imports from other regional countries like Iran.
Stronger relations between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey have meant weaker ties between the KDP and the PKK, which is on Ankara’s terror list and a frequent target of the Turkish army, both at home and in the Kurdistan Region.
“Biggest loser”
Greater Kurdistan is what Kurds call Kurdish areas in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq that were carved up by European nations more than a century ago after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Kurdish lands were divided by four international borders and Kurdish political and cultural rights have been violated and violently suppressed for generations. The largest ethnic group without a state, Kurds have struggled for their rights through political and armed means. Hundreds of thousands have been killed and massacred by successive regimes in all four countries.
One of the most outstanding Kurdish victories was the establishment of the Kurdistan Region in 1992 following an internationally-enforced no-fly zone imposed the previous year to prevent Saddam Hussein’s genocidal air raids. The victory did not come easily, but followed a mass exodus of Kurds into the mountains – many dying of starvation – and decades of armed struggle against successive Iraqi regimes.
Decades on, the Kurdistan Region remains the only legally recognized Kurdish entity and it has a presence on the international stage.
Iraqi and Syrian Kurds gained international fame as heroes in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS) between 2014 and 2019 and Kurds expanded their areas control in both countries. Kurds in northeast Syria (Rojava) established an autonomous administration and its Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) enjoy US military support. These gains could be at risk from tensions between the KDP and the PKK, which has ties with Rojava.
In 2017, the Peshmerga lost more than half of the territory it controlled after Iraqi forces seized disputed areas in Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces. The Peshmerga withdrawal from Kirkuk was partially blamed on intra-Kurdish rivalries. The KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) maintain separate armed forces and the PUK says it is marginalized by the KDP when making significant political decisions.
Kurdish rivalries can easily reverse achievements and the Kurdistan Region has a lot to lose if a new conflict breaks out.
“God forbid, if such a war takes place, a great catastrophe will happen to the Kurds and Kurdistan Region’s political process. Its status will experience problems and failures. It will no longer be treated like a country by the international community,” warned Penjwini.
If civil war breaks out between PKK fighters and the Peshmerga, the impact will be worse than the war between them in the nineties, according to Ari Harsin, a member of the KDP’s Leadership Council in Halabja and Sulaimani.
“The foreign parties – neighboring countries like Turkey and Iran or distant countries like Russian and the US – were not as involved as they are now in the issue,” he told Rudaw English.
In the nineties, the war was limited to a frontline or two, “but the situation has changed now,” Harsin explained. “Heavier weapons have been acquired and wars are not like they used to be. [A civil war now] will cause much greater destruction to the Kurds, especially to Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurds will have the lion’s share of the destruction – including the destruction of houses, farms and others, as well as the moral harm.”
“The biggest loser will be Iraqi Kurdistan because it is a de facto Kurdish entity. When we lose, this will affect the hopes and aspirations of Kurds in Iran and Turkey as well. I mean the loss will happen to us, but will severely affect the other four parts as well,” he added.
Kurds in Turkey and Iran have been oppressed by both governments for decades, with Turkey jailing thousands and Iran executing scores of Kurds for alleged links to Kurdish parties like the PKK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI). Ankara and Tehran both opposed Kurdistan Region’s 2017 independence referendum because they feared the plebiscite would inspire Kurds in their own countries to demand more rights and reforms.
RELATED: Will KDP-PKK tensions ever end in reconciliation?
The PKK has said it values the historic achievements of the Kurdistan Region.
Zubeyir Aydar, a member of the board of directors of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), told Rudaw English on June 3 that the PKK – which is part of his umbrella group – considers itself a “Kurdistani force,” but this “does not mean that it should put the achievements of the South at risk or see the Kurdistan government and parliament as illegitimate institutions.”
Kurds refer to Kurdistan Region as the “South” of Greater Kurdistan.
“The South has achievements that were gained through revolution. There is an administration, parliament and government. PKK respects this and wants to protect and develop them. There are reservations, but this is something different and these achievements should be protected. PKK is working and will work on maintaining these achievements,” added Aydar.
The Kurdistan Region is an international player. Days after the latest clash between the Peshmerga and PKK, Kurdistan Region’s President Nechirvan Barzani was in the United Arab Emirates and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani was in Greece, seeking to boost international relations. It was the first time a Kurdish PM visited Greece.
Ibrahim Halil Baran, leader of Kurdistani Party (PAKURD) in Turkey, has spoken out against birakujî on social media following last year’s escalation.
“If a war erupts, the status of Southern Kurdistan will be in danger,” he said, adding that Shiite militia groups and ISIS could attack a vulnerable Kurdistan Region.
“Therefore, Southern Kurdistan will be the main loser if a war erupts. Also, Rojava will face two dangers: first Turkey will want to invade it again, and the [Syrian] regime and the Islamist [groups] will launch a new war against Rojava,” he told Rudaw English.
“We saw in the nineties that whenever there is an intra-Kurdish war, regional countries – Turkey, Iran and Iraq – intervene, and such wars end as per the interests of these countries. And both Kurdish parties come out as losers rather than gaining something,” added the politician who lives in the Kurdistan Region because of a political ban on him in Turkey.
What now?
Nearly a month after the five Peshmerga were killed, there is an uneasy calm and both sides say they do not want war.
Aydar told Rudaw English that intra-Kurdish war is a “red line and should not happen anywhere.”
Murat Karayilan, PKK senior commander, told the party-affiliated Sterk TV on June 10 that they see such a war “at this time as a disaster and biggest mistake.”
Harsin said the KDP “believes a thousand years of dialogue is better than one hour of war. This is a principle for the KDP. We hope that this will not lead to civil war.”
He said that they do not put all the blame on the PKK, declaring themselves innocent, but the “ball is in the PKK’s court.”
The KRG will not be a party to any fight and does not want intra-Kurdish war, spokesperson Jotiar Adil told Rudaw on June 15.
Sheikh Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa, vice president of the Kurdistan Region and PUK Peshmerga commander, said in a Facebook post on June 17 that there are efforts to provoke a civil war between PKK and Peshmerga. "I hope that will not happen and that bloodshed will stop here.”
Civil war may be a red line for both sides, but tensions are still high. The KDP-dominated counterterrorism forces last week released a video of a senior PKK commander who had allegedly surrendered and claimed the PKK killed the five Peshmerga on June 3.
Penjwini believes that the only option open to the KDP and PKK is to do their utmost to prevent a war in order to “save the Kurdish question and the status of the Kurdistan Region from problems and difficulties.”
Scores of Kurds have died in civil war. Hamzi Salim was born in 1953. He was a regimental commander for the Peshmerga forces and on September 29, 1995 he was killed during fierce fighting between the KDP and the PKK.
His daughter Galawezh recently posted on social media that she refuses to call her father a “martyr” because he did not die fighting an enemy, but fellow Kurds. Her post went viral.
“Losing your loved ones causes great concern, especially if you die for no clear reason or see its achievements,” she told Rudaw English.
Galawezh and her seven siblings were raised by their mother without any help from anyone. She blamed Kurdish parties for her family’s misery.
As fear of a new civil war spreads, Galawezh said it is a “great shame” to fight while the Kurdistan Region is being invaded by Turkey and lost more than half its territory to Iraqi forces in 2017. “I will curse all Kurdish leaders if a civil war happens,” she said.
Cover photo: Shar Square sits at the foot of Erbil's historic citadel. File photo: Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw
