Intra-Kurdish Strife in Sinjar

On March 3, clashes erupted between the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP) controlled Rojava Peshmerga and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) controlled Yazidi Shingal Protection Units (YBS). Both sides reported casualties around the town of Khanasur in Shingal, with contradictory narratives regarding how the fighting erupted.

While it seems clear that the YBS opened fire first, they did so as the Rojava Peshmerga moved into the area so as to cut off the YBS or surround them. While sources sympathetic towards the PKK accuse the Rojava Peshmerga and their KDP commanders of being proxies for Turkey, the other side accuses the YBS and its PKK commanders of acting on Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus’ behalf. Although critics of the YBS claim they are not from the area and should vacate Shingal, the vast majority of YBS fighters do appear to be local Yazidis of Shingal (while the Rojava Peshmerga consist of Syrian Kurds trained by the KDP in Iraq).

Intra-Kurdish disputes are never simple, unfortunately. In general, one can say that the PKK (along with their affiliated movements) is competing with the KDP (and its affiliates) for power and leadership over the essence of Kurdish political identities and imaginations. Both also undoubtedly remain under pressure from their respective state allies, who encourage such intra-Kurdish squabbles according to their own interests.

Turkey has vowed to prevent, at all costs, the establishment of “another Qandil” (referring to the PKK’s main bases in the Qandil mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan) in Shingal. In order to have options other than Baghdad and its Iranian patron, the KDP (and really the entire Kurdistan region in Iraq) needs Turkish support and goodwill. Meanwhile the PKK, with its back to the wall in Turkey and its allied Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria also under serious Turkish and “Islamic State” pressure, needs support from someone. Iran, with its strategy of creating autonomous militias beholden to it in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and wherever else, may just be that someone.

Most average Kurds loathe these kinds of political games and stratagems. They remain all too aware of their history of internal divisions and sectarian infighting. This sorry history of disunity cost them dearly after World War I, denying them a state and turning them into oppressed minorities in a host of countries exclusively defined by other ethnicities.

What might it take to contain such centrifugal tendencies in Kurdish politics? Your humble columnist might offer a few suggestions. We might begin with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s post-2003 policy of not intervening in the “Kurdish issues” of neighboring states. This policy was designed to reassure these states that Erbil would not prove a threat to them, whether as an autonomous region or a state one day. The policy proved quite successful to date. Only once Syria began its current implosion did the KDP begin organizing, training and commanding a force of Syrian Kurds (the Rojava Peshmerga).

An equivalent policy might be applied to intra-Kurdish politics. A recognition that Basur (South, or Iraqi, Kurdistan) is off-limits for PKK-aligned challenges to authorities there might be reciprocated by Erbil in other parts of Kurdistan – especially Rojava (Western, or Syrian, Kurdistan) and Bakur (Northern, or Turkish, Kurdistan). Red lines need to be respected, much like how the KDP and PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) respected each others’ competing governments and territories after the 1998 Washington Peace Accord, which ended a brief civil war between them.

What might this look like in practice? To begin with, militias in places like Shingal would agree to fall under the command of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq. In return, any Rojava Peshmerga sent to Syrian Kurdistan would fall under the command of the ruling authorities there – currently the federal cantons and the PYD. While any peaceful political party should be allowed to operate in both areas, established authorities need to enjoy a monopoly over the legitimate use of force within the territories they control.

Such a compromise is never easy, but it remains necessary. It is the kind of thing that most average Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan would prefer. It is also possible for Kurds of different parties to work together like this. By way of example, one need only think of the KDP and PUK Peshmerga who went to assist in the defense of Kobane some two years ago. People in all parts of Kurdistan cheered the effort, and once their work was done, they returned to Basur. Now that all seems like a very long time ago.

 

David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He is the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press) and co-editor (with Mehmet Gurses) of Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014, Palgrave Macmillan).

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.