Turkey warns Kurds about referendum
Turkey sent a final warning to Iraq’s Kurdish provinces to drop plans for a referendum on independence scheduled for Monday, calling the vote a direct threat to its national security.
The National Security Council, chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said after a Friday meeting that the Kurdish vote would have “terrible consequences” for the region. It said Turkey reserves its sovereign rights under international accords should the referendum go ahead. The cabinet was due to meet later Friday to determine Turkey’s response.
Before the security council meeting, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim cited the 1926 accord that defines the border with Iraq, in which Turkey ceded its claims to the Iraqi provinces of Mosul and Kirkuk in return for guarantees that its neighbor would remain a unified state.
Massoud Barzani, president of the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, has so far ignored warnings from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and the U.S. against going ahead with the vote, and said Friday that his government is ready for serious dialogue with Baghdad — but only after the referendum, the Kurdish Rudaw news service reported.
Turkey fears that a vote for Kurdish independence in Iraq’s oil-rich north could set back its own campaign to stamp out a Kurdish insurgency it’s been battling for three decades. That concern has overridden the strong ties that Turkey has built with the Iraqi Kurds, based on energy links and a mutual suspicion of the government in Baghdad.
“Turkey feels Barzani is getting himself into deep trouble which he cannot handle,” Ilnur Cevik, a chief adviser to Erdogan, wrote in an editorial in the Englishlanguage Daily Sabah.
The Turkish army has been conducting tank drills near the border with Iraq’s Kurdish region since Sept. 18, underscoring Turkey’s threat to do whatever it deems necessary against the push for independence. The prime minister’s office submitted a draft motion on cross-border military operations to parliament Friday, according to a copy seen by Bloomberg.
The tension has weighed on financial markets, with Turkey’s benchmark Borsa Istanbul 100 Index down 3.1 percent this week and headed for its biggest weekly drop in almost 11 months.
A key concern for Turkey, according to Cevik, is that the vote would prompt a military response from Baghdad, which could in turn trigger an exodus of Iraqi Kurds toward Turkey.