Kremlin Instability - Nadin Brzezinski (Medium)

Pressões dos ultranacionalistas russos para o aumento da repressão aos dissidentes, e adoção de práticas stalinistas do passado totalitário, são os assuntos tratados nesta matéria, que também se detém sobre eventual doença do tirano de Moscou e do presidente atual da Turquia. Ou seja, mais instabilidade não apenas no Kremlin, mas na região como um todo.

Kremlin Instability

Nadin Brzezinski

Medium, Apr 26

·

https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/kremlin-instability-7182b29a4910

Russian Editorial Cartoon via Telegram

This one crossed this morning from the Institute for the Study of War. They have also noticed the same thing I have. There are signals that instability in the Kremlin is increasing. I will quote them directly instead of the noise via Ukrainian channels because it’s significant. It also matches my observations:

Russian ultranationalists are continuing to advocate for the Kremlin to adopt Stalinist repression measures. Russian State Duma Parliamentarian Andrey Gurulyov — a prominent Russian ultranationalist figure within the ruling United Russia Party — stated that Russia needs to reintroduce the concept of the “enemy of the people.”[10] This concept designated all the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s opposition figures as the enemies of society. Gurulyov frequently shares extreme opinions on Russian state television but the rhetoric among the ultranationalists is increasingly emphasizing the need for the targeting and elimination of Russia’s internal enemies. Former Russian officer Igor Girkin and Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin often echo similar calls to prosecute Russian officials who are hoping to end the war via negotiations with the West. Such attitudes indicate that the ultranationalist communities are expecting Russian President Vladimir Putin to expand repression and fully commit to the war.

The Kremlin continues to avoid adopting overtly repressive measures likely out of concern for the stability of Putin’s regime. The Russian government withdrew a bill from the Russian State Duma that would have increased taxes from 13 to 30 percent for Russians who have fled the country.[11] Russian ultranationalists have repeatedly called on the Kremlin to nationalize property belonging to Russians who had “betrayed” the country by fleeing, but the Kremlin appears to remain hesitant to introduce such unpopular measures. Unnamed sources told Russian independent outlet Verska that the Russian presidential administration does not support the return of capital punishments in Russia — another issue that recently reemerged in Russian policy discussions.[12] The Kremlin could use the threat of the death penalty to scare Russians into supporting the war effort (or remaining passively resistant to it), but Putin likely remains hesitant to destroy his image as a diplomatic and tolerant tsar. ISW previously assessed that Putin relies on controlling the information space to safeguard his regime much more than the kind of massive oppression apparatus of the Soviet Union and that Putin has never rebuilt an internal repression apparatus equivalent to the KGB, Interior Ministry forces, and the Red Army.[13]

Realize we are all watching the same channels, I suspect. So we see the same demands for SMERSH and other repressive techniques. This also points to the next point. We seem to be shaping operations before the offensive begins. We have explosions inside Crimea and Russia, near the border regions.

One of our Z Channels is nice to tell us this…and no, there is no precise confirmation of this, except the explosions at this point, for example, on Rostov-on-Don, and Nikolaev on the Ukrainian side.

There is an unprecedented movement on the border in Belgorod and Kursk regions. Drones fly swarms in both directions. The equipment is here, they drag everything and everything. Both ours and the enemy. The Nazis pulled technical means to the border. Our air reconnaissance is being tinguished. We lost a few Maviks this week. But we also do not lag behind, today not without a catch — the Khokhla has minus two drones. Active movement and arrival of new equipment were noticed in Zolochev.

We are seeing those over other channels.

Now on a larger piece, apparently, Vladimir Putin was driven to the Kremlin overnight. There is a lot of speculation as to why. So here are two versions. I will add a third; the front is starting to heat up with shaping operations:

Putin’s cortege raced unscheduledly in the evening towards the Kremlin. The media are building versions of the president’s emergency visit to the workplace: from Erdogan’s disease to confiscation of assets in Poland.

There were rumors that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had a heart attack. This is now getting disputed. But what is true is that meetings were indeed canceled.

And a change at the top of the leadership in Turkey will prove democracy works. This is dangerous for Russia. While many have given up on Turkish democracy, perhaps this is too early.

Now, this brings me to General SVR. This is why I suspect they are putting out code for somebody. No, nobody survives pancreatic cancer this long. So if this is what ails Putin, he must donate his body to science.

But I digress.

Every time things go badly for the regime, his cancer issues…this week colon, last week pancreas…whatever, it’s oncology, get worse. His case gets nearly out of control, and boy doubles start to become a thing. The medicine starts to work…being a former medic, hardly a specialist; this smells of creative writing.

Are there doubles? Probably. It’s not unusual for authoritarian leaders to have some. But the story that he is dying from a fast-killing cancer is back again. At this point, I tend to interpret that part of the story as code to the regime's stability. This is one reason I read the channel.

And occasionally, they put out something that does turn out to be right. Should you rely on them, for Putin will die tomorrow? Nope. And if you do, the British Press adds nice embellishments to these stories. Assume there is no cancer. Hell, there is not a cold. What there is, well, paranoia. And as we start to get closer to the end of this, if the Ukrainian offensive goes well, here is why this started, according to MO:

Last drops for Putin. Six personal motives of the dictator that led to the war with Ukraine

Vladimir Putin decided to start a war a year before the invasion, in February-March 2021, Nyurstka found out after talking with sources in the Russian and Ukrainian authorities. Moreover, he was guided, among other things, by personal motives — resentment and the desire to take revenge. Sources told what exactly overwhelmed his “cup of patience”:

💧2004 Orange Revolution
Putin’s attitude towards Ukraine deteriorated along with relations with the West. A major blow to Putin was the 2004 Orange Revolution, which he sees as the work of the United States.
💧Dangerous Philosophy
In 2012, Putin began to spend a lot of time reading ultra-conservative books. His “mentor” was the White Guard philosopher Ivan Ilyin. Modern nationalists also began to influence Putin more.
💧Maidan and the flight of Yanukovych
“Putin said: guys, this is our last chance, there won’t be another chance like this, I take responsibility,” said a close acquaintance of the decision of the owner of the Kremlin to seize Crimea.
💧The impracticability of the Minsk agreements
Putin seriously hoped to outwit the Ukrainian authorities with the help of the Minsk agreements and personally participated in their writing. But he failed in the end to push through either Poroshenko or Zelensky.
💧The closure of Medvedchuk’s media assets
The fact that the Ukrainian authorities began to “nightmare” Putin’s godfather Medvedchuk was the last straw in Putin’s decision to prepare for a military operation.
💧Quarantine in the bunker
During a long isolation, Yuriy Kovalchuk gained a particularly strong influence on his friend, convincing the president that power in Kyiv could be changed quickly and painlessly.

Putin is a typical psychopath, and losing control of himself, says American neuroscientist, professor at the University of California James Fallon. “Putin’s facial expressions also speak of Putin’s failures,” the American professor notes. He became more like a wild animal in a cage. But that only made him more dangerous.”

Some we have heard before, which brings me back to Turkey. If Erdogan loses, this will not be received well by Moscow. It will be another Orange revolution of sorts. I see the influence of the ultranationalist right as well. It is evident in how Putin speaks.

This war is making the regime unstable. A defeat could bring the country to the conditions of the early 1990s. The vertical of power, which also relies on patronage networks, will suffer. It could also go away. The pressure towards disolución is increasing.

Erdogan, o sultão está nu, dizem seus opositores - Anthony Faiola (The Washington Post)

Um antigo correspondente na América Latina se ataca a um típico ditador latino-americano, com a peculiaridade dele ser turco...

Presented by Goldman Sachs

By Anthony Faiola  with Claire Parker  Email  In Turkey, critics say the sultan has no clothes. Erdogan’s advisers won’t tell him.  Residents line up for subsidized bread in the Sultangazi district of Istanbul on Dec. 7. (Umit Bektas/Reuters) In Turkey, the lira is falling, and so is the sky. Prices at supermarkets are changing almost daily. Lines for subsidized bread are growing. Turks are unable to make ends meet as the costs of potatoes, flour and chicken soar. Almost universally, pundits blame one man: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The autocratic Erdogan — who ascended to power during George W. Bush’s first term as U.S. president — has effectively declared war on financial orthodoxy, throwing fuel on the fire of a currency crisis by lowering interest rates when economists argue he should be doing exactly the opposite: jacking them up to defend the lira. But Erdogan, who claims to have studied economics, says he knows best. Asking Turks to be “patient,” he insists a weaker currency and lower interest rates will boost Turkish exports, create jobs, spur growth and beat back inflation. What he neglects to mention, economists say, is that such a policy, especially in the throes of crisis, will also cause the price of essential imports to soar, frighten away foreign investors, drain Turkish banks and impoverish the population by propelling inflation rather than taming it. On Thursday, a fresh rate cut — the fourth in four months — sent the lira plunging to a record low. Having accumulated power over the years, while purging those who questioned him from the government’s ranks, Erdogan, critics say, is now surrounded by yes-men. He has fired free thinkers in Turkey’s Central Bank, leaving experts fretting there may be no one left with the president’s ear to say the sultan has no clothes. As the lira continues to plummet — it has lost half its value against the dollar this year — poor and middle-class Turks are paying the highest price, as the cost of staple goods double and fuel costs surge by 40 percent. “I think the end of the world is coming,” one Ankara street vendor told the New York Times. Analysts are beginning to question whether Erdogan’s financial follies may do what years of power consolidation and repressive tactics haven’t: Cost him his job. “He really seems to believe he is right, whereas the rest of the world believes the contrary to be true,” Sinan Ulgen, a Turkish expert at Carnegie Europe, told me. “If this policy fails, he will continue to lose popularity. Already, other presidential contenders are gaining in the polls.” Betting against Erdogan often fails. Over the past two decades, he has repeatedly managed to turn adversity into triumph, successfully navigating geopolitical crises, a murky coup attempt and a Turkish Spring, almost always coming out stronger while maintaining the backing of the Islamic conservatives at the heart of his Justice and Development Party (AKP). Unless, as the opposition has urged, early elections are held — a possibility Erdogan has rejected — the next presidential poll won’t take place until 2023. Still, economic crises can be treacherous for politicians. Just ask the Argentines, who, amid a devastating currency collapse and debt crisis in late 2001, went through five presidents in two weeks. Turkey is not there yet, and, for a number a reasons, including its more manageable foreign debt, will probably avoid an Argentine-style meltdown. Yet authoritarian leaders like Erdogan have repeatedly fallen amid economic chaos. In 2019, Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was deposed in a military coup after demonstrations that started in response to soaring costs of food and fuel. Some experts cite high food prices as one factor in the Arab Spring. To stay in power, autocrats tend to become more autocratic. In Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro — a close Erdogan ally — survived despite hyperinflation, and the horrific humanitarian crisis it caused, by dragging the country closer toward full dictatorship. Though now seen as an autocrat, Erdogan didn’t start that way. “I do not subscribe to the view that Islamic culture and democracy cannot be reconciled,” he said in 2003. Erdogan’s early years in office saw him tame an activist military establishment, including scores of acting and retired soldiers and officers. His pro-investment policies initially produced an economic boom that lowered poverty rates and brought gleaming new infrastructure to Turkish cities. Some date his point of no return as an autocrat to 2013, when he backed a violent response to the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul that started in opposition to urban development but morphed into a broader public outcry against waning freedoms. In 2018, Erdogan pushed for and won a switch from a parliamentary system to one with a strong president, the job he now has and in which he has more freedom to sidestep parliament. But even before that, as prime minister, he had moved to silence dissent by controlling the press. He purged the military following the 2016 coup. Since 2018, however, Turkey has also been staving off a painful economic reckoning. The lira slipped as Erdogan sought economic growth at any cost, and saw lower interest rates as the way to achieve it. Problems accelerated in March, when Erdogan, bent on lowering interest rates further, fired his third Central Bank chief in less than two years, replacing him with Sahap Kavcioglu. “The main qualification the new Central Bank governor brings to his office is his relationship with the president’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak, whose tenure as minister of finance and treasury was disastrous,” Steven A. Cook wrote in Foreign Policy. Erdogan has defended his stance, citing Islamic proscriptions against high interest, while also pointing to China as an example of how low interest rates and a weaker currency can create a thriving middle class. But that took time — something Turkey might lack given the precipitous plunge in the lira, which has also driven up manufacturing costs at home. Turkey imports parts for much of its finished exports — like cars — which, given the weak lira, are now more expensive to buy. In the meantime, currency woes are deepening discontent and inciting anti-government protests. This week, the Wall Street Journal reported, MAK — a pro-government political consulting firm — said that AKP support had sunk below 30 percent in polling for the first time ever. The Journal’s dispatch from the president’s hometown of Rize captured the souring sentiment, which should give Erdogan reason for concern. “We are at the bottom of the well. We have no purchasing power left,” Mehmet Alibaris, a tea farmer near Rize devastated by inflation, told the Journal. “I’ll vote for anyone who will get rid of this government.”

Armenian Genocide Descendants Face Another Turkish Onslaught - Amy Austin Holmes, Lerna Ekmekçioğlu

Armenian Genocide Descendants Face Another Turkish Onslaught, One Century Later

Authors: 
• Amy Austin Holmes
 
•  Lerna Ekmekçioğlu

Belfer Center, Harvard University, November 25, 2019

One of the deadliest sites of the Armenian genocide – Ras al-Ayn – has once again fallen under Turkish control because of a ceasefire agreement negotiated by the United States. The incursion of Turkish-backed rebels in the swath of land ceded to Turkey has forced Armenian families to flee – one century after their ancestors fled those who sought to exterminate them. When Turkish President Erdogan visited the White House on November 13, President Trump failed to mention the ethnic cleansing campaign and assault on the descendants of Armenian genocide survivors.

The U.S. President paved the way for Turkey’s military to invade northern Syria earlier this fall when he ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops against the advice of the U.S. military, key advisors, and members of Congress from both political parties.

Now, more than 100 years after the Armenian genocide, the United States negotiated a deal that ceded a swath of land between Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn (Serêkaniyê in Kurdish) to Turkey, granting Erdogan’s regime de-facto occupation of additional Syrian borderlands.

In 1915, long-held fears of territorial dismemberment and anti-Armenian sentiment led the Ottoman Turkish government to launch a brutal campaign against its Armenian population, who were killed, forced into Muslim households, or deported into remote areas to perish. Ras al-Ayn became one of twenty five concentration camps where deported Armenians from Anatolia were settled temporarily.  In 1916 the Ottoman government ordered the massacre of Armenians in two major camps (the other in Deir Ezzor is known as “Armenia’s Auschwitz”). An estimated 70,000 Armenians in Ras al-Ayn alone were killed by Turks and their militias. They were buried in mass graves or just left in open fields where bones of victims can still be found today.

Those who survived put down roots in the area, which enabled a multiethnic society to develop in northeastern Syria. The current cross-border military operation, however, seeks to change these dynamics permanently. Houses owned by Armenians, as well as other Christian and Kurdish families are being looted by Turkish-backed militias. “Taken by al-Jabha al-Shamiyya” has been scrolled on the gates of their homes to signal to other Turkish-commanded militias that the properties had already been confiscated.  Since the start of the Turkish assault, known as Operation Peace Spring, more than 200 civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. All 30 Armenian families living in the region recently ceded to Turkey between Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn/Serêkaniyê have reportedly fled. Armenians are also under attack by the Islamic State (ISIS) in other parts of Northeast Syria. Just recently, Ibrahim Hevsop Bedo, an Armenian-Catholic priest, and his father were killed by ISIS gunmen while traveling to Deir Ezzor to restore an Armenian Catholic church.

The Turkish incursion has now forcibly displaced approximately 300,000 people from the so-called “safe zone” where Turkish-backed militias operate under the umbrella of the “Syrian National Army” and include groups known for their brutality including Ahrar al-Sharqiya, Jaysh al-Islam, Sultan Murad, al-Jabha al-Shamiyya, Hamza Brigade, and others.  On October 12, Hevrin Khalaf, a Kurdish female politician and head of the Syria Future Party, was captured and executed by Ahrar al-Sharqiya. Amnesty International referred to her murder and other summary executions as war crimes. In recent testimony, Syria Envoy James Jeffrey acknowledged that the State Department was investigating crimes committed by Turkey and Turkish-backed rebels. In a leaked memo, Ambassador William Roebuck, the top American diplomat working in northern Syria, wrote: “Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria, spearheaded by armed Islamist groups on its payroll, represents an intentioned-laced effort at ethnic cleansing.” 

President Erdogan publicly announced at the United Nations General Assembly intentions to deport Syrian refugees living in Turkey into the areas now being depopulated by Turkey and its militias.  The forced return of refugees into a war zone is illegal under international human rights law, yet Erdogan’s plan has not been denounced strongly by world leaders, in part because he regularly threatens to send Syrian refugees and captured ISIS members to Europe and other countries.  

In recent days, the House of Representatives recognized the Armenian genocide and condemned the murder of about 1.5 million Armenians. On the same day, the House also passed a bill sanctioning Turkey for recent actions. While these actions are long overdue, the decision to move this legislation now signals unprecedented congressional anger at Turkey, a NATO ally that will remain mostly rhetorical as the Senate is unlikely to pass a genocide resolution or adapt meaningful sanctions.

Ignoring and rewarding Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian ruler sends a terrible message, condoning ongoing war crimes by Turkish forces and allied militias in Syria. Some of these groups actually film themselves carrying out executions of civilians.  

Turkey and Turkish-backed militias should be sanctioned, and displaced families should be allowed to return to their homes. The United States should not lend its support for the Turkish government’s goal of re-engineering the demographics of a geography already stained by genocide a century ago.  It is not too late to reverse some of the damage that has been done. 

Amy Austin Holmes is a visiting scholar at the Middle East Initiative of Harvard University, and the author of Social Unrest and American Military Bases in Turkey and Germany since 1945, (Cambridge University Press). She has carried out research in Northeast Syria since 2015, and has conducted the first survey of the Syrian Democratic Forces.  Lerna Ekmekçioğlu is an Associate Professor of History at MIT and the author of Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey, published by Stanford University Press. She studies and teaches about women’s experiences during and after wars.

*** To watch a clip from Amy Austin Holmes' video interview on this subject, click here. 

Statements and views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Harvard University, the Harvard Kennedy School, or the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.  – Via Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.

Turquia vs USA, ou Erdogan vs Trump: um combate assimétrico -

Erdogan fights a losing battle with Trump

Ishaan Tharoor, The Washington Post, August 13, 2018

On Friday, the Turkish lira suffered its biggest one-day devaluation in nearly two decades, dropping more than 14 percent against the dollar. The minister of finance — the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — couldn’t avert the slide, delivering a halting speech that did little to boost confidence.

But Erdogan, as he so often does, placed the blame on a foreign scapegoat: the United States.

“Shame on you, shame on you,” he declared at a rally. "You are swapping your strategic partner in NATO for a pastor.”

The pastor in question is Andrew Brunson, an American clergyman who has been in Turkish custody since 2016. He is charged with espionage and other crimes — charges that he and U.S. officials reject. Attempts to win his freedom have so far failed.

According to my colleagues, Ankara hoped to swap Brunson for Hakan Atilla, a banker convicted in the United States for his role in a scheme that skirted U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil. But the Trump administration resents Turkey’s use of Brunson as a political hostage. A high-level meeting in Washington last week with a visiting Turkish delegation ended abruptly after the Americans demanded the pastor’s immediate release.

President Trump then announced increased tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel, which sent the value of the lira plummeting to a historic low. Turkey’s economic woes are of its own making, but the tariffs made things worse — and Trump was only too happy to take credit.

Erdogan continued his complaints in a New York Times op-ed, railing against “unilateral actions against Turkey by the United States, our ally of decades.” He recited the familiar catalog of affronts, including Washington’s unwillingness to hand over Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric accused of fomenting a failed 2016 coup against Erdogan, and continued American support for Syrian Kurdish factions. He then delivered a clear threat, urging Washington to “give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives.”

If the United States won’t change its approach, Erdogan warned, Turkey will “start looking for new friends and allies.” Indeed, the Turkish president has beefed up ties with Russia, attempted to mend fences with key Western European governments and, as a significant importer of Iranian oil, could undermine American efforts to isolate Tehran.

But this posturing will win him even more enemies in Washington, where Erdogan is already a deeply unpopular figure. Congress has passed legislation making a critical sale of F-35 jets to Turkeycontingent upon terms that include Brunson’s immediate release. Erdogan critics in U.S. foreign-policy circles loathe his creeping authoritarianism. And Trump, unlike previous presidents, has shown an endless willingness to bully erstwhile allies whenever he disagrees with them.

“Washington has generally tried to calm global markets in such moments, especially when investors are gripped by fear of contagion,” noted the Wall Street Journal. “Trump instead squeezed Ankara further.” This had global ramifications: Turkey’s wobbles stoked wider fears of fragility in other emerging markets and raised alarms among some major European banks that hold Turkish debt.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Aaron Stein, a Middle East expert at the Atlantic Council, suggested Erdogan had badly miscalculated the situation. “The power balance is asymmetric, totally in the U.S. favor,” Stein said. “There are no guard rails to escalation on the U.S. side, and that’s where the Turks have completely, completely messed up in their understanding of what’s going on in the U.S.”

Erdogan’s appeals to NATO partnership ring especially hollow, given both Erdogan’s testy relations with Europe and Trump’s carping about the alliance. "For an administration or a president that doesn’t give much value to NATO, the value of Turkey as a staunch NATO ally also has declined,” Jacob Funk Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics told Bloomberg News. “The Trump administration isn’t going to walk an extra mile to save an organization it doesn’t value.”

Analysts hope cooler heads prevail. “Turkey’s economic and legal problems are obvious, but sanctions by the U. S. are unlikely to help anything,” observed Turkish commentator Mustafa Akyol. “Rather they may be counterproductive, boosting Turkey’s nationalist mood and pushing the country further towards the Russian axis. More diplomacy is needed, not sanctions.”

But productive diplomacy is in short supply. Much of Erdogan’s politics now hinge on stirring nationalist sentiment to justify his tightening grip on the country. He won re-election in June with the backing of ultra-nationalists, arguing that greater control would help him steer Turkey’s flagging economy out of trouble. Instead, things have only gotten worse.

“The current crisis is the culmination of Erdogan’s reckless stewardship. Fixing it will take years — a task that will require new leadership and an entirely different mentality,” wrote Aykan Erdemir, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington and an Erdogan critic.

Nevertheless, even as Turkey suffers, Erdogan may not take much of a political hit. “Turkey’s toothless opposition ... fails to provide much hope,” Erdemir noted. “Without strong political forces to push him out, Erdogan will almost certainly continue to dig himself and the Turkish economy into a deeper hole.”

Trump also may gain more by refusing to compromise. He may relish the chance to act tough and appeal to his core supporters by squeezing a prominent Muslim leader over the fate of an American pastor.

“Backing Brunson plays to the American president’s base — all the more conspicuously so given that NASA scientist Serkan Golge, a dual Turkish–U.S. citizen, is also being held in Turkey, serving out a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for charges similar to those being brought against Brunson,” wrote Elmira Bayrasli, a professor of international affairs at Bard College.

Of course, she noted, there’s a key difference: “Golge is Muslim, unlike Brunson, whom Trump has called ‘a great Christian’ and ‘innocent man of faith.’ The Trump administration has said nothing about Golge’s detention.”

Brazil-Turkey: two emerging nations -

Esta tese de doutorado, detectada por mim imediatamente após a sua defesa, e recomendada para publicação pela Funag,

está sendo finalmente publicada com esta capa:

Independencia do Curdistao: saiba quem sao os curdos, o que pretendem, o que vai acontecer na regiao depois do plebiscito

Uma matéria quase completa sobre a questão curda.

What To Know About The Independence Referendum In Iraqi Kurdistan

National Public Radio,September 22, 2017 

 

Jane Arraf

A campaign poster next to a Kurdish flag in Irbil urges people to vote yes Monday on independence from Iraq.

Balint Szlanko/AP 

 

Iraqi Kurdish leaders plan to hold a controversial independence referendum on Monday. Kurds are expected to overwhelmingly vote in favor of separating from Iraq. The United States and other allies have warned them not to go ahead.
Here's what to know:
Who and where are the Kurds?
An estimated 30 million Kurds live in territory overlapping northern Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. They are the fourth-biggest ethnic group in the region after Arabs, Persians and Turks.
About 6 million Kurds — almost 20 percent of the the Iraqi population — live in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, as well as in Baghdad and a swath of territory claimed by both the Kurds and the Iraqi government.

Rogesh Adnan Yasin, a Syrian Kurd, holds a Kurdish flag and her 2-year-old niece at a pro-referendum rally in Irbil, Iraq. Yasin believes that if Iraqi Kurds achieve independence, her Kurdish region of Syria will be next.

Jane Arraf/NPR

Kurds generally speak different dialects of the Kurdish language — although in Turkey, it was once considered a crime to speak Kurdish.
Have the Kurds ever had their own country?
When the Ottoman Empire was dissolved after World War I, Kurds demanded their own state, but hundreds of thousands were expelled from their traditional areas and dispersed to other parts of Turkey instead.
After World War II, the Soviet Union backed a Kurdish self-governing state in what is now Iran. That state, the Republic of Mahabad, lasted less than a year.
The most autonomy Kurds have had since then is in Iraq. In the three northern Kurdish provinces, Kurds control the land borders with neighboring countries, elect their own parliament, maintain their own security forces (known as the peshmerga) and draft their own laws.
What was the U.S. role in helping to create modern Iraqi Kurdistan?
After Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the U.S. formed a coalition to drive him out in 1991. The Kurds (and Iraqi Shiites in the south) rose up against him.

The Iraqi army attacked the north, and more than 1 million Kurds fled their homes and tried to escape over the mountains in winter. Thousands died.
That year, the U.N. Security Council approved a U.S.-led no-fly zone preventing Iraqi planes from flying over the north and south of Iraq. In 1992, Iraqi Kurds established their own regional government.
The decade that followed was a tough time. The Iraqi government punished the Kurds with trade sanctions, and the Kurdish region was included in an international trade embargo against Iraq.
After 2003, when Saddam was toppled, Kurds started rebuilding and foreign investment poured in.
Why do Iraqis Kurds insist on independence?
Most Kurds say they will never feel safe as part of Iraq.
From 1986 to 1988, Iraqi forces destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages in a campaign by Saddam's Arab Socialist Baath party to "Arabize" northern Iraq. At a conservative estimate, more than 100,000 Kurds were killed. Chemical gas attacks in the town of Halabja in 1988 killed thousands of women and children.

"You will lose nothing if you vote yes, but if vote no, you will lose something," says Saad Abdul Razak at his shop in Irbil's historic market.

Jane Arraf/NPR

Saddam is long gone — he was convicted of war crimes and executed in 2006. But many Kurds believe they will always face threats from an Iraqi Arab government.
They also blame Iraqi Arabs for the rise of ISIS, which has massacred members of the ancient Yazidi minority. The Kurds consider Yazidis to be Kurds.
An estimated 2,000 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces were killed fighting ISIS.
The Kurds also want to control their own economy. When ISIS attacked three years ago, Iraqi forces refused to fight. Kurdish fighters moved in to push ISIS back and took control of some of the biggest northern oil fields, as well as the disputed city of Kirkuk.
The Kurdish government accuses Baghdad of reneging on an agreement to give it a share of oil revenues. Baghdad says the Kurdistan region is illegally exporting oil. That has led to an economic crisis in the Kurdish region.
Which countries are supporting the Kurdish independence referendum?
Israel is the only country that has come out in favor of it. Israel has long-standing security and business ties to the Kurdistan region and would love to have a non-Arab ally in the Middle East.
In a more lukewarm endorsement, France — after initial opposition — recently said it wouldn't oppose the vote taking place.
But the United States and some of Iraq's neighbors oppose the referendum. Iran and Turkey have warned the Kurds not to go ahead with the vote. The U.S. wants to avoid the prospect of another conflict between Baghdad and the Kurdish government while they are still fighting ISIS. After 2003, Kurdish leaders agreed to an Iraqi constitution that calls for negotiations over disputed areas, so holding the referendum in Kirkuk and other cities now is seen as provocative.

Kurds wave Israeli flags at a Kurdish independence rally. Israel is the only country in the region to support the referendum.

Jane Arraf/NPR

Iraq's neighbors are worried that a Kurdish state would encourage their own Kurdish populations to try to break away.
The Iranian, Turkish and Iraqi foreign ministers announced Friday they would take coordinated measures against the Kurds — likely economic sanctions — if they go through with the vote.
Why is the referendum controversial within the Kurdistan region?
The vote is being driven by regional President Massoud Barzani, whose Kurdistan Democratic Party controls the Kurdish regional government. Barzani is 71, and many believe he wants the referendum to be part of his legacy.
But there are deep divisions among Kurdish political parties.
Although Barzani still holds the position and power of president, his term actually ended two years ago. Until last week, Parliament hadn't met for two years after the Parliament speaker, who is from an opposition party, was blocked from entering.
Some Kurds believe that their political leaders should be working on strengthening democracy and rescuing the economy instead of holding a referendum. There is also discontent about corruption among Kurdistan's political dynasties while people like teachers and the peshmerga go without salaries because of the economic crisis.
Is there a chance that voters won't support independence?
No. There is a "No for Now" campaign that argues this isn't the right time — but even Kurds who are on the fence are overwhelmingly expected to vote yes.
So what does holding the referendum actually mean in the end?
It's a signal and a statement of intent that Kurdish leaders plan to pursue independence. But there's no timeline, and the vote doesn't trigger any moves to independence. It's likely though to trigger retaliation from Iraq's neighbors and allies. The Kurds supporting this, though, believe it's worth it.