Entries RSS Feed Share Send to Facebook Tweet This Accessible version

Ruminations on Kurdistan and NATO

August 5th, 2015

A left-wing analyst considers Turkey’s attack on the Kurds, and suggests that Kurdistan would deserve independent statehood. He also draws a parallel between President Erdogan’s and PM Orban’s foreign policy strategy.

Turkish President Erdogan is using the Syrian crisis to turn against the Kurdish minority, rather than to confront “its ideological kin”, ISIS, Tamás Beck writes in Népszava. The left-wing columnist suspects that President Erdogan brokered a deal with the NATO leadership, and in return for offering Turkish airbases for anti-ISIS airstrikes, he got a free hand to turn against the Kurds. In thist President Erdogan follows a similar strategy to that of PM Orbán who, according to Beck, also played a double game when he cooperated with Moscow as a NATO member. This strategy, Beck believes, serves two purposes. President Erdogan wants to undermine the Kurdish independence movement but also hopes to speed up his fight against secularism. Erdogan’s strategy, however, may not pay off in the long run, as in his view the esablishment of an independent Kurdistan is compelling both morally and politically.

Tags: