Divided Nations and European Integration

6. The Kurds and EU Enlargement: In Search of Restraints on State Power

CHAPTER 6 The Kurds and EU Enlargement: In Search of Restraints on State Power David Romano Introduction Turkey’s Kurdish minority numbers around fifteen million, or around 20 percent of the country’s total population of seventy-two million. Kurds in Turkey hold a wide variety of political opinions, and some do not even selfidentify as Kurds. However, it appears that most Kurds in Turkey look upon the possibility of Turkish accession to the European Union (EU) with a great deal of enthusiasm. They hope that EU protections for individual minority rights, particularly cultural and linguistic rights, will force Ankara to grant its Kurdish minority a level of freedom denied since the creation of the Turkish Republic in the 1920s. Even though Turkey’s prospects of actually joining the European Union remain uncertain at best, the ongoing reforms aimed at making Turkey conform to the EU’s Copenhagen criteria have already been credited for some liberalizations, particularly limited Kurdish radio and television broadcasting as well as the legalization of private courses to teach Kurdish. At the time of this writing, the latest government Kurdish initiative (announced by Turkish prime minister Erdogan in August 2009) promises to liberalize further the Turkish state’s policies toward the Kurdish minority. The success of such initiatives remains difficult to predict, of course, as several past efforts stalled and achieved only modest changes. While the Kurdish regions of neighboring Iraq, Iran, and Syria have no possibility of entering the EU, the Kurds of these countries also have reasons Kurds 191 to support Turkish accession. First would come the economic benefit of formally bordering Europe. Turkey’s attempts to satisfy the EU of its worthiness for admission have also helped constrain Turkish intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkish membership in the EU would also entail consequences inimical to Pan-Kurdish aspirations, however, because the process would exacerbate differences between the Kurdish communities of Turkey and neighboring countries, including socioeconomic and cultural differences that have expanded since the post–World War I division of the Kurds into the Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian, and Syrian states. This chapter begins with an examination of the historical forces that led to the current Kurdish predicament in Turkey and elsewhere. Following this is a look at Turkey’s efforts to join the EU and these efforts’ effects, for better or worse, on the distinct populations that comprise a divided Kurdish nation. I argue that the process of coming into compliance with EU entry requirements, especially the criteria for respecting human rights, has clearly benefited and may continue to benefit Kurds on either side of the Turkish border. The reigning Turkish establishment may not, however, prove willing or able to reconsider modern Turkey’s national narrative. Recognizing another significant founding nation besides the Turkish one remains anathema to Kemalist ideology, particularly as this would imply the need for a certain amount of self-determination for majority Kurdish parts of the country. An inability to recast Turkey’s national narrative in turn endangers both relative Kurdish gains of the past few years and Turkey’s aspirations to join the EU. A Periphery People “Kurdistan” generally refers to the Zagros Mountains and adjacent valleys and plains predominantly populated by people who speak Kurdish, including the Kurmanji, Sorani, Gurani, and Zaza varieties. Of course the question of whether these are dialects of a single Kurdish language was politicized with the advent of European-style nationalism in the region. A shared language serves as one of the most common traits in defining nationhood and often leads to recognition as a bona fide nation, perhaps with the right to a state: that is, national self-determination. Although a collective identification with the Kurdish nation, including its culture, history, and the notion of a common ancestry, is fairly widespread Map 6.1. Kurds and the region. Kurds 193 in Kurdish regions today, other identities have consistently competed for the loyalty of people who may identify as Kurds. While today’s Kurdistan is divided at the intersection of the borders of modern Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria (more on this shortly), the geographic region was never a unified political entity before World War I either. Prior to the twentieth century, most Kurdish areas were under Ottoman control, with the remainder under the Persian empires (the Safavids and the Qajars). Kurdistan served as the buffer region between competing Ottoman and Persian empires, and most of the warfare between these two...