Power struggle between Barzani-PKK grows stronger

Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani (Photo: Cihan)

AYDIN ALBAYRAK, ANKARA 
The escalation of tension between the Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian offshoot of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is a power struggle between Kurdish groups related to both Iraq and Syria, analysts believe.

“While Syria is being rebuilt at the peace table [at Geneva], who will represent [the Kurds] at the table? That's the question,” Mehmet Akif Okur, an analyst from the Ankara Strategy Institute, has said.
Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, warned the PYD, “No one can declare itself the representative of Kurdish people in Syria before elections are held. We will not permit such initiatives. If they [the PYD] do not change this attitude, we will pursue a different method [to prevent this],” according to a statement posted on the KRG's official website, the private Cihan news agency reported on Tuesday.
Prior to the declaration, tensions peaked last week when the PYD detained 75 Syrian Kurds reported to be members of a Syrian Kurdish political party that has close links with Barzani. Infuriated by the PYD's move, Barzani, who has closed the customs gate linking Kurdish Iraq to Syria, called on the military group to release the party members. It was reported on Tuesday that the 75 politicians were released by the PYD.
The PYD is the only armed group among Kurds in war-torn Syria, and it doesn't want other groups to obtain arms so that it may keep the northeastern part of the country under its control-- where the Kurdish population is predominantly positioned. Barzani is after expanding his political sway over to northern Syria-- through various Kurdish parties, some in close contact, some just in dialogue -- in an effort to come out as representative of Kurds in the region.
A conference in Geneva is expected to be held in June in an effort to put an end to the civil war in Syria, where more than 80,000 people have so far been killed. Noting that clashes intensify during civil wars when a peace table appears on the horizon, “Groups which physically keep control on the ground in Syria would have corresponding positions at the bargaining table,” Okur told Today's Zaman. So, the Kurdish groups have been making efforts to reinforce their hand before the conference in Geneva begins.
But the struggle is not limited to Syria, and has also to do with domestic politics in Iraqi Kurdistan, as an alliance between the PKK/PYD and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a major rival for Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the next elections seems, to be in the making. About 215 people from the PKK have allegedly recently joined the PUK. The PKK and the PUK, which is headed by ailing Jalal Talabani, current president of Iraq, have a similar ideological background, Marxism, while Barzani's KDP is of a conservative background.    
Barzani seems to be concerned about a possible cooperation between his rivals in the next elections in northern Iraq, as it may cause him to lose power. As declared by Barzani some time ago, parliamentary and presidential elections will be held together on Sept. 21, 2013 in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
“The elections to be held in five months might be the most critical selection process in the political history of the KRG,” said Serhat Erkmen in an article that appeared in Today's Zaman on May 5. He noted that the governing coalition formed by the KDP and the PUK came to an end, as neither party seemed to want to maintain the coalition which was in place when the KRG was formed following the American occupation of Iraq.
“This is an obvious power struggle between Barzani and the PYD,” Erkmen, an analyst at the Ankara-based think tank Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM), commented. Barzani united the PYD and a gathering of other Syrian Kurdish groups called the Kurdish National Council (KNC) at a conference in Arbil in the KRG-run northern Iraq in July 2012. Under the deal that came to be known as the Arbil agreement, the PYD and the KNC joined forces under an umbrella organization called the Syrian Kurdish Supreme Council.
The Kurds were to jointly govern the area they controlled in Syria. Disagreements between the PYD and the KNC, however, remained. The recent establishment of a pro-Barzani faction within the KNC has reportedly worsened the dispute. Barzani called on the PYD -- which he said acted differently from other Kurdish groups in Syria and used "shady methods" -- to change its attitude and warned that he would otherwise "pursue a different course," without elaborating.
Erkmen doesn't expect the conflict to get to an armed level between Kurdish groups, but he does believe the tension may get stronger as the civil war in Syria deepens. While Turkish foreign ministry sources have declined to comment on the issue, Erkmen noted that if Turkey and Barzani close the customs gates to Syria, the PYD can't survive, as it hugely depends on these two geographies for supplying all its needs, including food.
According to Okur, Ankara would take part in dialogue with Barzani to get stronger in Syria, and wouldn't like the PYG to get more influential, as it would mean that the PKK would continue its armed existence. “Turkey would like to intervene [in the conflict between the PYD and Barzani], but it wouldn't like it to be perceivable,” Okur said.  

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