Military Review English Edition March-April 2014 | Page 48

plan represented an important step toward Kurdish autonomy in Syria, something Syrian Kurds aspire to. Sinem Khalil, a member of the Kurdish Supreme Committee, said in their first meeting on 24 July 2012 that the Kurdish people in Syria were thirsty for unity that would help achieve their aspirations, and that was their main focus at the time.15 He also said he believed their Kurdish dream (autonomy) was coming true. Kurds in Turkey are closely following these developments. Leyla Zana, a Kurdish member of the Turkish parliament, has called on Kurds from Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria to unite and to strive together for their causes, saying that after centuries, a gate for freedom has been opened for the Kurdish people.16 Separately, PKK leader Murat Karayılan said in a 2012 interview with an English-language newspaper in Erbil that Kurds seeing other federal systems springing up around the world feel they have the right to establish a state; they consider themselves a nation.17 Turkey has a painful history with the Kurdish separatist movement PKK. In this conflict, almost 40,000 lives have been lost over the last 30 years. Thus, a new Kurdish region is taking shape. The Kurdistan Tribune, a platform for Kurdish news and opinion with an optimistic view for Kurdistan, claims, “What the Kurds are doing now in the west [Syria] lays the basis for a semi-autonomous region which can link with her sister in the south of Kurdistan [Iraq] ... This is not a dream; this can become a reality.”18 These statements reflect that the Kurds view autonomy as the second piece of the greater Kurdistan project, which Turkey considers a threat to its territorial integrity. A Kurdish National Conference, the first of its kind, had been planned for November 2013 but was postponed indefinitely for political reasons. The group had aimed to gather all Kurdish political groups to set a roadmap for the Middle East’s Kurds. 46 Another Northern Iraq? The PKK Issue Turkey has a painful history with the Kurdish separatist movement PKK. In this conflict, almost 40,000 lives have been lost over the last 30 years. Currently, there is an ongoing dialogue in place to end the armed violence and get the PKK to lay down its arms, a precarious process with high hopes but also high risk. In the early 1990s, the PKK had found a safe haven in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq, which it used as a base to launch attacks on Turkey. Ankara is concerned that, if the peace process fails, the group could exploit the chaos in Syria to expand its base and influence. The PYD’s control over much of the Syrian side of the Turkey-Syria border allows the PKK a much larger space for its organization and operations, which strengthens the PKK’s position in Turkey. In fact, when the Syrian crisis first emerged, clashes between the Turkish army and PKK militants intensified. During the last two weeks of July 2012, the PKK waged one of their fiercest battles in recent years against the Turkish army. Army forces fought the PKK using helicopters and fighter jets in the mountainous terrain close to the town of Şemdinli in southeastern Turkey. The ongoing peace negotiations have stopped the fighting and attacks, but from the Turkish military’s point of view, northern Syria is another northern Iraq, another potential PKK strongh