British MPs: Kurdistan Region allies must be protected from Turkish aggression

When I arrived in Erbil in early October to get the latest news and learn how our All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) could offer solidarity with the Kurdistan Region, my mind was focused on the disruptive impact of Brexit on Britain and on recent progress in the direction of a rapprochement between Erbil and Baghdad. My hope was that British friends of Kurdistan had time to prepare the next phase of activity.

That hope was rapidly dispelled as Baghdad erupted into mass protests against high poverty, poor services, and rampant corruption. Suddenly, it was no longer certain whether Iraq’s Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi would survive long in office. If he went, then any improvement is relations would, at the very least, be back to square one.

But worse was yet come as I neared my departure from Erbil thanks to the laughably great and unmatched wisdom of US President Donald Trump, whose tweets are the digital equivalent of a flame-thrower at a petrol station.

This week, British MPs tabled a cross-party motion in the House of Commons that briefly outlined the impact of the Turkish invasion of Rojava on the neighboring Kurdistan Region. APPG Chair Mary Glindon gathered initial support from members of the three main parties plus two independents with foreign policy expertise and whom I have taken to Kurdistan. Another dozen signed the following day and more should follow.

Mary Glindon’s motion says that Turkey’s attack on northern Syria is a humanitarian disaster and Turkey should withdraw immediately and negotiate before more innocent people are killed, injured, or displaced. It expresses fears that Turkey’s actions could effectively Arabize Kurdish lands in Syria forever and constitute ethnic cleansing.

Moving on to the potential impact on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the motion says the attack presents a clear and present danger to the people, security, economy, and even existence of the neighbouring semiautonomous region, which sees itself as a partner of the UK and other Western countries.

It then notes that many thousands of Syrian Kurdish civilians will seek safety in the Kurdistan Region, whose government has already prepared three refugee camps in Duhok where up to 300,000 Syrians have lived since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011. It praises the KRG’s commendable generosity towards refugees and the roughly 1.5 million Iraqi citizens who fled to Kurdistan after the fall of Mosul in 2014, and most of whom remain in Kurdistan at a great cost to public infrastructure.

It urges the UK to do more to assist the KRG and concludes that chaos and conflict in Syria will help revive the Islamic State group (ISIS) – also known as Daesh – posing a clear danger to the KRG which necessitates concerted assistance from the UK and others who should recognise the Kurds remain vital allies in resisting ISIS fascism and for common values of democracy, tolerance, and pluralism, whose defence in the Kurdistan Region needs to be a major UK priority.

Mary Glindon then told the Foreign Secretary in the Commons that: “The KRG and Kurdistan have been at the forefront of defending everyone from Daesh. They have taken in hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and they took in more than one million Iraqi refugees when Mosul was attacked. They are a democratic, tolerant nation. What are we doing to support these important allies and protect them against Turkey’s military action?”

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab praised her experienced and expert concerns and promised the UK will work with all our partners, both internationally and on the ground, to try to alleviate the situation. However, he would not pretend that it has not become significantly more difficult given what Turkey has done.

Significantly, many MPs have cited the concerns of their Kurdish constituents. Clearly, the Kurdistani diaspora has mobilised and, if anything good can come out of the terrible circumstances, it is that the diaspora can better assert Kurdistani concerns, together with the KRG High Representation and the APPG.

While I was in Kurdistan, for the 30th time since 2006 as it happens, I saw other encouraging signs of the strength of the region. I am an unpaid director of the European Technology and Training Centre in Erbil, which marked its tenth anniversary. In the last decade, its staff have carried out 90 projects and trained many thousands of Kurds, helped reintegrated returning Kurds into society, and is contributing to the overall training capacity of the country. You can see a short video here where staff and beneficiaries explain the work and successes of the ETTC.

I also met Jano Rosebiani, whose articles on Rudaw have brilliantly explained the importance of a film industry in Kurdistan. Its beautiful and iconic locations could be movie sets and there is good money that can flow into the economy. About 10-20 percent of the costs of a film typically stay in country. Imagine if a Star Wars film, for instance, that costs $200 million were made in Kurdistan. But becoming a location requires a film commission that can incentivise film companies and also requires film schools which could be based, for instance, in the Culture Factory in Slemani or the ETTC. Apart from hard cash, all this enables the Kurds to tell their stories to the world.

I was also inspired by the worldly interests and tough questions of students and staff who attended my lectures on Brexit at Soran University and the University of Kurdistan-Hewler. Mobilising the youth remains a vital goal of economic reform as well as improving the quality of universities for a diversified and post-oil future.

The Trump-inflicted disaster for the Kurds in Syria, with its potentially disastrous knock-on effects for the Kurdistan Region, has revealed a reservoir of affection in many countries for the Kurds. Solidarity requires much greater understanding of the history of the Kurds and the distinctive issues in the four Kurdistans, as well as the complex mosaic of the Middle East. Our Commons motion is a down-payment on that and joins many initiatives such as projecting the Kurdish flag onto a bridge in Nashville, the centre of the Kurds in America

I share the anger of Kurds towards President Trump, who deserves a place in the pantheon of American Presidents as the most short-sighted. I understand why so many Kurds again say they have no friends but the mountains.  

Erdogan will not be around forever. Nor will Trump. Some Americans understand the damage he is causing though I currently doubt this is big enough to stop him being re-elected. His opponents could eventually reconfigure America’s foreign policies so they never again abandon vital allies. The UK may or may not leave the EU but must increasingly work with the EU to fill the void in security and foreign policy. The priority is not to waste the opportunities from crises but to work harder to build support for the Kurds.

Gary Kent is the Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and a Fellow of Soran University. He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.