US still labeling its longtime Kurd allies “terrorists”

Turns out the United States is still refusing to de-list its closest and longest political allies in Iraq — the two major Kurdish parties — as “tier III” terrorists (see update at the bottom for the definition) even after expending huge amounts of resources explicitly to protect them with a no-fly zone from 1991-2003, during which time they formed a competitive representative democracy on their own.

Earlier this year, Iraqi Kurdish media outlet Rudaw commented on the problem as follows:

Listing the KDP and PUK as Tier III terrorist groups stems from the classic US perception that any non-state militant actor rebelling against the state, may be listed as a terrorist group regardless of the goal the group seeks to achieve.

But now since that era of rebellion against dictator Saddam Hussein is gone, Iraqi Kurdistan is expecting the US to delist its parties from the category of terrorist groups.

 
This de-listing problem — which the State Department continually claims is being fixed — was news to me, though not surprising given how long Nelson Mandela got stuck on the terrorist watch list from way back in the day (when we were still allied with the Apartheid regime in South Africa).

But of all countries, Turkey, their past mortal enemy, is treating them better than the United States has been recently. (Or at least is positively treating the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party, with whom the ruling AK Party of Turkey has formed a strategic partnership, as explored on our blog in depth recently. Remains to be seen if they would be as friendly if the opposition Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, slightly more sympathetic to Baghdad than the KDP is, were to win the next elections.)

Flag-of-Iraqi-Kurdistan

Update for clarity, October 20, 2014: Below is the explanation of the admittedly nebulous “tier III” status as described by the website of the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services.

These organizations are defined by law as “a group of two or more individuals, whether organized or not, which engages in, or has a subgroup which engages in,” terrorist activity. Tier III organizations are also called “undesignated terrorist organizations” because they qualify as terrorist organizations based on their activities alone without undergoing a formal designation process like Tier I and Tier II organizations.

Instead, the determination of whether a group can be considered a Tier III organization is made on a case-by-case basis, in connection with the review of an application for an immigration benefit. Tier III organizations arise and change over time.

So, the list fluctuates a lot more than the tier I list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” or the tier II list of false charities and other criminal enterprises supporting organized terrorism. Thus, a tier III listing is less severe than a tier I formal designation, but it is not by any means flattering, and Americans could potentially still get into trouble for supporting such an organization, including the major Kurdish political parties in Iraq. Likewise, party supporters could be blocked from entering or moving to the United States. It’s also more puzzling, given that it’s a more flexible list, that the Kurdish parties haven’t been removed previously. Unfortunately, tier III is a persistently confusingly applied category that regularly covers U.S. allies and U.S.-recognized political opposition parties, according to the Baltimore Law Review.

June 22, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 89

AFD-logo-470

Topics: Washington NFL trademark, U.S. oil royalties for American Indians, Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, and US/Iran in Iraq. People: Bill and Nate.

Discussion Points:

– Continued U.S. oppression of American Indians
– Will Iraqi Kurdistan declare independence with Turkey’s support?
– Should the US and Iran work together in Iraq?

Part 1 – Washington NFL trademark & American Indian policies:
Part 1 – Washington NFL – AFD 89
Part 2 – Turkey/Kurdistan:
Part 2 – Kurdistan – AFD 89
Part 3 – Iran in the Iraq Crisis:
Part 3 – Iraq – AFD 89

To get one file for the whole episode, we recommend using one of the subscribe links at the bottom of the post.

Related links
Segment 1

– Nate’s AFD Essay: “Washingskins”
– Greg’s AFD Essay: What took so long? Washington NFL team loses trademark for racial slur.
– DOI: Interior Considers Procedures to Reestablish a Government-to-Government Relationship with the Native Hawaiian Community
– DOI: Interior Announces Improved Valuation Method for Oil Produced on American Indian Lands

Segment 2

– AFD: Iraqi Kurdish PM calls for Sunni autonomy; Will Kurds leave Iraq?

Segment 3

– WSJ: Secret U.S. Plan to Aid Iraq Fizzled Amid Mutual Distrust
– AFD: Iran Supreme Leader not keen on working with US on ISIS

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And don’t forget to check out The Digitized Ramblings of an 8-Bit Animal, the video blog of our announcer, Justin.

Iraqi Kurdish PM calls for Sunni autonomy; Will Kurds leave Iraq?

Map: Ethnically Kurdish zones of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran.

Map (CIA): Ethnically Kurdish zones of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran.

What a turn of events. Once carved out with Western support, contrary to Turkey’s wishes, against genocidal oppression by the Sunni-led minority regime in Iraq, the autonomous Kurdistan Region now sits as the Turkish-backed power player in the future of Iraq during the current crisis. And for the moment it appears to be more sympathetic to the Sunnis than anyone else (while earning global brownie points for graciously sheltering a massive influx of Sunni Arab refugees).

In an interview with the BBC (video), the prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Government, Nechirvan Barzani, said that it will be “almost impossible” for Iraq to go back to the way things were before the fall of Mosul to ISIS. The KRG is now describing everything as pre-Mosul or post-Mosul, like the clock of history got reset last week.

As his economic and political solution to the Sunni disaffection facilitating the ISIS invasion, Barzani called for essentially a soft partition that gives the Sunni areas in the northwest their own regional autonomy like the Kurds already have. (This is, of course, the same idea Joe Biden advocated in 2007 during his presidential bid, to much criticism.)

Barzani also very pointedly said that he will not order the Kurdish Peshmerga paramilitary — some of the best troops in the country — to help retake Mosul or any other city on behalf of the Shia-led central government. He did not however comment one way or the other on the possibility of taking the cities permanently and unilaterally for Kurdistan. I’d been speculating that perhaps the Peshmerga would “liberate” Mosul and Kirkuk, both historically Kurdish cities with large oil fields, from ISIS (and the Arabs more broadly), to reclaim them for the region, which would facilitate full independence. Kirkuk, the political and religious ex-capital, apparently fell into Peshmerga hands last Friday. The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) asserts that the central government’s prime minister authorized them to take control of the local Iraqi Army headquarters in Kirkuk and provide security to the city as the Iraqi Army was disintegrating in the north.

In another extremely curious turn of events, Turkey, a country long fanatically opposed to an independent Kurdish state even in Iraq due to its own Kurdish separatist movement, seems to have warmed to the possibility of full independence next door in recent years. The party spokesman for the ruling AKP in Turkey, allegedly (according to CNN Turkey, based off incomplete quotes) recently made remarks to an Iraqi Kurdish media outlet indicating that Turkey would now be willing to back the creation of a hypothetical independent Kurdistan in Iraq.
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Iraqi Kurds protest Iranian bombardment

The Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq (KRG) issued a press release on Friday protesting Iran’s bombardment of the border regions in their fight against Iranian Kurdish rebels in PJAK. According to the October 2nd press release, two sub-districts in the Kurdish Region of Iraq were subjected to heavy bombardment from Iran, most likely by shelling and Katyusha rockets, based on past strikes.

The KRG maintains some distance from groups like the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party, in Turkey) and PJAK because they are concerned about these such military actions, which they consider a violation of sovereignty. But the regional government also hasn’t taken particularly strong action against the rebels using their territory as a base of operations.

However, the statement doesn’t quite read as an accurate representation of the situation:

The Islamic Republic of Iran has severely bombarded the border areas of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq without any justification in clear violation of the sovereignty of Iraq and of the territory of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq.

 
If an armed terrorist organizations is attempting to bring down your government, you probably do feel like you have justification, whether or not it’s a violation of sovereignty.

The KRG still does have a legitimate complaint, and they’re in an awkward position of not wanting to antagonize either the neighboring countries or the other ethnic Kurdish groups, with whom they feel some solidarity, by rooting them out. But it’s probably unlikely that their request will be met:

Continued bombardment of such border areas is not in the interest of good neighbourly relations. Therefore, we urge the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately cease the unjustified bombardment of the border area and respect the sovereignty of Iraq, international law, and the peaceful will of the people of the Kurdistan Region.

 
This post was originally published on Starboard Broadside.