This is only happening because -- as many Kurds insist -- the AKP is looking the other way. Picture the scene of a jihadi free flow in the Turkish-Syrian border at a minimum tolerated by Ankara (because it is anti-Assad) -- but with the added complicating factor that ISIS in Syria is also fighting Syrian Kurds. And a lot of ISIS weaponizing also comes straight from Turkey.
The Holy Grail for Ankara is to prevent by all means necessary Turkish Kurd demands for autonomy. Their only plan so far has been to blame Syrian Kurds for their links with the PKK.
All this happens within a booming trade scenario; over 70 percent of the annual, $12 billion trade between Iraq and Turkey circulates via Iraqi Kurdistan, where over 1,500 Turkish firms are in business. It's a contradiction pile up: Ankara in theory supports the KRG, but would never dream of supporting more autonomous Syrian and Turkish Kurds.
What's certain is that wishful thinking -- from Tel Aviv to Washington -- will keep permeating calculations about the Kurdish question, as in assuming Turkey will be allowed accession to the EU (it won't) and thus Kurdistan will be the EU's de facto eastern border. Bordering what? A Sunnistan across the Levant? Over the Pentagon's collective dead body, of course.
What Big Oil in the US -- and also Israel -- sees, most of all, is the mirage of a Western-friendly major oil exporter in the long run. That's why Balkanization sounds so juicy. This has nothing to do with the welfare of the historically wronged Kurdish people. It's hardcore business. And yet another Divide and Rule power play. Expect plenty of hardcore moves ahead.
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