Israel and the ‘Greater Kurdistan’ project

Netanyahu’s scheming against Türkiye could speed up a reconciliation with Syria

According to sources close to decision-makers in Russia, President Vladimir Putin wants to play two specific roles in the Middle East.

The first was stated in his speech to the BRICS summit in the capital of Tatarstan, Kazan, in which he stressed “the need to correct the historic injustice in Palestine in order to restore peace and avoid a third world war.”

The second will be to revive political and diplomatic efforts to convene an early meeting between Syrian president Bashar al-Asad and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to ease tensions between the two neighbouring states and restore relations to normal.

The latter has become an urgent priority for Putin because of pressing developments that directly endanger Türkiye’s national security and make it imperative for Erdoğan to soften his stance towards Syria and accept its most important demand: the withdrawal of Turkish forces from the territory they occupy in northwestern Syria.

Erdoğan may have (belatedly) become alarmed by secret contacts held between Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government and Kurdish leaders in Türkiye and northern Iraq aimed at reviving the project for a ‘Greater Kurdistan’ on Iraqi, Syrian, and Iranian territory and backing armed separatist groups — partly to get back at Erdoğan for his vehement criticism of Israel’s massacres in Gaza and Lebanon and his likening of Netanyahu to Hitler.

The Turkish president is also concerned about the Israeli spy agency Mossad’s penetration of his country to recruit and fund ‘terrorist’ groups to undermine its security and try to arrange the assassination of locally based Hamas leaders.

High-level Turkish sources believe Netanyahu has personally adopted the cause of partitioning Turkey to create a ‘United State of Greater Kurdistan’ and aborting the current rapprochement between the Turkish authorities and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) aimed at ending their decades-old bloody war. As mark of this thaw, Omer Ocalan, an MP for the Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party in the Turkish parliament, was recently allowed to visit his uncle PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan for the first time since he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in 1999. MP Ocalan indicated his uncle would be willing to agree a deal and lay down arms as part of a comprehensive peace settlement.

Erdoğan, according to confidants, is convinced that Israel was behind this week’s ‘terrorist’ attack on a state-owned aerospace plant near Ankara which killed five people and injured 22, with the aim of foiling the reconciliation with the PKK which he personally backs. He called for a closed-door session of the Turkish parliament to discuss security issues and what were termed grave behind-the-scenes developments, a reference to Israel’s clandestine efforts to destabilise the country and promote a Greater Kurdistan comprising part of its territory.

Putin, for his part, believes these developments could serve to moderate Erdoğan’s stance toward Syria and make a meeting with Asad more feasible. Syria, along with Iraq and Iran would, be the main losers from the creation of Greater Kurdistan.

When I interviewed Asad at his home in Damascus in May 2023, he said he was ready for a “serious” meeting with Erdoğan that leads to the restoration of relations provided the Turkish army withdraws from Syrian territory. He made this a precondition for any meeting, but Erdoğan dithered and demurred and refused to accede to this demand, which Putin supports.

The question now is whether the Turkish president will relent and green-light Putin’s initiative to convene a summit with Asad and turn a new page in relations based on the 1999 Adana border security agreement.

The other question is how will Erdoğan respond to Israel’s direct meddling to dismember his country and carve out a Kurdish state that could claim a quarter of its territory? Could he sever diplomatic, economic, and security relations completely after having belatedly awoken to its machinations?

We cannot pre-empt developments. Suffice it to say that sources close to Russia say there could be major developments on these two issues in the coming few days.

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