BY
A number of Turkish media outlets supportive of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have begun proliferating apparently false news reports claiming rival Kurdish groups entered into a secret deal with Israel to gain their independence by resettling Jews to the region.
Stories appearing Wednesday in Turkish newspapers, such as Yenia Akit and Aksam, that back Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party alleged that Mahmoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, agreed to welcome some 200,000 Israeli Jews of Kurdish origin, Al-Monitor reported. In exchange, Israel would reportedly back Barzani’s bid for Kurdish statehood in an upcoming referendum, that’s been met with opposition by nearly every regional actor, including Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
Turkey has been especially opposed to an independent Kurdistan as it deals with a decades-long insurgency at home by the nationalist militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey has suspected other U.S.-backed Kurdish movements in Iraq and Syria of bearing links to the PKK and has attempted to pressure fellow NATO member U.S. into diminishing support for Kurds, which have proved an effective ally against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).
The U.S., along with a number of European countries involved in the U.S.-led fight against ISIS, considers the PKK a terrorist organization, but considers other Kurdish militias, such as the Syrian People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Iraqi peshmerga units, separate entities.
In its quest to curb international support for Kurds, Turkey has recently focused its attention toward another major U.S. ally in the Middle East, Israel. Along with most majority-Muslim nations in the region, Turkey has been deeply critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, but does maintain ties with the majority-Jewish state, unlike most Arab nations.
When former Israeli military deputy chief Major General Yair Golan said Sunday he personally did not consider the PKK a terrorist organization, as reported by Israeli daily Haaretz, pro-government outlets in Turkey blasted what they considered direct “Zionist” support for the PKK. Israel has not officially labeled the PKK a terrorist group, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later dismissed Golan’s view Wednesday, saying Israel both backed Kurdish statehood and considered the PKK to be a terrorist organization, according to The Times of Israel.
The latest Turkish reports of Barzani and Israel’s alleged deal, described by one as the “insidious Kurdistan plan,” all cite a magazine called “Israeli-Kurd” published in majority-Kurdish northern Iraq. The magazine first appeared in 2009 and was lauded by local journalists as a victory for press freedom, according to Radio Netherlands Worldwide.