On March 28, 2023, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry summoned the French Ambassador to convey Turkiye’s condemnation of the French Senate for hosting members of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units/ Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG) on March 27, 2023. Turkiye alleged that YPG[i] is the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)[ii], which had waged a four-decades-long armed campaign against the Turkish state, seeking autonomy for the Kurdish-dominated area of southeastern Turkiye.
Turkiye strongly opposes the YPG group’s presence in northeastern Syria, which borders its southeastern region. Turkiye, the United States, and the European Union have listed the PKK as a “terrorist” organisation. Over the past several years, the Kurdish issue has been a bone of contention between Turkiye and France. Both countries have disagreement over the Kurdish people’s rights, status, and ambitions in the Arab World. While Turkiye considers the Kurds a threat to its national integrity, France maintains close contact with the Kurdish people to project a ‘humanist’ image of its diplomacy.
Kurds, as an ethnic community, are sparsely settled in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. They have struggled for several decades to establish an independent Kurdistan nation comprising northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, and northwestern Iran.
Source: https://bit.ly/41dhBqZ
Western countries, including France, have provided the Kurdish people with economic, military, and diplomatic support, and have also raised violations of the human rights of the Kurds and erosion of their cultural history at different multilateral platforms, including the United Nations (UN). Notably, France has played an essential role in promoting the issue of human rights of the Kurds in the Arab World. There is a substantial history of diplomatic relations between France and the Kurdish authorities in the region.[iii] Former French President François Mitterrand had established a Consulate General in the Kurds-administered Erbil province of Iraq in 1982. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government established the Embassy of France in Erbil in 2008. As a result, the relationship between the French government and the Kurdish people has strengthened at the political, economic, and diplomatic levels. Former French President Francois Hollande visited Erbil in 2014 and had committed to military and economic assistance to the authority of the Kurdistan region. The French government also sent its soldiers to train Kurdish soldiers (Peshmerga). In 2016, the Kurdistan authority received two shipments of military assistance from France.[iv]
The consistent support of the French government to the Kurdish people has strained its bilateral relations with Turkiye. Following former US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the American troops from northeastern Syria in 2019, Turkiye launched a string of offensives, including air and ground assaults against Kurdish militias.[v] Also, when the Ukraine conflict became the center of the global media and world leaders’ attention in February 2022, Turkiye further intensified the attacks on Kurds in northeastern Syria. The French Parliamentarians denounced Erdogan’s “policy of war” against Kurds, and called on the government of France to urge the UN to declare a no-fly zone in northern Syria and place Kurds under international protection.[vi]
The bilateral relations between Turkiye and France further deteriorated after the occurrence of shooting at three Kurdish locations in Paris in December 2022, killing three Kurdish persons. The Kurdish community blamed Turkiye’s security agency for the shooting. Kurds launched a protest march against the mass shooting. During the march, the Kurdish activists waved the PKK’s flag and the posters of its leader Abdullah Ocalan. The far-left La France Insoumise party leaders (Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Eric Coquerel) and French Communist Party leader (Fabienne Lefebvre) attended the march, which irked Turkiye. Erdogan’s government summoned the French Ambassador to protest the anti-Turkiye propaganda by Kurdish activists in Paris. It also expressed concern regarding the participation of French politicians in the protest march. The Foreign Minister of Turkiye, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu made a telephonic call to French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and stressed that it is “unacceptable that French politicians attended events (protests) in which flags of the terrorist organisation PKK and posters of its leaders were waved. France should not allow such activities.”[vii]
Amidst the growing tension between the French and Turkish governments, on March 27, 2023, the French Senate hosted members (Abdul Karim Omar, Nouri Mahmoud, Roxanne Muhammad, and Khaled Issa) of the PKK’s Syrian wing, the YPG, and awarded medals of “honor” despite the objections of its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ally Turkiye. Turkiye alleged that the YPG-PKK is using the northeastern region of Syria as a launch pad to conduct terrorist attacks in Turkiye. French Senate Vice President Pierre Laurent announced on Twitter that the “Senate rewarded medals to YPG members in recognition of their fight against the extremist Islamic State (IS) in Syria.”[viii] Anadolu Agency reported that Turkish Officials protested to French Ambassador Herve Magro and reiterated Ankara’s expectations of solidarity from its NATO allies in its fight against terrorism. They also asked France not to support alleged efforts by Kurdish militants to “gain international credence.”[ix]
Political and security factors drive France’s support to the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG). At the political level, in the context of the growing Turkish footprint in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean region, Paris seeks to leverage the Kurds to curb Turkiye’s regional ambitions. At the security level, France’s relationship with the YPG is a central element of its counter-terrorism strategy. Besides, Ankara and Paris’ interests clash in Syria, a country that has become a new playground for their geopolitical rivalry.
In conclusion, Paris sees Kurds as critical partners in fighting the Islamic State. In Libya, France accused Turkiye of breaking the non-intervention commitment through its support to local militias. Therefore, the bilateral relations between Turkiye and France face a ‘crisis of confidence.’ A binary vision is dominating the Kurdish issue in Paris and Ankara. The French government sees the events in northeastern Syria as a conflict between Turkiye and Kurds, in which the former aspires for regional hegemony, and the latter, an oppressed minority of people (the Kurds) who are fighting for their rights and existence. Ankara perceives that France’s position is ‘selective’ on the issue of counter-terrorism. As a result, the Kurdish question will likely continue to strain the Ankara and Paris bilateral relations.
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*Dr. Arshad, Research Fellow, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal.
Endnotes
[i] The YPG formed the Administrative Authority of Northeast Syria (AANES) in 2012, also known as Rojava.
[ii] It is a militant guerrilla organisation that is fighting the cause for the establishment of Kurdistan. Its founder was Abdulla Ocalan.
[iii] It is an autonomous region with four Kurdish-majority provinces of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok, and Halabja, including the border regions of Iran, Syria, and Turkiye.
[iv] France sends new military aid shipments to Kurdistan. Kurdistan 24, June 15, 2016. https://bit.ly/3lMVfxP. Accessed March 27, 2023.
[v] French MPs slam ‘policy of war’ against Syrian Kurds. Arab News, July 31, 2022. https://bit.ly/3Koc0IU. Accessed March 29, 2023.
[vi] 100 French MPs slam Erdogan’s ‘policy of war’ against Syrian Kurds. Al-Arabiya. July 31, 2022. https://bit.ly/3U64hm9. Accessed March 31, 2023.
[vii] Turkey denounces French politicians for attending protest at killings of Kurds. Reuters, December 29, 2022. https://reut.rs/3M07gdY. Accessed March 29, 2023.
[viii] Twitter: Pierre Laurent. https://bit.ly/3zlLcTq. Accessed March 27, 2023.
[ix] Turkey calls French envoy, protests hosting of Syrian Kurds. Associated Press. March 27, 2023. https://bit.ly/3ZtInKH. Accessed March 31, 2023