By Tahseen Wsu Abdullah
The Kurdistan Region as an influential actor, has always viewed the Kurdish issue from the perspective that national interests can be achieved through peace and dialogue mechanism rather than through war, armed conflict, and rigid tools. This view stems from the fact that the Kurdistan Region has achieved great gains in Iraq through dialogue and negotiations within the framework of the constitution, an experience that can be used by other parts of Kurdistan, especially in Turkey and Syria.
The states into which Kurdistan has been divided have seen the Kurdistan Region as a threat, because they believe that this will be an experience for the Kurds in those states to follow. In other words, the states that have divided Kurdistan have tried to tell the Kurds that this is their fate by surrounding the Kurdistan Region, whether through threats or attacks, or by showing a bad picture of this experience. This discourse and view has always been seen as the dominant view towards the Kurdistan Region.
On the other hand, the Kurdistan Region has strategically worked to nullify this view, so that not only the military mechanism as a means of resolving the Kurdish issue, but on the contrary, dialogue and peace as a solution strategy. This has been clearly presented to these states by the political authorities in the Kurdistan Region at the highest level. Therefore, the Kurdistan Region has been able to overcome the security and military space that the states divided Kurdistan had against the Kurdistan Region.
As a remnant of the Ottoman Empire created because of World War I, Turkey has long dealt with the Kurdish issue through military mechanisms, without any official and constitutional recognition of the Kurds as a nation with its own characteristics.
In the early 1990s, a trend emerged at the level of the ruling power and the political elite that the Kurdish issue should be treated as a political issue, which coincided with the establishment of political power in the Kurdistan Region. At that time, the Kurdistan Region was seen as an official and influential party to the issue. Since then, the Kurdistan Region has consistently sought to become an influential party in the process.
In 2013, President Barzani in Amed conveyed this view very clearly to the ruling authorities in Turkey and the Kurds there, to adopt the mechanism of dialogue and peace solution as a strategy to find a solution to the Kurdish issue. The Kurdistan Region has also consistently emphasized at the official and highest levels that a political solution through peace must be the basis strategy.
In the Kurdistan Region’s recent national efforts to find a political solution between the Turkish state and the Kurds (especially the PKK), the PKK as a party to the process decided to dissolve itself after the Turkish state demanded that the issue be resolved outside armed struggle.
Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Region has a positive role on both sides (Turkey and the PKK) to move the Kurdish situation in Turkey to another stage, which is the process of finding a political solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey through dialogue and official institutions.