In northern Iraq, largely unnoticed, a conflict is brewing that, if allowed to boil over, could precipitate civil war, break-up of the country and in a worst-case scenario Turkish intervention. Tensions in the oil-rich Kirkuk region, where the political ambitions, historical claims and economic interests of the principal communities -- Kurds, Arabs, Turkomans and Chaldo-Assyrians -- clash, have been escalating since U.S. forces toppled the Baathist regime in April 2003. Violence is assuming a troubling pattern. Turkey, with its own large Kurdish population, is watching with growing anxiety. The U.S. and EU need to do more to resolve the Kirkuk question and help Ankara protect its vital interests without resort to increasingly hollow but destabilising threats of military intervention.

The situation has been aggravated by the worsening state of affairs in Iraq and by political actors, especially Kurds, who are seeking to undo the grave injustices that flowed from the ousted regime's policy of Arabisation, returning in numbers and laying claim to Kirkuk as the capital of a future Kurdish region -- or state. Tensions have been contained somewhat by the presence of U.S. troops and a U.S.-engineered interim political arrangement -- a provincial council broadly representative of the four communities -- that, against all odds, has held. But as Washington's attention is increasingly drawn to the instability in the rest of the country, things in Kirkuk might well get out of hand and the communities there find themselves in a violent stand-off.

From Ankara's perspective, chaos or civil war in Iraq, the creation of a Kurdish state in the north with Kirkuk as its capital that would serve as a magnet or model for Turkey's own Kurdish population, or a combination of the above, are nightmare scenarios. At the mercy of forces beyond its control, Turkey is anchoring its strategy in commitment to the political process in Baghdad and, as part of that, a peaceful solution to the Kirkuk question. It also is banking on progress in accession talks with the European Union to reduce any appetite for secession its Kurdish population might still harbour.

But it would be imprudent to rely on these as insurance against the threat of military actions should Turkish national interests seem to be in jeopardy. EU accession is, at best, years away. Public pressures resulting from Ankara's manipulation of the Iraqi Turkoman question and the continued deployment of Turkish troops on Iraqi soil could create a dynamic of their own, possibly precipitating military intervention in Kirkuk. Prospects for success in Iraq's political process are receding in the face of growing Sunni Arab alienation and a spreading insurgency. All in all, heightened threat perceptions could in themselves create an interventionist dynamic that more sober minds in Ankara might be unable to control.

Further improvement of relations between Turkey and Iraq's Kurdish leadership is the best hedge against the risks. Indeed, Turkey has already come a long way, accepting today a federal arrangement for Iraq's Kurds that even two years ago it considered an anathema. Economic ties and trade also have increased. But more steps should be taken, based on mutual interests: Turkey needs good relations with the Kurds to prevent chaos in the north, and the landlocked, vulnerable Kurdish entity, in turn, may have little choice but to rely on Turkey for protection.

Confidence-building measures are required to change the atmosphere, establish mechanisms to head off emerging conflicts and enable Turkey to play a more constructive role in the peaceful solution of the Kirkuk question. These include a mutual halt to inflammatory rhetoric, a lowering of tensions in Kirkuk, in particular through proactive international monitoring, and resolution of the nagging problem of the insurgent Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK (now called Kongra-Gel), remnants of whose forces remain holed up in northern Iraq.

The U.S., which remains Turkey's strategic ally, and the EU have a common interest in encouraging Turkey to play a constructive role. They should work proactively to resolve the Kirkuk question, strengthening relations between Ankara and the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, and promoting investments that would give the Kurdish population in southeastern Turkey evidence of the benefits it would gain from Turkish accession to the EU.

Ankara/Amman/Brussels, 26 January 2005