An Assesment on Russia-Turkey Crisis

Downing of the Russian SUKHOI 24 Shouldn’t Wreck the Campaign Against ISIS

Turkey’s strike on a Russian warplane on November 24^th may have been avoidable, but it was hardly an accident. Turkey claims that in the five minutes before downing, two SUKHOI Jets flew briefly across a finger of territory that pokes into Syria, it issued ten warnings. And despite Russia’s denials and a suggestion that its plane has been hit inside Syrian airspace, the run of the evidence is in Turkey’s favour. Russia was provocative, Turkey was hot-headed. But the real task here should be to ensure that the winner is not ISIS.

That’s now a danger because the loss of airplane threatens to poison relations between two countries intimately involved in the Syrian civil war, on opposite sides. Russia backs Assad regime, Turkey backs some Sunni groups. Putin, calling Turkey’s actions ‘stabbing in the back’, vows for serious counter-measures and consequences. Even now, Russia is bombing Syrian Turkmen tribes who have an affinity with Turks and also trying to extend its relations with Syrian Kurdish groups, who are currently working with US Special Forces on the ground.

A grave responsibility falls on the shoulders of the French President Hollande, who has been shuttling from capital to capital to galvanize efforts against ISIS. As of December 2015, Britain, France, Spain and Germany have come to a consensus to support US air operations and started tasking their Air Forces on to ISIS targets.

Russia on the other hand, extended its dialogues with Iran and its proxies to create a Moscow Dominated anti-ISIS blog. It has also positioned some (allegedly 4 to 6) S-400 batteries to strengthen the naval and ground deployments around Damascus and Latakia. On the ground of the current conflict, Russian campaign is not going to well. As well as a jet, it lost a helicopter which was sent to rescue the downed pilots. After years of fighting, the official Syrian Army is in poor condition. With Russia’s logistics and air support, it is now holding steady but has failed to retake back much territory. Due to the Western pressure and the bloodshed caused by its government, Mr. Assad is a liability for Putin. With him in power, reaching out to a permanent peace is almost impossible.

We also have to acknowledge the facts that Russia has its own reasons to stay in the game. Russian civilians have been killed in the bombing of an airliner over Egypt, some radical Chechen groups inside ISIS are of Russian origins who had been attacking Russian security forces for decades, and also Russia is under the scrutiny of Islamic home-grown jihadists inside its borders.

A Russia-Europe and US alliance against ISIS seems vital, yet this may be beyond Mr. Hollande’s reach at the moment. But he, as well as the leaders of influential states might yet shift their priorities, at least to get Moscow and Ankara thinking about a settlement. Yet, both Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan are known for letting national pride drive their decisions, backing down or changing attitudes for both are quite unlikely.

The Danger of Russian and Turkish Competition in Syria

The downing of a Russian jet by Turkish fighters has brought the dangers posed by Moscow’s intervention in Syria into sharp relief. While the Russian and Turkish Presidents trade insults and display their competitive machismo, the world faces the prospect of a military crisis between Russia and NATO. Although we do not yet know what Russia’s response will be, we can safely assume that it will not increase the prospects of peace and stability in Syria.

Cooler heads should put a stop to this escalatory spiral now. The United States should take immediate efforts not only to stop further conflict between Ankara and Moscow, but also to forge significantly greater cooperation between Russia and the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition. In so doing, Washington can both prevent incidents such as this one from recurring, and more effectively address the Syrian civil war and the fight against extremists there.

The proxy war that dare not speak its name

Notwithstanding the joint diplomatic efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, this incident actually fits into a pattern: The United States and its allies on the one hand, and Russia and its allies on the other have for months been engaged in a tit-for-tat proxy war in Syria. Despite the handshakes in Vienna, on the battlefield the United States and its allies, including Turkey, seem to consider Russia an adversary, with several steps taken to counter Russia’s intervention directly, including a major increase in the provision of anti-tank missiles to rebel groups. One such missile reportedly hit a Russian helicopter involved in the mission to rescue the downed pilots on Tuesday and killed a Russian marine.

Moscow has clearly been eager—almost to the point of desperation—for more cooperation with Washington and its coalition partners. Ever since the Russian bombing began, the Kremlin has been twisting itself in knots to engage the United States on Syria: Everything from a proposal to send a Prime Minister Medvedev-led inter-agency delegation to Washington for talks; a bid for enhanced military negotiations; and various ideas for deeper intelligence sharing. President Vladimir Putin, not someone known for a supplicant’s pose, has repeated his openness to enhanced cooperation with the United States over Syria like a mantra for almost two months—and he continues to do so, despite being consistently spurned by the Obama administration.

That spurning is certainly morally and politically justified. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea are brazenly illegal acts. Its intervention in support of a Syrian regime that is slaughtering its own people on a nearly daily basis lacks any conceivable moral justification. But in Syria, there is perhaps a higher moral and strategic calling—stopping further ISIS attacks, ending the war and the killing, reducing the flow of refugees, and avoiding a dangerous escalation toward a great power war. Those goals will require cooperation with Russia.

Current U.S. policy—escalating a proxy war by countering Russia’s moves on the ground, and conditioning cooperation on counter-ISIS strategy with progress in Vienna—rests on an assumption that Russia will eventually abandon its long-held positions on Syria and adopt U.S. ones, either due to setbacks on the battlefield or out of its desire to join up with the Western anti-ISIS alliance.

Similar efforts to change Russia’s calculus have been ongoing for over three years now. There has been precious little to show for them. Far from responding to pressure on the battlefield by compromising, Russia has doubled down in its support and escalated the struggle at every juncture.

A new approach to Syria

A new approach is necessary. This approach would have two simultaneous elements.

First, the United States and Russia would agree to set aside the issue of Assad in their bilateral relations and at the Vienna talks, declaring themselves neutral on the issue of his role in the political transition. Such a step would actually represent a return to the letter of the June 2012 Geneva Communiqué; since then, both countries’ positions have in fact departed from that compromise. Returning to it would mean that the future leadership of the country will be determined by a process of negotiation among the various Syrian parties, with outside powers playing only a mediating role. U.S. and Russian neutrality on this issue in the Vienna talks might not immediately produce an agreement—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the various Syrian groups would continue to struggle over this and other contentious issues—but without it an agreement would be impossible.

Second, putting this issue aside in the Vienna talks should allow Moscow and Washington to focus on what they do agree on in Syria, namely the anti-ISIS struggle. The United States and Russia are not in a position to join each other’s anti-ISIS coalition, particularly since Russia’s contains the Assad regime. But they could serve as inter-coalition liaisons, attempting to find common ground between the coalitions on issues of targeting, military strategy, de-confliction and broader counter-ISIS and counter-extremism efforts in Syria and beyond. At best, such an effort might allow for a much more effective anti-ISIS effort; at worst, it would offer a more counter-terrorism-focused channel for the United States to make the case to the Russian military to modify its approach to the conflict and for all relevant militaries to maintain the kind of regular communication that can prevent incidents like Tuesday’s clash.

Deepening engagement, however distasteful, with Russia on Syria must be seen as a necessary—even if not sufficient—step in bringing the nightmare there to an end; in preventing further terrorist attacks like those in Paris, Sinai, and Beirut; and in avoiding inadvertent escalation. It will not eliminate differences with Moscow, particularly on issues like Ukraine. But the other options available to the United States—countering Russia on the battlefield or doing nothing while hoping that President Erdoğan and President Putin can remain calm—will almost certainly make the situation in Syria worse, and could well lead to a much bigger calamity. 

---Brookings Institute, December 2015---

Turkey’s Kurdish Village Guards

History

Inspired from different State Applications; (Peru’s Rondas Campesinas; Columbia’s United Self Defense Forces; Chechnya’s Kadyrovsty Militia) Turkish Parliament’s 1985 amendment to the State Law 442 For Villages (Article-74) paved the way to establish, arm, organize Village Guards- all from the Kurdish dominated regions-, for their fight against PKK.

Regardless of the inspiration, Turkey as a state was familiar with recruiting locals to deal with regional insurgencies, an experience derived in 1890s. During the last decades of Ottoman Empire, Sultan Abdul Hamid II understood the fragility of the Ottoman military, and the Empire’s weaknesses of its domestic control, so he decided to contain the Armenian uprising, as well as a possible Russian invasion in the East by establishing para-military forces that were named after the Sultan, “Hamidiye Regiments” (troops of Hamid).  Some 25-30 influential Kurdish Tribes (mostly from Erzurum-Erzincan-Van-Mus-Agri-Bitlis-Siirt-Elazig-Urfa-Adiyaman and Mardin) as well as few Turkmen Tribes (Karapapaks-Karakecilis-Haydarans) located on the Ottoman-Russian border provided personnel for Hamidiye Regiments. 

Two decades later, the newly borne Turkish Republic faced similar problems in its Eastern region. Despite the fact that they were the victors of an independence war, they felt threats both from Russia who just founded a new Communist State and had strong intentions to widen its area of influence; and Kurds, who sided with British and French military to be able to found their own state, during the War of Independence. The Kurdish tribes sided with British and French forces from 1918 to 1923 were fugitives, with lots of arms and ammunition. The 1 year-old Turkish republic were centralized and were not capable of directing enough troops to secure its eastern and southern borders, so Ankara Government revived an old strategy and approved State Law for Villages in 1924, giving the local military commanders authority to build militia and conduct operations against Kurdish armed groups of fugitives. Village Law 422, Article 74 enabled Gendarme Commanders to recruit Village Guards, arm and train them and use them against local uprising, hijacking, smuggling attempts conducted by the above mentioned “fugitive” Kurdish tribes. The Law stayed active till 1939 and had been revoked following the Major Kurdish uprising (Dersim Uprisings) started in 1931 and suppressed by Turkish Army in 1939. One of the reasons for revoking the Law was that most of the Kurdish Village guards turned their weapons against Turkish Military in the midst of the uprising, because they didn’t want to turn against their own people, and also Turkey couldn’t be able to mobilize sufficient power causing  serious Rebel progress at the beginning.

Temporary Village Guards (TVG) (1985-1999)

Turkey faced with another Kurdish problem, emerged in 1970s with the inspiration of Communism and Left Wing ideologies but this time it would go on for decades. A group,- well organized, trained and properly equipped for guerilla warfare-,named themselves “Apocular” after their enthusiastic ideologue Abdullah Ocalan, established Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and started wide scale guerilla attacks; first against Gendarme Outposts, then police, and finally State agencies and facilities. Attacks were so organized that the local Gendarme, police, or army troops were not able to stop PKK, due to their conventional training, lack of mountain operations, as well as their unfamiliarity with the mountainous terrain.  This operational lack brought the old Village Law 422 in to agenda and Turkish Parliament approved a new Law (no. 3175) to employ Temporary Village Guards on March 1985.

According to Law 3175; the initial responsible units for guards’ employment were provincial gendarme regiments. They were responsible for hand picking the candidates and sending their names to Ankara Gendarme General Command HQ, for a detailed back-ground check. The process for determining the names was a simple one working through the hierarchical layers of the Gendarme organization. The village/town gendarme companies would talk to the tribal elders and ask for candidates’ names, the tribal leaders and their communities were required to be the ones that did not cooperate or support PKK in the past. The age interval for the nominees would be 24 to 46 and they were all required to complete their mandatory military service with a positive record. The village/town companies would send their nominee lists to their Regiments’ HQ and Regimental Intelligence Branch would complete the initial security research for the applicants, before they send the names to Ankara for the approval from General Command and finally from the Secretary of Interior. The Minister of Interior would approve the Temporary Village Guards’ Lists on a monthly basis, as soon as these lists were sent from Gendarme General Command HQ.

As a sub unit of a battalion; each Gendarme Company (either located in the towns/villages or in a mountain post) had a TVG quota of 100-120 and this quota was not subject to increase. Battalion or Regiment commanders had the authority to adjust the company designated TVGs, by shifting some of them to other operational areas, temporarily.

The first 22 provinces (primarily Diyarbakir, Urfa, Elazig, Erzurum, Erzincan, Van, Mus, Bitlis, Siirt, Agri, and Mardin) employing Law 3175 was able to gather a force of 50,000 Temporary Village Guards as of 1993. This number increased up to 80,000s, due to the fact that Turkey started to conduct cross-border operations against PKK from 1993 to 2000. An amendment to the Law 3175 provided Temporary Village Guards a civil-servant/government employee status (with retirement and health benefits). 

With the amendment-1; Central Government was giving Provincial Governors the authority to assign/re-assign village guards in case of a necessity. With this, governors –coordinating with army’s garrison commanders-were also being able to send village guards to different regions or cross-border operations under the operation control of the operating brigades or Corps.

Following the Ocalan’s capture in 1999 in Kenya, Turkey decided to dismantle some guards (since the position was literally “temporary”) and the number decreased to 57,000 as of 2000.

In 2000 Turkish Parliament cancelled the TVG recruitment Law but in 2005 legally gave the TVGs a government employee status with health and retirement benefits. In 2007, the law was reinstated with additional benefits such as family health coverage and a certain retirement age (55) for village guards who served within the force for 15 years or more.

Voluntary Village Guards (VVG) (2000-2011)

In 2000, after Ocalan’s capture, PKK was still fighting and the new leadership sheltered in Qandil Mountains turned the organization to a multi-level well-functioning group, quartered 300 km far from Turkey, yet still able to conduct fierce military operations against Turkish Army. Turkey once again needed Village Guards but their numbers were decreased and there were oppositions within the Parliament due to some criminal activities conducted by some of these village guards, the public opinion against this entity was negative, so government decided to employ guards on a voluntary basis, and they enabled this with a second amendment to Law 3175. According to Law 3175-2; anybody who were under the threat of a PKK attack would be able to apply for a “Voluntary Village Guard” position and his individual application would be followed and decided by town governors-Kaymakams- 

The central government gave the overall responsibility for Voluntary Guards’ employment to provincial officials and gendarme commanders. According to the Voluntary Guard regulations;

They were not given the same rights as the Temporary Village Guards,

They would not get any retirement benefits, nor would be paid by the government.

They would be given a rifle, 4 magazines and 300 ammunition, and should they use it during a fight or a PKK attack, they were supposed to get the approval or confirmation of the local gendarme (later army) commander they were working for. (*)

Again, the volunteers were required to have a clean security history and they (and their families) were required to be distant to any PKK activities.

Their primary duty would be protecting their villages/territories against PKK and other threats or unlawful activities (e.g. smuggling). In case they were needed for a wide scale military operation, they would be paid and provided extra ammunition.

As of 2011, the approximate number of Temporary and Volunteer Village Guards are announced as 71,646. (69,000+ in the Kurdish region, some 2,500 are in the west, north and southern regions) In 2013, AKP Government announced that they’re working on a new law regarding Temporary/Voluntary Guards and added that despite the peace process and PKK opposition against this system, majority of the Kurds who used to work within the force, do not want government to dismantle them.

Tribal Factors

For 1980s and 1990s, the effect of Tribe Leaders and elders were significant on Kurdish societies. Especially Sunni Kurdish Tribes were not supporting PKK and Ocalan was targeting tribe leaders, and threatening their authority, so especially prominent Kurdish Tribes with large populations, chose to side with the Government and became the initial/main source for the first TVG troops.

Buldan Tribe (Sanliurfa), Babatlar (Sirnak), Meman Tribe (Mardin), Tatar Tribe (Cizre), Ezdinan Tribe (Van), Jirki tribe (Sirnak-Hakkari-Semdinli), Pinyanish Tribe (Mus), Ertushi Tribe (Bitlis) were the hard line Ankara supporters and main Village Guard sources, yet all the leaders of these tribes were connected to the system through  politics, business or other financial channels.

Sons and immediate relatives of some of these tribal leaders were protected by the Turkish government, some were located in police academies, military high schools, and some promising ones were funded for college education (Medicine, Education, and War Colleges) in Ankara or other big cities. In 1998, Head of Buldans and Babats were chosen as MPs and served in a coalition government. (Buldan, Tatar and Ertushi from Ciller’s True Path Party-Dogru Yol Partisi-; Babat from Nationalist Movement-MHP-)

1995 and afterwards were also significant due to the unofficial “cheap oil/diesel” trade between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey managed this unofficial traffic secretly, tolerating Village Guard tribes to bring thousands of liters of diesel from Zakho, Duhok, and Irbil through Turkish border gates of Habur. The trucks would leave Turkey with some insignificant amount of food, cans, flour, onions or butter, filing import documents destined to Kurdish cities and would come back no less than 500 liters of diesel loaded into special tanks located in their back or chassis.

This trade became so popular in 1997s that every VG family who had 3-4 people within the force, would assign rest of their sons or elderly as truck drivers. These VG related drivers would easily get trade permission from Gendarme and provincial government and start bringing and selling diesel. They would sell the cheap diesel to any gas station below the market rate, and the gas station would sell it on the market rate, which back then, was a win-win situation. The profit margin was so big, that Turkish government had to limit the trade with a quota of 100 liters per passage. In 2000, Turkey banned the sale of the cheap oil to individual buyers. Lots of state oil collection stations were opened in Silopi-Cizre-Mardin-Diyarbakir and the cheap oil were purchased by the State for fixed price. (The State sold this collected oil to big buyers with official bids and tenders.)

Use of TVG/VVGs

Initially, the purpose for recruiting TVGs or VVGs was establishing security in the remote areas that the military troops were distant. Guards were required to protect their territories/villages until a military assistance arrived. They were also responsible to be the eyes and ears of the closest gendarme post, and required to support them when needed and inform them about the ongoing PKK activities, close to their regions.

But the Army noticed the warrior potential of the guards. They were almost a match for the PKK fighters, pretty good with the mountain operations and were mostly natural pathfinders. So Army decided to use this potential and started assigning Guards for military operations.

At the beginning; they were participating small scale Gendarme Company operations as path finders and security elements, with the order of the town/village company commander. They were providing translation and security, opening fire against attackers only in an emergency. But their potential was an opportunity for Turkish Army, who back then, had only 3 Commando Brigades, 3 Gendarme Commando Regiments and Special Forces ODAs for an effective combat against PKK. The rest of the Gendarme and border Infantry troops were ineffective and TVGs would literally be a Force Multiplier. So Army and Gendarme decided to support their medium and wide scale military operations with TVG/VVG units, which later turned into a regular battle drill.

Every Army brigade positioned in the South-East of Turkey, started to develop their operation plans with TVG troop assignments, some even established battalion size TVG troops. These troops played a crucial role in Army’s cross-border operations into Northern Iraq in 2001, 2002 and 2007. For some specific tribes like; Babats of Sirnak/Senoba, Jirkis of Sirnak and Hakkari, Tatars of Cizre, company level (60-100) or battalion level (200 or more) TVG operations against PKK, -without participation of military- were conducted within Turkish borders and the results were more than satisfactory.

Change of the Political Atmosphere and Disengagements from TVG/VVG Ranks

AKP government faced a lot of opposition for TVG/VVG existence, both from Kurdish groups in the parliament and political opposition groups. But until 2012, right before the peace-talks process, village guards-despite some disputes, misbehavior, corruption and anti-disciplinary actions- were preserving their importance for the fight against PKK.

The above statement does not indicate that there were no disengagements among Guards’ ranks until 2012. Especially from 2000 to 2006; PKK showed a lot progress of influence in Van and Hakkari regions, which resolved in having 5 major Kurdish Tribes dissolving from the Village Guard system. In Hakkari region; some villages of Shidan, Jirki tribes, in Sirnak region villages of Goyan Tribe and in Batman and Sason regions, villages of Keko and Temok tribes decided to leave the system due to the changing military balance and pressure from PKK. Turkey’s response, according to some political media news and bloggers, was harsh which resulted in forcing the occupants of these villages leave the region. Most of them immigrated into Iraqi Kurdistan and found refuge in UN Camps like Makhmur. Some moved into big Kurdish cities like Diyarbakir and Van and became PKK supporters, both politically and militarily engaging within PKK ranks.

Numbers and Tribes for Village Guard Organization (2000-2004)

Province	Number of T.V.G	Number of V.V.G	Population	Supporting Tribes*
Hakkari	7,643	5	236,581	Jirki, Shidan, Geylan
Sirnak	6,935	2,433	353,197	Babat, Goyan, Tatar, Tayan, Jirki
Siirt	4,680	460	236,676	Kherzan, Amar, Khalilan, Mamedi, Aziyan
Bitlis	3,896	3,366	388,678	Bekiran, Bedikan, Buban, Shego
Bingol	2,655	74	235,279	Bayiki, Beritan, Canbek, Gazili
Mus	2,147	2,375	453,654	Pinyanish, Beritan, Batikan
Batman	2,943	1,019	456,734	Batikan, Reshkotan
Van	7,365	220	877,524	Burukan, Bekiran
Mardin	3,860	1,226	705,098	Omeri, Kehraman
Tunceli	386	89	93,584	Elhanli, Beritan
Diyarbakir	5,814	2,141	1,362,708	Deger, Ensari, Ertushi
Elazig	2,124	-	569,616	Dirijan, Izol,Eliki
Agri	1,881	-	528,744	Sepki, Zilanli
Adiyaman	1,563	-	623,811	Rishvan, Shemski
Kahramanmaras	2,267	-	1,002,384	Agacheri, Eliki
Igdir	377	-	168,634	Bekiran, Redkan
Kars	578	-	325,016	Beskan, Badili
Malatya	1,632	-	853,658	Dirijan, Rishvan
Ardahan	96	-	133,756	Beziki,
Sanliurfa	966	-	1,433,422	Bucak, Izol, Sheyhanli
Gaziantep	565	-	1,285,249	Sheyhanli, Rishvan
Kilis	34	-	114,734	Sheyhanli
TOTAL	60,407	13,408		73,815

Table-1 Number of Village Guards in provinces governed with State of Emergency Laws in 2004 (Records of Turkish Ministry of Interior)

*Tribes’ guard support information is general, indicating the dominant tribe for the specific province.

Village Guards’ Possible Future as a political and military entity within Turkey’s Kurdish Problem

Following the AKP government’s new regulation on Village Guards’ Status in 2009, a large  position for 60,000 opened for new applicants, which was a sign that Turkey had no intentions to shut down the program. But a group of village guards’ attack to a rival tribe and killings of 44 civilians (6 of them Village Guards of Mardin’s Bilge Village) in on May 2009 forced government to set up and investigate the malpractice and lawlessness of the system.

Turkish Ministry of Interior and Gendarme General Command’s plan was to employ some 90,000 village guards in total (both temporary and volunteer) till the end of 2011 but the Parliamentary Commission’s report on the organization was negative and it was suggesting further and detailed investigations, and the recruitment program halted. With the beginning of peace talks between Turkey and PKK leadership in 2012, the fate of the Guards became infertile.

In 2012; 4 major tribes, Jirki, Beritan, Izol and Pinyanish -all, main personnel sources of the program- stepped back and refused to support the system. (In 2011 the total number of the Guards were announced as 71,646) These tribes were followed by some sub-branches of other major tribes (Ensari, Burukan, Geylan, Babat, Batikan) causing some significant dissolve within the organization. Some political media groups suggest that the number of Guards in Diyarbakir, Hakkari, Bingol, Mus, Van and Batman are shrinking, yet neither Ministry of Interior nor General Command are keen to provide numbers.

In 2013, AKP Government announced that they’re working on a new law regarding Temporary/Voluntary Guards and added that despite the peace process and PKK opposition against this system, majority of the Kurds who used to work within the force, do not want government to dismantle them. This can also be verified through the 2014 local elections and presidential elections. Kurdish candidate Selahattin Demirtas was able to secure %9.7 of the general votes, but the victor of the elections with %51.6, Prime Minister Erdogan was also successful of getting Kurdish votes. He got the majority of Kurdish votes in Antep, Urfa, Bingol, Adiyaman, Erzurum, Kars, and Bitlis. In other Kurdish cities he was able to get significant amount of Kurdish votes: (Van %42, Mardin %38, Diyarbakir %35, Sirnak %14, Mus %36, Batman %38, Siirt %42, Hakkari %16, Agri %36, Igdir %38, Tunceli %14)

According to the Turkey’s Higher Election Agency 2014 August records, the number of the Kurdish presidential votes for Erdogan is:

Agri 72,356
Igdir 18,964
Tunceli 5,979
Diyarbakir 214,115
Mardin 119,362
Bingol 79,538
Mus 61,250
Siirt 51,379
Sirnak 28,243
Van 174,369 
Bitlis 72,139.

These numbers well indicate that Erdogan Government is still able to employ and maintain a significant number of Village Guard troops.