TURKISH KURDS: OVERJOYED BY END OF SADDAM

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 002467 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/15/2013 TAGS: PGOV PREL TU SUBJECT: TURKISH KURDS: OVERJOYED BY END OF SADDAM (U) Classified by Political Counselor John Kunstadter. Reason:1.5(b)(d) ¶1. (C) In April 15 discussions about the situation in Iraq, a leading Kurdish political activist from Turkey's Southeast and two business associates offered enthusiastic congratulations to the USG for the Coalition's success against the Saddam regime. According to these Kurds: -- Turkey did the USG a favor by not passing the March 1 resolution that would have allowed deployment of U.S. and Turkish troops to N. Iraq. If the resolution had passed, they said, the Turks would have entered N. Iraq "and it would have been a disaster" for the USG and the region. Turkey is now in a bind; the key to getting the Turks to play ball is to maintain the pressure on them -- not to accede to their demands. -- Their relatives in Syria are "ecstatic, too." "If only the Americans will drop bombs on us and get rid of Assad," their relatives say. "When are the U.S. troops going to come?" they say their relatives are asking. -- The Turkish State is making it difficult for Turkish Kurds to do business in N. Iraq or participate in reconstruction. They said they can conclude construction deals with Barzani but the deals won't become a reality without GOT support. The Turkish State is trying to push Turkey's Kurdish businessmen into the arms of "Turkmen companies." Otherwise, the Turkish authorities deny permission to do anything: "we get blocked...unless we associate with an American partner." -- Turkish intellectuals, whether "secularist" or Islamist, are blinded by ideology, lack of information, and hostile to USG regional interests. As a result, most Turkish press commentators and others got it completely wrong on Iraq and ignored signs of the Iraqi people's distaste for Saddam. ¶2. (C) We have heard similar congratulation to the Coalition and expressions of frustration at all forms of authoritarianism in the region, including the Turkish State in their view, from other Turkish Kurds. For instance, senior members of the now-banned HADEP expressed strong support for USG regional efforts in an April 10 meeting with us. A scholarly, Kurdish-origin (Zaza) imam from Gaziantep who has sharply criticized the damage to Islam from radical Islamists and demonstrated great tolerance for Christianity and Judaism in his remarks to us, commented on the identical nature of Kemalism and Leninism in an April 13 conversation and thought it would have been liberating for Turkey "if the U.S. had directed a couple of cruise missiles onto Ataturk's mausoleum." -------------- - Comment: Turks "Doan Wahnt Nobody Nobody Sent" -------------- - ¶3. (C) Like Chicago's legendary political machine, the Turkish State machine is careful about whom it deals with. An interesting angle will thus be the selection of winners in the eventual wheeling and dealing on (sub)contracts that will be part of any Turkish effort to participate in Iraq reconstruction. Given the Turkish State's abiding suspicions about Kurdish aspirations in Turkey and N. Iraq, we think the rate at which Kurdish contractors participate will be a useful barometer of the State's plans for Turkey's Southeast. PEARSON