Did Erdoan's UN speech pave the way for Kurdish independence?

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan addressed three main themes. The first was the demonization of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and concomitant embrace of Hamas; the second was the plea for the independence of Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus; and the third, his usual demand for reform of the United Nations Security Council.

Erdoan likes to describe himself as a peacemaker. Perhaps the international community should take him at his word and apply the precedents Erdoan adopts to conflicts involving Turkey.

Start first with his reading of international affairs. Erdoan said: Just as Hitler was stopped by an alliance of humanity 70 years ago, Netanyahu and his murderous network must be stopped by the alliance of humanity. Erdoan remembers history poorly. Turkey remained neutral in the fight against Hitler and the Nazis until late February 1945, long after the Allied liberation of Paris and just weeks before the Allied invasion of Germany. If Turkey had not supplied the German war machine with chromite and other military-industrial materials, Hitler's end might have come even sooner.

In the Middle East today, Erdoan is the one who most resembles Hitler. Israel is waging a defensive war; in the WWII analogy, it looks more like Poland, democratic but surrounded by countries seeking to wipe it off the map. Turkey is irredentist and claims Greek, Bulgarian, Iraqi and Syrian territories; it treats northern Cyprus like the Sudetenland. In March 2024, Erdoan lamented that Turkish troops had not pushed further inside Cyprus during the 1974 invasion. Perhaps if we had pushed south, and I say this as that child of the present, Erdogan saidthere would be no more south or north and Cyprus would be ours alone.

Erdoan views Cyprus only through the prism of Turkish imperialism, but his statements set precedents far beyond the island. At the United Nations, he declaredThere are two distinct states and two distinct peoples on the island. Today, I once again call on the international community to recognize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and establish diplomatic, political and economic relations with it.

Very good, but if there are two peoples in Cyprus, what about Somalia? Somaliland was briefly independent in 1960 and was Actually independent since 1991. Its people want international recognition, but Turkey sells weapons to Mogadishu and intervenes diplomatically to undermine Somaliland's freedom.

In reality, Erdo's understanding of Cyprus falls flat. Turkish settlers are not synonymous with Turkish Cypriots. When the settlers and Turkish troops leave, the island's reintegration as a cosmopolitan gas and banking hub of the Mediterranean will become easy. There is wisdom in Erdoan's philosophy, however, but only if it is applied closer to home. The Kurds of Türkiye increasingly constitute a people apart. Erdoan may be right that the world has never recognized Kurdistan, but the Kurds have a greater claim to a distinct territory and culture than the Palestinians have historically done. The Kurds have long identified themselves as such; before 1948, Palestinian Arabs largely considered themselves Syrian. But the fact that Kurdistan was never independent no longer matters. If Turkey can retroactively recognize the borders of Palestine, the international community can also recognize Kurdistan from Mardin to Malatya and from Urfa to Igdir, with its capital in Diyarbakir. Erdoan might complain that such a move rewards the terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but this argument does not hold when Erdoan joins Hamas.

Erdoan's argument for UN reform meets resistance. The world has changed a lot since the creation of the United Nations in 1945. Perhaps the world could meet its the world is bigger than five requires halfway. Turkey may have nearly 90 million people today, but after Kurdistan's independence, it will be a shadow of its former self. Greece, however, is the heir to an ancient culture and could well represent the Eastern Mediterranean as a permanent member of the Security Council. The inclusion of Israel could also provide the necessary balance and reorient the UN towards peace rather than rhetorical pogroms.

So yes, Mr. Erdoan. Thank you for your ideas. The best way to test the virtue and merit of your ideas is to implement them elsewhere. Perhaps you could even visit the Diyarbakir Citadel when Abdullah Calan raises the flag of Kurdistan over the world's newest independent state.