Turkey's Rival Play Kurd Card

Although Turkey is not an Arab country, the Arab Spring is shaping Turkish affairs in important ways. Political changes in the country’s neighborhood have ended the equilibrium between Syria, Turkey, and Iran over the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that has waged a violent campaign against Turkey for decades. This has meant the end of the Pax Adana, a regional balance characterized by the Syrian and Iranian promise not to support the PKK. In 1998, Damascus signed a protocol with Ankara in the southern Turkish city of Adana promising to cease its support for the PKK. Iran joined in on that consensus in 2003. Now, Syrian and Iranian support for the PKK is back in the spotlight as Syria’s disintegration and Turkish-Iranian competition demolish the foundations of the former status-quo.