Turkey is aware of the sensitivities of the Kurdish people of northern Iraq and does not want to lose their friendship. Thus Turkey has no intention of imposing an electricity embargo in northern Iraq that will actually hurt the ordinary Kurd. The halt of Turkish electricity to northern Iraq is due to the electricity shortage because of the lack of natural gas from Iran.
Recent claims that Turkey is putting pressure on the Iraqi Kurds by imposing an electricity embargo are not true. Turkish authorities categorically reject the idea of cutting power supplies to the people of the Kurdish region in Iraq in these cold months.
They do admit that Turkey has been forced to stop
sales of electricity to Iraq as a whole because of serious energy shortages created by the Iranian move to stop natural gas exports to Turkey.
Turkey produces much of its energy through natural gas powered power plants. So when Iran cut natural gas exports to Turkey nearly two weeks ago Turkey was confronted with a serious energy shortage. The Turkish Ministry of Energy told the electricity producers to switch to using diesel in the power plants for power generation. Meanwhile, the ministry also told all the power plants that use diesel to increase their production and serve the Turkish consumers. They also told the power plant in Silopi to stop exports to Iraq and provide electricity for Turkish consumption.
Iran has now resumed natural gas exports to Turkey but they are still much below the old levels. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Iranian President Ahmedinejad and urged him to order the resumption of natural gas exports to Turkey. Despite promises nothing happened.
Experts say Iran had been selling the natural gas that it was purchasing from Turkmenistan but a price dispute has halted Turkmen gas sales thus there has been a crisis. So faced with a shortage Iran in turn cut supplies to Turkey.
Turkish officials say they are aware of the
sensitivities of the people of in Iraq in general and in the Kurdish region in particular. They say Turkey did not impose an electricity embargo against the Kurdish region of Iraq even when tensions were high because of the PKK so why should it impose such sanctions now when things are improving and the Iraqi Kurdish government is not objecting to limited military action against the PKK in northern Iraq.
Turkey has made an analysis before on what happened if economic sanctions were imposed on northern Iraq. It came to the conclusion that the poor people and ordinary Kurds would suffer while the rich and people who run the country would not be affected.
If Turkey cuts electricity Turkish authorities
realized that the rich people would use their own
generators for supplying their own electricity but the poor masses would suffer. This would mean the ordinary Kurd would be alienated and would blame Turkey.
Turkey did not want to antagonize or create enemies for itself from the ordinary Kurds. So sanctions were out of the question.
Turkish authorities say they value the friendship of the Kurdish people and will resume electricity exports as soon as the natural gas situation turns to normal.You do not sleep at rest when your neighboring is
suffering.
Editor's note: This article was also published in
Hawler Post in Erbil, northern Iraq.
