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Turkey's Relations with Iran, Syria,
Israel, and Russia, 1991-2000 
The Kurdish and
Islamist Questions
Robert Olson
This volume, the second in the Kurdish Studies Series by this
publisher, focuses on the role of the Kurdish and Islamist questions in Turkey’s
foreign policies with Iran, Syria, Israel and Russia from the end of the Persian Gulf War
to 2000.The author argues that the Kurdish question, i.e., the trans-state aspects of the
challenge of Kurdish nationalism coupled with the Islamist question, i.e., the challenge
of contending political groups using the discourse of Islam, were the major challenges to
Turkey during this decade.
The two questions were dominant in relations between Turkey and Iran.
The author concludes, however, that both countries’ wider geopolitic and geostrategic
concerns in the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea Basin, Central Asia and the Middle East
compelled them to cooperate, albeit, at times, reluctantly.
The book emphasizes that the Kurdish question was also the major factor
in Turkey’s relations with Syria and Israel. Damascus’ sheltering of Abdullah
Öcalan, the PKK leader, from 1979 to 1998, along with the accompanying dispute over the
allocation of the downflow of the Euphrates River, were the paramount issues between
Jerusalem and Damascus for nearly two decades. The author argues, further, that it was the
threat of the PKK and Kurdish nationalism that compelled Turkey to seek an alliance with
Israel in 1996.
The Kurdish question was also an important factor in relations between
Turkey and Russia, in spite of the fact that Russia is not a Middle East country. During
the decade of the 1990s, the Kurdish question was inextricably linked to the Chechnya
question, i.e., Russia’s war against the Chechens. During the 1990s the Chechnya
question was linked directly to the future relations of Moscow with its own Muslim
minorities and its Muslim neighbors. As in the case of Iran, the author concludes that
wider geopolitic and geostrategic concerns, especially the control and sharing of the
distributive network of gas and oil pipelines emanating from the Caspian Sea basin,
compelled the two countries not to play their Kurdish card or Muslim card in a manner that
would jeopardized these wider interests.
"The end of the Cold War transformed Turkey’s foreign policy in many ways. In
regional matters, several developments, including the disintegration of the Soviet Union
and the subsequent creation of several independent Turkic republics in Central Asia paved
the way for a new Turkish assertiveness in that region of the world. Developments in Iran
in the aftermath of its Islamic revolution added new twists to the tortuous relations
between Ankara and Tehran and highlighted the saliency of both Kurdish and Islamic factors
in affecting the contours of Turkey-Iran relations. The emerging Turkish-Israeli axis will
undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for Turkey’s relations with its neighbors.
This book has tied these developments together and has presented us with a remarkable
picture of challenges facing Turkey as its navigates to chart a new course for itself in
the region’s geostrategic labyrinth. Robert Olson has an international reputation as
a trailblazer in the academic study of Kurdish issues and Turkish-Kurdish relations. In
this highly informative, analytically sound, and scholarly rigorous book, Professor Olson
sustains that reputation." -Nader Entessar, Spring Hill College.
Specifications:
2001: ix+240pp.,maps,bibl.,index.
ISBN:1-56859-133-0(softcover): $19.95
Kurdish Studies Series, No. 2
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Comprehensive History of the Jews of Iran
Concise History of the Armenian People
Diary of His Majesty the Shah
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Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism
First Dutch-Persian
Heritage of Persia
History of Armenian People I
History of the Armenian People, volume II
History of Qarabagh
History of Safarids
History of the Wars
Iran and Beyond
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Iranians in Achaemenid Babylonia
Khanate Erevan
Kurdish Question and Turkish-Iranian
Nasir-i Khusraw's Book of Travels
Padyavand, Volume I
Padyavand, Volume II
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Qajar Iran
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Safavid Government Institutions
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Sharafnama: History of the Kurish Nation
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