David Nissman is President of the Turkic Information Center (USA) and an expert on Central Asian issues

The route of the oil pipeline that is to carry the Caspian's oil riches to the West has become a matter for heated debate between Russia and Turkey. Until the question is resolved, Azerbaijan and the oil consortium will be unable to cash in on its investments in money effort.

Russia is extolling the virtues of a route that will pass over the North Caucasus (including Chechnya) to the Black Sea port of Novorossisk. Turkey favors a route that will pass through Iran and Turkey to a Mediterranean outlet.

Both routes have definite advantages and definite shortcomings. A Russian Lukoil official praised the virtues of the Russian route by stressing the disadvantages of the Turkish option: in November, just before the outbreak of the Russian-Chechen war, Vasilenko said that "blueprints for extending the pipeline through Turkey pass over 'Kurdistan'. Neither Russia nor Turkey can do anything about the Kurds". [ AZADLYG - November 8, 1994] He emphasized this point at the end of January by pointing out that not only did the projected pipeline pass through Turkish Kurdistan, but also Iranian Kurdistan. [AZADLYG - January 28, 1995] The alternative, a Russian route, would pass either through or around Chechnya, a matter which Vasilenko dismisses.

The critical issue is whether Russia can control the Kurds. The Kurds have been under the protection of Russia since the early nineteenth century. This protection is still in place. Recently, for example, the CIS Kurdish Council was formed in Moscow; the Kurdish Council is an outgrowth of several other Moscow based Kurdish organizations that began to appear during the Gorbachev period. Yuri Nabiyev, a member of the Council, defined the functions of the Council as uniting the Kurds living in the CIS and creating "favorable conditions for the Kurdish National Liberation struggle". ["Interview with CIS Kurdish Council member Yuri Nabiyev," Daily News Report from Armenia, November 10, 1994]

Moscow's involvement with Kurdish affairs has intensified since the end of the 1980s: a commission on problems of the Kurdish population was established by the USSR Supreme Soviet in 1990. One of its immediate concerns was the arrival of some 2 thousand Kurds among some 30 thousand refugees of other nationalities in Krasnodar by the end of 1990. The number of Kurds in the Krasnodar area had swollen to five thousand by 1992. Most of these Kurds were fleeing the Armenian-Azerbaijan war, but many were from Central Asia. Also involved with the question this influx of Kurds posed was the Center for Kurdish Culture which had been established in Moscow in 1989. Its goal was not only to serve the Kurdish interest in the then USSR but also to liaise with Kurdish organizations abroad.

At the June 1990 Moscow conference of representatives of the Kurdish population which was hosted by the Center for Kurdish Culture a second organization was formed, the Kurdish Unity Front. The ultimate objective of the Center and the Unity Front was the "establishment of the national-cultural autonomy of the Kurdish people". {Bugay, Broyev and Broyev, Sovetskie Kurdy (Moscow, 1993), p. 121]

In Krasnodar in 1992, the PKK (the militant arm of the Kurdish movement), together with the Moscow based Kurdish organizations hosted a Kurdish meeting in Krasnodar, which was attended by 102 elected military commander of the Lachin Kurdish Republic. Aslan was formerly with the Kurdish broadcasting section of Radio Yerevan. While reports on this event were sparse, and those which did surface could have been easily dismissed as Turkish propaganda, confirmation of its occurrence gradually became available: in 1992 Alikhane Mame, deputy president of the Kurdish Liberation Movement (another Moscow based group), tied the Kurdish fate to an ultimate Armenian victory in the Karabagh conflict. Furthermore, he stated the Kurdish options to be: declaration of the Lachin region to be a Kurdish republic recognized by the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh; recognition of an autonomous Kurdish territory within the RNK; or the establishment of a federated state between Lachin and the RNK. [GAMK (Paris) November 22, 1992]

The Kurds, however, have not fared well in the Karabakh conflict. An appeal by the Kurdish Cultural Center in Baku (no relation to the Moscow organization) noted that over 20 thousand Muslim Kurds have been driven out of Armenia and Armenian-occupied territory since the beginning of hostilities in 1988; as for the Yezidi Kurds, who live primarily in Armenia, the appeal adds that "ill-intentioned Armenian politicians made an effort to settle them in the Lachin region . . . and promised them autonomy". [AZERBAYJAN - July 8, 1994] Yuri Nabiyev was asked whether conditions would be favorable for the return of the Kurds after the settlement of the Karabagh conflict. He answered that it would be good to have Kurdistan as a buffer zone between Armenia and Azerbaijan. He also noted that "Kurds like Russians and Armenians. When Ojalan learned that Kurds were arrested in Armenia he was very surprised". (Ojalan is the head of the PKK).

Moscow's involvement with the Kurds continues. A report in the Washington Post stated that in 1994, "Moscow hosted a Kurdish Workers Party. Turkey interpreted the meeting as a sign that Russia would not hesitate to play the 'Kurdish card' against Turkey". [WP December 4, 1994, p. A44] Russia is very skilled in using ethnic groups to achieve its own goals. Right now, one of its goals is to have a pipeline built over Russian territory to the Black Sea. In view of the Chechnya war, perhaps it would be in the Russian interest to use the Turkish pipeline route rather than one passing through a region of continuing conflict. If this were the case, Russia could then use some of the influence it claims not to have to promote stability along the Turkish pipeline corridor.

Caspian Crossroads, Num.1, Winter 1995