Finnish and Kurdish demilitarized zones

In Turkey people have been made to believe that the country is surrounded by enemies. And because of this the army must be strong. But Turkey has never had a war against its neighbour countries during the 85 years of independence. Turkish army has been fighting only against its own people. Even in North Iraq army's target has been Kurds who are Turkish citizens.
Looking from an European perspective Turkey's neighbours are not too aggressive. But Turkey has the fifth biggest army in the world.

The situation of Kurdish Autonomous Area is opposite to that. It is really surrounded by enemies. And the situation is opposite to Turkey even so that peshmergas do not have other weapons than kalashnikovs, and some old panzers taken from the escaping Saddam soldiers in 1991.

This lack of heavy arms surprised me when I visited North Iraq in spring. In Turkey I have got used of seeing panzers and hearing the sound of military airplanes and helicopters all the time. Kurdish autonomous area has became a demilitarized zone without any one planning is purposefully.

Maybe the Kurdish leaders hope to buy F 16 -aeroplanes and Cobra helicopters and put peshmergas to pilot school as soon as possible. I am not a military expert but my suggestion is that why not keep North Iraq a demilitarized zone also in the future? And make it a real demilitarized area where security is not based even on kalashnikovs. At least it would be cheaper than buying expensive military technology. With the exemption that a good radar system is a necessity.

This came to my mind because my country, Finland, has a demilitarized zone, Aland Islands. They are located between Finland and Sweden. Aland is nearer to Sweden.
30 000 people, who live there, speak Swedish. There was a referendum in 1921 where the people could decide whether they want to be part of Sweden or Finland. They choose autonomy in Finland.

One part of the autonomy plan made by the League of Nations in was that the islands are a demilitarized zone. The area was strategically important especially at those days when St. Petersburg was the Russian capital. It lies by the Baltic Sea. Aland Islands lie in the same sea and who controls them has good possibility to control all boat traffic to St. Petersburg. The decision made whole the sea more peaceful.

Despite times are now different than during the days of the first world war, Kurds should study the autonomy of Aland islands. Maybe there are aspects which are useful for them. Also in other issues Kurds look now at decisions made at those days.

The autonomy and demilitarization of Aland has been successful because it was guaranteed by the international community. An area without arms can live in peace only if demilitarization is made with strong enough international quarantine. When Western countries now desperately want to remove their troops from Iraq maybe a demilitarized buffer zone in the north would be a acceptable solution even for them. International agreements would only legalize the situation which de facto already exists.

This text is published in Gulan, it is in Kurdish here.