库尔德人成中东破局关键
The Kurds have never been as influential in the Middle East as they are today. They hold the balance of power in Iraq and Syria, and are in the midst of an insurrection in Turkey. But this Kurdish awakening is different from previous ones — in Iraq in the 1970s or Turkey in the 1990s. Powers great and small have to contend with Kurdish demands as never before.
库尔德人在中东的影响力从来没有像今天这样大。在伊拉克和叙利亚，他们是维持平衡状态的关键力量；在土耳其，他们发起反叛运动。但是，库尔德人的此次觉醒不同于以往的两次——上世纪70年代在伊拉克的那次、以及上世纪90年代在土耳其的那次。大大小小的势力要挑战库尔德人的诉求，从未像现在这样艰难。
The US finds itself reluctantly drawn into this Kurdish denouement; it needs the Kurds as much as it needs the Turks in its efforts to defeat Isis, the jihadi group. Yet America’s primary ally in Syria, the Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD), is being bombarded by its longstanding Nato ally, Turkey. The PYD has proven itself to be the most, if not the only, effective force against Isis; almost all the territory the jihadis have lost since conquering parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014 has been to PYD militias working in tandem with the US air force. The Turks consider the PYD, which is intimately linked to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), as nothing more than a terrorist organisation.
美国发现自己被动卷入了这场库尔德大戏。在努力击败圣战者组织“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”(ISIS)的过程中，美国像需要土耳其人那样需要库尔德人。然而，美国在叙利亚的主要盟友——库尔德民主联盟党(PYD)，遭到了美国在北约(Nato)中的长期盟友土耳其的连续轰炸。库尔德民主联盟党事实上已经是打击ISIS最有效（甚至可能是唯一有效）的力量；ISIS自2014年占领伊拉克和叙利亚部分区域以来丢失的领土，几乎全都是失给了库尔德民主联盟党和美国空军的联合行动。土耳其人认为，库尔德民主联盟党无非是一个恐怖组织。库尔德民主联盟党与土耳其的库尔德工人党(PKK)有密切联系。
While the US cannot satisfy all parties, the current conundrum also offers opportunities to Washington to push for a grand bargain between Turkey on the one hand and the Syrian and Turkish Kurds on the other that would benefit all sides involved in the region, as well as the US and its struggle against Isis.
尽管美国不可能满足所有各方的要求，但当前困局也为华盛顿提供了机会，可以努力去撮合土耳其与叙利亚和土耳其库尔德人之间达成一笔重大交易。该交易将惠及中东所有相关方，以及美国和美国打击ISIS的战情。
There is also a sense of urgency as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, mired in his own controversial effort to transform the Turkish republic from a parliamentary system into a presidential one that would give him wide if not unlimited powers, engages in a dangerous game of brinkmanship.
考虑到土耳其总统雷杰普吠伊普埃尔多安(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)正在玩一场危险的边缘政策游戏，此举也具有一种紧迫感。埃尔多安自己的一种引发争议的尝试眼下也正陷于胶着——他正推动把土耳其共和国由议会制转变为总统制，从而为自己谋取更大（甚至可能是不受限制）的权力。
He has raised the political ante not just by shelling PYD positions in Syria — shells are designed to hurt the PYD as much as disrupt the PYD-American relationship — but also attributing a recent terrorist attack in Ankara to the PYD, despite the latter’s denials and the rest of the world’s disbelief. Turkey does not want to differentiate between the PKK and the PYD, despite the efforts of PYD leader Salih Muslim to convince the Turks that the group has no design on Turkish territory and, on the contrary, seeks to co-operate with Ankara.
他已提高了政治赌注，不仅炮击叙利亚境内的库尔德民主联盟党阵地（其目的不仅在于减损库尔德民主联盟党的力量，还在于破坏该党和美国之间的关系），还把库尔德民主联盟党说成是不久前发生在安卡拉的一次恐怖袭击的幕后黑手（尽管该党矢口否认，世界其他地区也不相信）。土耳其非要视库尔德工人党和库尔德民主联盟党为一丘之貉——尽管库尔德民主联盟党领袖萨利赫穆斯利姆(Salih Muslim)努力让土耳其人相信，该党不仅不想染指土耳其领土，相反还寻求与土耳其政府合作。
What worries Mr Erdogan is that in three of the countries with sizeable Kurdish minorities — Turkey, Iraq and Syria — the Kurds are on the move. Only in Iran has the regimebeen more or less successful in holding down overt manifestations of Kurdish nationalism, and then only through repression.
令埃尔多安感到担忧的是，在土耳其、伊拉克和叙利亚这三个人口占少数的库尔德人达到相当数量的国家里，库尔德人都在活跃起来。唯有在伊拉克，当局差不多成功地压制住了库尔德民族主义的公开彰显，但这还是靠的镇压。
Iraqi Kurds, thanks to American intervention, have now established an internationally recognised autonomous federal zone in northern Iraq. Ankara has excellent relations with the leadership of the Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG, and is its single-most important trading partner. The KRG remains an important, if incomplete, symbol of Kurdish self-determination.
得益于美国的干预，伊拉克的库尔德人如今在伊拉克北部建立了一块得到国际承认的联邦自治区。土耳其政府与库尔德地区政府(KRG)的领导人之间保持着融洽的关系，并是后者最重要的单一贸易伙伴。库尔德地区政府仍是库尔德民族自决的一个重要（虽然可能不充分）的标志。
Turkish Kurds have either been in a state of insurrection or resolute political activism since the 1990s. That has been down to the PKK’s prowess and, more recently, because the main Kurdish political party, the People’s Democratic party, or HDP, performed extremely well — and won support from a broad range of liberal Turks — in the first of two national elections in 2015.
自上世纪90年代以来，土耳其库尔德人不是处于反叛状态，就是在开展坚决的政治行动。一直以来这要归因于库尔德工人党的强大，近期而言，则也是因为主要的亲库尔德派政党人民民主党(HDP)在2015年两场大选中的第一场表现优异，并赢得了土耳其自由派人士的广泛支持。
The Kurdish issue has come to dominate Turkey’s politics. In the process, it has also transformed itself from a primarily rural to an urban and far more sophisticated movement.
库尔德人问题已成为主导土耳其政治的一个议题。在这个过程中，它已逐渐地由一个主要局限在农村地区的问题，转变成为一场立足都市的、比以往复杂得多的运动。
Mr Erdogan fears that out of the ashes of the Syrian civil war, a new Syrian-Kurdish KRG-like state will arise. Turkey could then face two autonomous Kurdish neighbours on its southern border. This may lead Turkey’s Kurds to seek the same. To his credit, Mr Erdogan had begun peace negotiations with the PKK. However, he repudiated the agreement (which had been signed by his lieutenants) when the PKK rejected his demand that it force the PYD to abandon its quest in northern Syria.
埃尔多安担心，从叙利亚内战的灰烬中，将走出一个新的、类似库尔德地区政府的叙利亚库尔德国家。届时，土耳其在南部可能就要与两个库尔德人自治政府接壤了。这或许会推动土耳其的库尔德人追求同等地位。值得称道的是，埃尔多安曾经已经开启与库尔德工人党的和谈。然而，当库尔德工人党拒绝了埃尔多安提出的由该党迫使库尔德民主联盟党放弃在叙利亚北部行动的要求时，他拒绝了（他的手下签署的）协议。
The present situation is unstable and could spin out of control, especially with Mr Erdogan calling on the US to choose between Turkey and the PYD. There is, however, a win-win bargain that the US could broker. In exchange for a ceasefire and withdrawal of PKK combatants from Turkey into northern Iraq and Syria, Turkey would promise not to interfere in Syrian Kurdish territories.
当前局势并不稳定，还可能会发生失控，尤其是考虑到埃尔多安正呼吁美国在土耳其和库尔德民主联盟党之间做出选择。然而，美国有可能促成一项双赢协议。为换取停火和库尔德工人党武装撤出土耳其、进入到伊拉克和叙利亚北部，土耳其可承诺不对叙利亚的库尔德人所占领土进行干预。
The advantages of this deal would include a cessation of the hostilities in Turkey that have left parts of Kurdish areas as devastated as Syrian cities, and claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians and more than 300 security personnel. A deal would also allow the PYD and the US to focus on Isis, while also strengthening the Syrian Kurds’ claim for an equitable post-civil war outcome.
这一协议的好处将包括，结束土耳其境内的敌对状态，这种敌对已使得部分库尔德人区域像叙利亚城市那样满目疮痍，数千平民和逾300名安保人员丧生。该协议也将让库尔德民主联盟党和美国能够专心对付ISIS，同时也将让叙利亚库尔德人要求在内战后实现公平结果的主张更加有力。
