Turkey's Kurd initiative goes up in smoke By Stephen Starr
ADANA, Turkey - Clashes continued for a fifth day in Turkey on Tuesday
following a court decision to outlaw the main Kurdish political party, the
Democratic Society Party (DTP). The violence, prompted by a string of events
including the killing of Turkish soldiers last week, threatens to undo Ankara's
recent efforts to rein in militant Kurdish elements and bring an end to over 25
years of troubles that have seen between 30,000 and 45,000 people killed.
Violence has engulfed cities across the country from Istanbul, where on Sunday
pro-Kurdish and pro-Turkish demonstrators
clashed, to the predominantly Kurdish cities of the southeast, where police and
civilians have fought street battles.
Snowballing of events On December 7, fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) ambushed a
gendarmerie patrol in Resadiye, close to Samsun in the north of the country,
killing seven soldiers. Before this, protests over the allegedly deteriorating
prison conditions of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, jailed since 1999, erupted in
Van and Diyarbakir, with a 23-year-old Kurdish student killed on December 6 in
Diyarbakir.
Turkish television aired chaotic scenes on Sunday night as hundreds of
protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police vehicles in Hakkari and
Van.
Following the killings of the soldiers, a Turkish constitutional court cited
the DTP's links to militant Kurdish elements, accusing it of being a "focal
point for terrorism". The co-chair of the party, Ahmet Turk, was then banned
from political proceedings and stripped of his parliamentary seat by a decision
delivered on Friday. Nineteen other lawmakers from the party now find
themselves without jobs while a total of 37 members of the party have been
banned from joining any political party for five years. The DTP is the 27th
party to be shut down since 1968.
On Monday, leaders of the DTP, the only Kurdish party in parliament, met in
Diyarbakir to discuss what steps to take following the ban. Leaders, however,
announced that no members would officially resign amid fears of a split in the
party.
"If the pro-Kurdish party leaves parliament, the Kurds will be further
disenfranchised, for sure," Taylan Bilgic, the managing editor of Hurriyet
Daily News and Economic Review, told Asia Times Online. "But also, the
situation might trigger a 'regional election' in the southeast of the country,
which would psychologically further magnify the division between the region and
the rest of the country,"
A DTP deputy told a Turkish newspaper that party members would oppose the
closure verdict at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg.
A columnist from the Zaman newspaper, Bulent Kenes, said on Monday that "most
of this blame goes to the political parties and parliament, which have paved
the road leading to party closures." He said Turkey is "repeating attitudes and
patterns that not only offer no assistance in solving acute problems but also
worsen wounds that are getting ready to heal".
The European Union also criticized the Turkish government for banning the DTP,
calling for the "utmost restraint" while adding that banning political parties
was "an exceptional measure".
The commission also "regretted that the DTP has continuously refused to clearly
distance itself from the PKK and to condemn terrorism," Amadeu Altafaj Tardio,
a spokesman for the EU's executive commission, told a news conference at the
weekend.
Under the AKP (Justice and Development Party), one of the country's most
popular governing parties, Turkey has moved away from previous administrations'
attempts to increase ties with Europe towards a more independent stance based
on its Islamic roots and its own brand of democracy.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to take a step back from his
initial support for the court's move, saying on Monday, "We are against the
closure of parties. We think individuals should be punished, not a [party]
identity." That said, his comments are likely to have little impact,
considering Turkey's history of banning political movements, and that the DTP's
predecessor organization dissolved itself in 2005.
Relations were warming
There are an estimated 12 million Kurds in Turkey's population of 71 million,
and a further 18 million or so are spread across Iraq, Iran, Syria and other
bordering states.
An understanding that might defuse tension had been thought to have been
reached earlier this year between the PKK and the Ankara government. In
October, eight rebels crossed into Turkey from Iraq to surrender to a Turkish
judge. Recently, the Turkish government has made moves to relax tight
restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language in schools and media and by
launching a state Kurdish-language TV channel, TRT 6. But recently, both sides
appeared to have fallen into old ways.
Bilgic believes the recent disturbances stem from two issues - "The situation
of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in Imrali, plus the recent closure of the DTP.
The government's Kurdish initiative pretty much makes a distinction between the
PKK and the Kurdish issue, thus the PKK and the DTP are irked that the real aim
is to liquidate the Kurdish political movement. They maintain that the problem
and the PKK are inseparable, and to solve the issue the PKK or the DTP should
be seen as interlocutors, which the government rules out, saying this would be
bargaining with terrorists."
Security across southeast Turkey for years has been some of the tightest in the
region, with well-manned gendarmerie checkpoints every few kilometers on the
roads between Silopi, Mardin and Diyarbakir, the regional capital.
Once the DTP is formally banned, as is expected when the court ruling is
published, many expect a replacement party to be formed, a move that has taken
place several times in the past for Kurdish political groups, under similar
circumstances.
"What I see from today is that the DTP will not leave and lawmakers, except
Ahmet Turk and Aysel Tugluk, who are banned from politics and their parliament
membership annulled, will go under the umbrella of a new party they are
founding," said Bilgic.
But Bilgic fears a fraught future. "The violence may get worse, as the Kurdish
movement is insistent on changing the conditions of Ocalan, while the
government side cannot do it even if it wants to, due to a rising reaction from
Turks. The path out may only be an enlightenment of the society about the
Kurdish issue, something similar to what happened in the aftermath of apartheid
rule in South Africa.
"The Turkish people should know about the state's scorched-earth policy in the
region, and they don't know about it yet. But I doubt this government has
either the will or the capacity to do this," said Bilgic.
Stephen Starr is a Damascus-based Irish freelance journalist.
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