Analysis
December 23, 2009
Summary: Turkey had two options:
Wage war and send the military
across the border to northern Iraq,
where the PKK made the Kandil
mountain range their headquarters,
or engage politically with Iraqi Kurds
and seek serious reform at home.
There is enough blame to go around
for the failure of this initial stage
of the opening. But the process
should not be and indeed cannot
be reversed. Now is the time to take
stock, learn the appropriate lessons
from the failures of the first phase,
and move forward.
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Kurdish Opening: Onto the Second Round
by Soli Ozel*
ISTANBUL — On December 11,
Turkey’s Constitutional Court unani-
mously (11-0) decided to close down
the Kurdish nationalist Democratic
Society Party (DTP) and banned 37
of its members from active politics
for five years. Among these were the
highly respected and dovish party co-
chairman, Ahmet Türk, and his previ-
ous co-chairwoman, equally dovish
Aysel Tuğluk. Their memberships in
Parliament would thus be terminated.
The court’s decision was made public
by Chief Justice Haşim Kılıç in a press
conference. According to Kılıç, DTP
was closed down because it had or-
ganic links to the terrorist Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK), and because it
violated two articles of the constitution
and two articles of the Political Parties
Law by its actions. The court deemed
these actions as being supportive of
terror and violence. Kılıç explained
that the court took into consideration
the relevant decisions by the European
Court of Human Rights in the case of
the Basque nationalist party, Herri Ba-
tasuna. Türk and Tuğluk were banned
because of, among other things, calling
the PKK’s leader Abdullah Öcalan, “re-
spectable Mr. Öcalan.”
It was difficult not to be reminded of
Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient
Express.
*
Soli Ozel teaches at Istanbul Bilgi University’s Department of International Relations and Political Science and is a columnist for the
Turkish daily Haberturk. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the German
Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF).
Although the Constitutional Court
was the one that gave the final and
fatal blow to the first phase of the
“Kurdish opening” there were many
who stabbed the victim numerous
times as well. The government that
initiated the process and then brought
it to an impasse by its ineptitude and
mismanagement and arguably because
of its lackluster devotion to a compre-
hensive democratization project; the
opposition parties that used harsh,
polarizing, incendiary language,
and scare tactics, and had neither a
constructive solution to the Kurdish
problem nor any commitment to a
more liberal and democratic Turkey;
the Kurdish nationalist DTP that could
not take itself seriously as a political
party where the hawks nearly always
won against the doves, that allowed
itself to be intimidated by its terror-
ist confrere, the PKK, and that could
not take a clear political distance from
violence and terrorism; the PKK
leadership that, once cognizant it was
to be sidelined and fearing eventual
irrelevance, initiated a wave of vio-
lence to provoke a harsh response and
secure the closure of DTP and then
further enraged the Turkish public by
attacking troops in the north-central
Anatolian town of Tokat, killing seven
young soldiers; and last but not least,
Abdullah Öcalan, an icon for many
Kurds who is serving a life sentence in
Imrali Island and cares only about his
Analysis
release from the dungeon and return to civil and perhaps to
political life, and who ordered the latest wave of violence.
They all participated in the murder. One could perhaps add
the invisible actors within the state apparatus who might
not have been happy with the Kurdish political opening, but
it was the errors of the principal actors that had given them
such an opportunity.
The starting signal for the “Kurdish opening” was given in
March 2009 by Turkey’s President, Abdullah Gül, when he
told journalists accompanying him on his trip to Tehran
that “good things are expected to happen concerning the
Kurdish issue.” The government keyed into the opening
in August, after the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP) took a beating in the predominantly Kurdish south-
eastern provinces of Turkey in the municipal elections held
on March 29. Once Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
owned up to this politically difficult but necessary project—
that was critically short of specifics, timelines, and a com-
munication strategy—he consistently, and at times bravely,
defended it. In the process, he made some of the most
touching speeches of his political career and brought the
human, cultural, and emotional dimensions of the “Kurd-
ish problem” to the attention of a public raised on the belief
that no such problem, or even Kurds themselves for that
matter, existed. Since then an unprecedented rich discus-
sion took place in the country about the Kurdish question
and the Parliament debated the matter for the first time in
its history, even if the content of the proceedings left a lot to
be desired.
The general context of the opening that induced the govern-
ment to undertake this bold move dates back several years
and had both international and national dimensions.
Nationally, both the public and the security forces finally
came to the conclusion that the PKK could not be terminat-
ed by military means alone. Somehow the Turkish political
system had to address the Kurdish problem that gave rise to
the PKK in the first place.
The last point of resistance to a more politically-based
approach to the Kurdish issue was broken on October 21,
2007, when the PKK attacked an isolated outpost near the
mountainous village of Dağlıca and killed 12 soldiers.
Turkey had two options: Wage war and send the military
2
across the border to northern Iraq, where the PKK made
the Kandil mountain range their headquarters, or en-
gage politically with Iraqi Kurds and seek serious reform
at home. Because allegations of army complacency and
dereliction of duty immediately surfaced in the wake of
Dağlıca, the military were on the defensive and it was dif-
ficult for them to either propose or even carry out a cross
border operation. This gave the government and those who
favored a multidimensional approach the chance they were
waiting for. The second option was to try a new approach
for which the ground had already been prepared by Turkey’s
intelligence services and that was supported by diplomats
and other principals. Such an approach entailed engaging
with Iraqi Kurds and opening a diplomatic front across the
border while undertaking serious political reforms inside
Turkey.
International issues also played a significant role. Toward
the end of the second Bush administration, Washington had
already revised its policy toward Turkey regarding the PKK.
Getting ready to withdraw from northern Iraq, the United
States wanted to ensure that it could cooperate with Turkey
while leaving Iraq and the integrity of the Kurdistan Re-
gional Government would be maintained. The Iraqi Kurds,
anticipating the U.S. withdrawal and in need of a protector
increasingly looked to Turkey. The booming economic ties
between the Kurdistan Regional Government and Turkey
was an added incentive for both sides to ameliorate their
relations so long as the Kurds did not attempt a fait accom-
pli in Kirkuk. For this to happen the PKK had to get out of
the way.
Thus, the meeting between former U.S. President George
W. Bush and Prime Minister Erdoğan on November 5, 2007
was a turning point. At the end of the meeting, Bush
declared the PKK “an enemy of Turkey, an enemy of Iraq,
and an enemy of the United States.” Turkey was prom-
ised and given “actionable intelligence,” air corridors were
opened for the Turkish air force to enter Iraqi airspace and
pound the PKK camps on Kandil, and finally in February of
2008 a ground operation of eight days took place.
When the Prime Minister launched the Kurdish open-
ing in the late summer of 2009, he found a country, a state
apparatus, and an international environment that were all
favorable to his daring move. The polls taken immediately
Analysis
after the launch of the Kurdish opening indicated that close
to two-thirds of the public supported the initiative even
though they were not clear about its content. It now appears
that the working assumption for the opening was that Öca-
lan would cooperate and empower the DTP to negotiate just
like Sinn Fein did in Ireland and let the party help disarm
the PKK. The Iraqi Kurds in turn were expected to be more
forthcoming with their efforts to squeeze the PKK and force
it to leave Iraqi Kurdish territory.
Although fully supportive of the aims of the opening, the
Iraqi Kurds would not militarily engage the PKK and the
U.S. support would be limited to intelligence sharing that
the Turks did not deem sufficient. Within Turkey, Öcalan
started to fear that the process would leave him isolated.
The DTP consistently deferred to Öcalan and claimed that
it had no desire to be the interlocutor of the government in
this process. Given the fact that for the larger public Öcalan
is a hate figure, any hint of bringing him to the center of
the negotiation process was a non-starter, or worse: a game
stopper.
The critical event that precipitated the erosion of support
for the opening and infuriated the larger public was the
return of 34 PKK members from Kandil and the Mahmur
refugee camp to Turkey beginning on October 19, 2009,
which was watched on live television. Upon arrival, PKK
members said, because Apo (Öcalan) told them to do so.
Though the government sent prosecutors and judges to the
border town of Habur to take the deposition of those who
arrived, they let them go despite the fact that they refused
to say what the law demanded for them to be set free. The
sight of PKK fighters in uniform, the crowd’s jubilation in
Habur, on the road to Diyarbakır, and in Diyarbakır itself,
had an overtone of victory celebrations for many non-Kurds
in other parts of Turkey. It caused an immediate backlash.
The government looked like it was losing control of the
process.
Öcalan then began the escalation. On the pretext that he
was transferred to a cell half the size of his previous one (the
government took three days to inform the public that the
new cell conformed to EU standards and was only 0.0017
sq.m smaller) the demonstrations on the anniversary of the
PKK’s founding took a violent turn. Clashes in different
cities culminated with the attack in Tokat on December 7,
2009. The closure decision on December 11 triggered yet
3
another wave of demonstrations and violence in several
cities. The PKK wanted to take the fight to major city
centers where Kurdish populations, forcefully evicted from
their villages during the Turkish military’s “scorched earth
policies” of the 1990s, now reside and thus offer a poten-
tially fertile ground. Öcalan expected such demonstrations
to trigger a violent counterattack, create conditions of civil
strife, and thereby force the hand of the government to
negotiate directly with him.
In some sense the court’s ruling was also a response to this
challenge. In an obviously political decision the Constitu-
tional Court removed the cushion that the DTP, despite its
insufficiencies, provided and upped the ante. This may yet
prove to be a more sophisticated move than it first appeared
if, as some observers argue, the PKK’s escalation of violence
would backfire. Indeed there are signs that the general
Kurdish public whose expectations had risen considerably
and had a taste of a more peaceful environment, is dis-
turbed by the turn of events. Violence is far less attractive
while a political opening was underway than it may have
been in earlier periods. Indeed, the perception that the PKK
and Öcalan put their particularistic interests before the
general interest of the Kurds may yet prove to be a boon for
the development of a more solid political space for Kurd-
ish politicians. Furthermore, Öcalan’s plan to intensify the
battle by taking it from the mountains to the cities does not
seem to have succeeded so far. Despite intifada-like scenes,
the numbers participating in the demonstrations are
relatively sparse.
Should the situation escalate, however, the reaction against
PKK agitation may take a much more robust and even vio-
lent turn. Therein lies the major threat to Turkey’s
stability. The perception of just such a threat is what
prompted many commentators to caution the general public
about the devastation of ethnically-based civil strife.
There is enough blame to go around for the failure of this
initial stage of the opening. But the process should not be
and indeed cannot be reversed. Now is the time to take
stock, learn the appropriate lessons from the failures of the
first phase, and move forward.
Analysis
The bulk of the responsibility to move the process forward
still lies with the government. The Prime Minister must first
consolidate his own party’s support for the process since the
more nationalistic elements in it do not have their heart in
this Kurdish opening. Next, he should extend a hand to the
opposition. If opposition cooperation is not forthcoming,
he should expose them for their intransigence and lack of
interest in de-escalating the situation and avoiding further
violence. Last but not least, the government must come up
with a comprehensive proposal for democratization and
place openings on many fronts based on universal
principles rather than particular political interests.
In the second installment on this theme, On Turkey
contributor Soli Ozel will present the Kurdish issue in the
larger context of Turkey’s democratization efforts.
Soli Ozel, Lecturer, Bilgi University; Columnist, Sabah
Soli Ozel teaches at Istanbul Bilgi University’s Department of
International Relations and Political Science. He is a columnist for the
national daily Haberturk and is senior advisor to the chairman of the
Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association. Additionally, he
is the editor of TUSIAD’s magazine Private View.
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