By Mufid Abdulla: Turkey is waging another offensive against the PKK, using 10,000 troops, artillery and air strikes in north Kurdistan and across the Iraq border in south Kurdistan. It has asked for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) support and cooperation. KRG President Masud Barzani’s special envoy has been to Turkey to commiserate with the Turkish government over its recent military losses at the hands of the PKK. Meanwhile many Turkish writers and journalists are banging their drums louder than ever. I would like to reply to some of them, given their lack of fair analysis of the Kurdish issue. Ibrahim Guclue, a leader of the Kurdish pro-Turkey Rights and Freedom Party (HAK-PAR), says: ”The PKK and the Kurdish issue are different”. To me it is bizarre and absurd for a politician not to examine the root cause of the PKK’s foundation. The PKK was born in the late 1970s because of the Turkish military state’s failure to solve the Kurdish issue and its increased repression of the Kurdish people. Hasan Kanbolat, in Today’s Zaman, asks: “What is it that Kurds who decline to adopt the Turkish identity want? What drives them to take up arms?” I will give Hasan a small example. The PKK action in the Hakkari province, killing 24 Turkish soldiers, was revenge for the Turkish air bombardment which killed three high-ranking PKK officers in the Kurkuk valley. It is tit for tat. For 30 years, whenever violence has erupted in north Kurdistan and affected Turkey, Turkish nationalism comes to the fore: people speak with their emotions and not logic. It is no use claiming that the responsibility for violence lies with the PKK only. There is no point in claiming that the situation in north Kurdistan is just one item on a long Turkish political agenda. The answer lies – not in simply blaming the PKK – but rather in facing up to the real history of the Turkish state and its brutal colonial oppression of the Kurds. Orhan Kemel Cengiz writes in Today’s Zaman: ”If Kurds do not want to separate we will be sure that they desire to be a part of Turkey of their own free will. If they wish to have their own state, this should be in a democratic way, after long discussions and after we can all be sure that Kurds will live under their own democratic state, rather than a self-imposed state by the PKK”. Can we focus on the Kurdish political parties in Turkey which are concentrating on political rights and the right of self-determination? As far as the demands of the Kurdish people are concerned, in Turkey they are not calling for separation. Instead, it is the Turkish nationalists who cannot live in equality beside the Kurds in Turkey. The PKK long ago relinquished the demand for a separate state and has demanded basic human rights. Fatima Disli Ziba states in Today’s Zaman: “(PKK) attacks indicate that Turkey is still far off from being a country that can skilfully combat terrorism and protect its soldiers”. Fatima should go further and ask – are we better off in terms of security than we were 20 years ago? They are not. Therefore combating ‘terrorism’ demands political skill and will. Look at one of the most powerful countries in the world, the UK: it couldn’t defeat the IRA and so it took a different route which brought both sides to the negotiating table. How many times has the Turkish state called for a ceasefire with the PKK? None. How many times has the Turkish state asked the European community for help in mediating with the PKK? None. The Turkish state is not treating this issue as an ‘in house’ problem: instead the Turkish military state is treating the Kurds’ struggle as an outside problem. That is the reason why the only solution in their mind is a military one. Look at the example of another developed country, Spain, which has fought ETA for the last 40 years but just two days ago reached an agreement, taking its demands on board as ETA announced an end to armed struggle. A question is raised: have these women and men in the Qandil valley really chosen to live that type of life? The answer is: no, these fighters have felt forced to take that route, especially because they attach immense importance to the cause of Kurdish freedom and the nationalist movement. The Kurds have despaired of Turkish democracy. The Turkish state is not only a hell for ordinary Kurds: anyone genuinely asking for rights for the Kurds can be jailed and tortured. Consider the example of Professor Ismail Beskchy, the well-known Turkish scholar who was jailed for 17 years and now lives outside Turkey. This impasse must end. The much-proclaimed Erdogan reforms should speed up a transformation of the Turkish economy and politics. The ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) must prove to the world that it is up to the challenge – otherwise they are nothing more than Kamalist followers. Resolving the Kurdish issue demands a structural reform of the Turkish political system. Turkey suffers from its Kamalist legacy, with an excessive concentration of power in the hands of its generals and army apparatus. Turkey’s state and the AKP must wake up to the reality of the conflict which concerns the rights and future of almost 25 million Kurds. Military attacks will not root out the PKK. The Turkish state and the PKK have been through this process several times before. The Kurdish cause in the north of Kurdistan demands a solution before the flames of conflict engulf the entire Turkish state. http://kurdistantribune.com
