Turkey: Pawning The ‘Peace Process’

President Erdoğan and the PKK on its 31^st anniversary of ‘armed response’ to Turkish policy

Sheri Laizer — Exclusive to iKurd.net

On its 31^st anniversary of armed response, the PKK can be expected to wave its flags and guns to a song and dance routine that commemorates its historic past – but will another generation of young Kurds and Turks have to be slaughtered to assuage the leaders on both sides as events run retrograde?

Coffins lined up, draped in flags of two different nations, Turk and Kurd; Turkish commandos in full combat gear on the streets of Istanbul; Erdoğan suing HDP leader, Selahattin Demirtaş for causing “moral damages,” slander and invectiveness [1]and vowing to fight the PKK to the ‘last terrorist. “I’m not talking about laying down arms, I’m talking about burying them. I’d like to emphasize this,” Erdoğan said.[2] Such come as chilling echoes of former Chief of Staff, Çevik Bir, vowing to “drain the sea to catch the fish” that resulted in the destruction of some 3,000 Kurdish villages in the 1990s and perpetuated the cycle of violence. In the score-settling against the old guard over their role in the ‘1997 coup’, Çevik Bir was arrested in 2012. Erdoğan was reported to have ‘welcomed the arrests’.[3].

Isn’t thirty years already too long in this nasty cat and mouse game? An outwardly productive opportunity to end the violence is turning retrograde as both sides return to the tired rhetoric that accompanies their old positions.

Erdoğan’s AKP lost votes in the recent June elections. He appears to be courting the hardliners with militaristic statements as if the past three years’ hard work in building new foundations and trust had simply been a blinder like such peace overtures before it[4].

As the US State Department spokesman calls on the PKK to lay down its arms and return to the ‘peace process’ [5] to whom is Erdoğan most closely listening if not his own determined ambition?

It was only in spring this year that Öcalan repeated his call to the PKK to lay down their weapons. His party responded affirmatively – in words, more than in actions, for what is the PKK without its arms? Cemil Bayik, PKK veteran commander, observed in this vein at the time: “We are not laying down arms…laying down arms and solving the problem through armed struggle are two different issues.”[6]

How indeed can the PKK accept to become defenceless in the face of the Turkish Army and the regional advance of DAESH/IS organisation? It overlaps with its sister party, the PYD, and its guerrilla fighters in northern Syria. Is it not actually the old ‘threat’ of a Kurdish front on Turkey’s borders that is most unnerving Erdoğan, such that the PKK has to be weakened if not crushed for good and all?

AKP’s waning

The AKP first gained widespread popularity condemning the corruption of the traditional secular parties and their warmongering. Years on it would appear to have become more like them, sacrificing Turkey’s secular emphasis and Kemalist foundations and anything else that gets in the way of power.

A leader seemingly bent on retaining his grip of the helm at all costs – as seen in the harsh response to the Gazi Park protests – Erdoğan is sacrificing an (unpopular) policy – the overt pursuit of peace with the PKK in a grand gesture to the Turkish lobby with the intention of recovering lost ground. In previous elections, the AKP had enjoyed a wide share of the Kurdish vote, ordinary Sunni Muslims for the most part that did not support the PKK or its civic allies. This groundswell has been lost to the HDP and by extension to an increased position of power for the PKK. Should a second round of elections be called for November, the gamble may gain Erdoğan something but at the cost of internal stability.

HDP’s rise and risks

Selahattin Demirtaş clearly sees the danger and hears the thunder, publicly calling upon the PKK to desist from renewed belligerence before it is too late. He knows his own head may be one of the first to roll in the political stakes, as he is far too well liked for the likes of certain others.[7] A very easy target – like any prominent and outspoken Kurd in Turkey, one recalls dramatic scenes like Leyla Zana’s swearing the oath in Kurdish in Parliament in 1991 before being being sentenced to 14 years imprisonment and serving a ten-year stretch.[8]. Leyla Zana – admire or loathe her tenacity – is once again a handmaiden to Abdullah Öcalan, openly running between Imrali, the HDP, and the PKK’s base in the Qandil mountains since the political ban against her was lifted last December.[9]

If the ‘peace process’ is pawned to expedient political interests, can anyone count on the sincerity of the players? It is once again the civilian population that will be the greatest loser.

[1] Link: http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2015/08/11/turkey-president-erdogan-sues-hdp-co-chair-demirtas
[2] http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/mideast-africa/2015/08/11/erdogan-vows-turkey–fight-pkk-last-terrorist/31497597/
[3] http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/europe/turkey-settles-score-with-military-with-general-cevik-bir-arrest
[4] http://www.mesop.de/sheri-laizer-five-previous-pkk-ceasefires-since-1993-better-prospects-for-the-sixth-ceasefire-of-newroz-2013/
[5] http://www.mesop.de/mesop-us-directs-do-it-like-apo-ordered-you-lay-down-your-weapons-us-asks-pkk-to-return-to-political-process-with-ankara/
[6] www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-launches-operation-against-pkk-peace-process-struggles-168318355#sthash.4vFZFfNY.dpuf
[7] http://www.dailysabah.com/kurdish-issue/2015/08/10/concern-over-electoral-threshold-causes-demirtas-to-call-on-pkk-to-lay-down-arms
[8]http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/kurdish_political_prisoner_leyla_zana_releasd

Sheri Laizer, a Middle East and North African expert specialist and well known commentator on the Kurdish issue. She is a senior contributing writer for iKurd.net. More about Sheri Laizer see below.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

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