[News] Turkey’s War Against the Kurds

[Anti-Imperialist News]

January 7, 2016


  Turkey’s War Against the Kurds
  <http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/07/turkeys-war-against-the-kurds/>

by Vijay Prashad <http://www.counterpunch.org/author/vijay-prashad/>

*http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/07/turkeys-war-against-the-kurds/*

A war of words has broken out between the Turkish President, Recep 
Tayyip Erdogan, and the leader of the left-wing People’s Democratic 
Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas. Mr. Demirtas, who is Kurdish, leads a 
party that unites the Kurdish nationalist forces and Turkey’s left-wing 
groups. Until recently, he and the HDP have called for more rights for 
the Kurdish population within Turkey rather than for the creation of a 
Kurdish state out of Turkey. The Kurds in Turkey are spread out across 
the country, with Istanbul having the largest concentration (one million 
Kurds). Nonetheless, the majority of the Kurdish population lives in the 
country’s south-east, which has been the epicentre of demands for 
self-determination. In late December, Mr. Demirtas backed a resolution 
passed by the Kurdish Democratic Society Congress (DTK), which 
reiterated an old demand for the creation of Kurdish “autonomous 
regions” and “self-governance bodies”. Mr. Erdogan called Mr. Demirtas’ 
action “treason” 
<http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/erdogan-accuses-kurdish-leader-of-treason/article8043157.ece>.

Mr. Demirtas, who has a calm and careful political demeanour, has come 
to this position from great desperation. Out of the gaze of the 
international media, Turkey’s government has been prosecuting a violent 
war against the Kurdish people. From last summer, Turkey began a policy 
of military curfews 
<http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/turkeys-dangerous-war-on-kurdish-militants/article8055112.ece>and 
severe crackdowns on the Kurdish towns and cities of south-eastern 
Turkey. Turkish tanks have been shelling Cizre, near the Syrian border, 
and military operations in Diyarbakir and Silopi escalate each day. The 
region, say local journalists, resembles a war zone. Mr. Erdogan has 
called this violence a “fight against separatist terror organisations”. 
Diyarbakir mayor Gultan Kisanak said, “Tanks and heavy weaponry, which 
are only used in conventional warfare, are being used by the Turkish 
armed forces, in areas where hundreds of thousands of civilians live.” 
Ms. Kisanak, a former political prisoner and a very popular politician, 
bravely stood up as an MP against the murder of 34 Kurdish civilians by 
the Turkish air force in the 2011 Roboski Massacre. She does not mince 
words, nor does she exaggerate.

*Peace talks*

Since 2013, the main military wing of the Kurdish resistance — the 
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — has been in talks with the Turkish 
state for a full peace agreement. The PKK’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has 
been in Imrali Prison 
<http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/time-now-for-politics-not-guns-ocalan/article4540298.ece>since 
1999. The dialogue between the state and the PKK was called the Imrali 
process, after the name of the island where Mr. Ocalan’s prison is 
based. Negotiations based on a 10-point Dolmabahce Agreement proceeded 
until this summer, when Mr. Erdogan restarted his belligerent talk. He 
rejected as implausible negotiations between the PKK — a “terrorist 
organisation,” he called it — and the government. He tied the HDP to the 
PKK. The HDP responded that it has no “organic” ties to the PKK, 
although many former guerrillas are now above ground inside the HDP. The 
President rejected the HDP’s claim at his Ramzan speech at a mosque in 
Istanbul’s suburban Atasehir district. He said that the HDP and the PKK 
have an “inorganic tie”. He wanted war against not only the PKK, an 
armed force, but also against the HDP, a respected parliamentary party. 
Both had to be dented.

Why has Mr. Erdogan been so eager to go to war against the HDP and the 
PKK? There are two reasons: first, the HDP’s political successes have 
prevented his political ambitions, and second, the PKK’s assistance to 
the Syrian Kurds had raised the spectre once more of Kurdish statehood 
or autonomy.

The rise of the HDP inside Turkey dented Mr. Erdogan’s personal 
ambitions to shift the Turkish political process from parliamentary to 
presidential rule. Mr. Erdogan bizarrely cited Hitler’s Germany as an 
example of a successful presidential system. Victories of the HDP in 
both parliamentary elections of 2015 prevented Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and 
Development Party (AKP) from earning an absolute majority in Parliament, 
which would have delivered power to change the system. Mr. Erdogan’s war 
against the HDP and the media emerges from political frustration. His 
attempt to link the HDP to the PKK was designed to frighten its support 
base. Assassinations and arrests of pro-HDP politicians and journalists 
began in earnest. The killing of human rights attorney Tahir Elci in 
late November last year had a chilling effect. It also drew from Mr. 
Demirtas this sentiment: “What killed Tahir was not the state, but 
statelessness.” Loss of faith in Turkey’s commitment to its minority and 
to multi-party democracy led influential people like Mr. Demirtas to 
reconsider autonomy and self-government of the Kurdish areas.

*Creation of People’s Protection Units*

Much of the explanation for the assault on the Kurds is to be found in 
Turkey’s failed policy in Syria. Battle-hardened PKK fighters turned to 
help the Syrian Kurdish fighters in 2011, after the Syrian government of 
Bashar al-Assad withdrew from Syria’s Kurdish regions in the north. The 
outcome of this assistance was the creation of the People’s Protection 
Units (YPG). The YPG and the PKK have been fierce fighters against the 
Islamic State (IS), since it entered the area in 2012. The battlefield 
advances of the Syrian Kurds with the PKK have lifted their morale, 
gained them international attention, and won them adherents amongst 
Turkey’s non-Kurdish population. It is the ferocity of their fighting 
and their progressive social policy that gave buoyancy to the HDP in the 
recent elections. Declaration of Syrian Kurdish autonomy 
<http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/nato-backs-turkeys-war-on-terror/article7474938.ece>alongside 
Iraqi Kurdish autonomy (since 1991) put pressure on Turkey’s Kurds to 
follow suit. This was precisely what Mr. Erdogan and the Turkish 
ultra-nationalists despise.

Since October, the Turkish armed forces have hit not only the Kurdish 
cities in south-eastern Turkey but also PKK and YPG combatants inside 
Syria. PKK leader Cemil Bayik accused the Turkish state of attacking the 
PKK to “stop the Kurdish advance against ISIS”. This is an accusation 
that has become commonplace in the region — that the AKP is implicated 
in the establishment of IS. Turkey’s border with Syria is porous for 
entry of IS /jihadis/ and for IS oil. The latter draws in Mr. Erdogan’s 
son Bilal, who is a director in the BMZ group that has played a role in 
the trans-shipment of IS oil to Malta, and then to Israel. Mr. Bayik’s 
point is strongly made but what evidence exists supports his assertion. 
Turkey’s ambivalence towards IS also bedevils the U.S., which uses the 
Turkish base at Incirlik to bomb IS, and watches Turkish craft attack 
the Kurdish forces who are the main ground troops against the IS.

Turkey is in danger of a civil war, as Mr. Demirtas warned in September. 
Mr. Erdogan believes that he can ride the tiger of the anti-Kurdish war. 
It is more likely that he will lose control of the situation and plunge 
Turkey into irreparable damage. The Turkish government believesit can 
score a military victory against the PKK 
<http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/boost-for-erdogan-as-akp-wins-critical-turkey-vote/article7830186.ece>, 
which is why it has been striking PKK camps inside Turkey, Iraq and 
Syria. Before the PKK can be destroyed, the Turkish forces will have to 
raze the cities and towns of south-eastern Turkey. They are on the road 
to doing this — with little international condemnation of their actions.

/This article originally appeared in The Hindu <http://www.thehindu.com/>./

/*Vijay Prashad’s* most recent book is No Free Left: The Futures of 
Indian Communism (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2015)./

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