Kurdish process needs courage and wisdom

Turkey is going through one of the most sensitive periods in terms of its Kurdish problem. Sensitive as it may be, it is clear that this is also a historic moment that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has opted to avail of.

It must also be admitted that what is transpiring is as much the product of necessity as it is of design. The simple fact is that Turkey has arrived at a moment when its Kurdish problem can not be brushed under the proverbial carpet anymore, simply because there is no carpet left.

Even the military, which refused to admit the existence of Kurds in Turkey no more that 20 years ago, has come around to acknowledging the basic reality that a significant portion of the Turkish population is of Kurdish origin, and therefore has special needs.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has been waging a campaign of terror, in the name of Kurdish interests, since the mid 1980s has been the main complicating factor in front of those desiring a reasonable and workable solution to this problem.

PKK atrocities have also aided the hard-line nationalist elements in Turkey who turned this group into its nemesis, and used it as a stop gap in the face of the democratic aspirations of Turkey’s Kurds.

The reaction of the Turkish security forces to the PKK in the past, particularly in the southeast, in turn alienated significant elements of the Kurdish population, driving them to sympathize with this terrorist group, and referring to its members as guerillas fighting and dying for Kurdish rights.

It remains for sociologists and historians to determine whether the PKK was an indirect and unwitting creation of the Turkish state, or a “sui generis” outfit that grew naturally out of the social and economic deprivations of the southeast.

The fact is, however, that the AKP government has decided to break a vicious circle, which if left unattended would continue to fester, thus leading to more bloodshed and tears. But it was clear from the outset that the “PKK factor” of the Kurdish issue would be the hardest one to deal with, given the sensitivities of Turks, and particularly of those who have lost loved ones in the fight against this group.

Prime Minister Erdoğan, making a brave decision, nevertheless decided to go ahead with his plans to try and disarm the PKK by peaceful means. As a result of this we had the recent unprecedented event of PKK militants, lodged in northern Iraq, giving themselves up to the Turkish security forces as a gesture of good will.

The Turkish state also went out of its way to accommodate the process and it seemed that even the military was going along with it. As it was, the overwhelming majority of those that came were eventually released. What sullied the atmosphere, however, was the reception organized by the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP, for the PKK militants at the Habur border post.

Assembling thousands of Kurds there, the DTP turned this highly sensitive occasion into some kind of a victory parade. Most reasonable people on both sides of the divide know that this was tantamount to taunting ultra-national Turks by blowing “political raspberries” in their face.

Needless to say it did not take long for a public outcry on the Turkish side to crystallize, forcing the government to put the PKK element of its “Kurdish opening” on the back burner for a while. That is where it presently is.

At the moment eyes are on the DTP, and particularly on how it readjusts its position on receiving PKK members that give themselves up. It is clear that there is soul searching about the whole affair on the Kurdish side also.

Even a person like Leyla Zana, the recipient of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Award, who was imprisoned for 10 years for her overtly pro-PKK views, has come out with remarks reflecting this fact.

Expressing her desire to see the process of rapprochement with the Kurds go on, Zana admitted a few days ago that it was not just Turkey that had changed, but also herself and the PKK. This was an important reaching out by someone who is well known for her formerly militant views about the Turkish state and military.

In the meantime it was noteworthy that the Kurdish leadership in northern Iraq was not too happy over the provocative show organized by the DTP at the Habur border post, and this was made clear by the prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Administration, Nechirvan Barzani.

Both senior AKP members and government officials indicate that the events at Habur have only stalled the process and not stymied it. Eyes are now on a group of PKK militants who are expected to arrive from Europe. (One can of course question why such people have been harbored in Europe but that is another matter.)

The government has told these PKK militants that they will have to wait a while before they can come to Turkey. Clearly it wants to work out the modalities of their arrival with the DTP.

The latter still appears determined at this moment to mount some kind of a show on the arrival of these militants at Istanbul airport also. But local officials have said they are equally determined not to allow the kinds of scenes witnessed in Habur in Istanbul. There is also a much larger risk of violence between pro-DTP and PKK elements, and ultranationalist Turkish elements in Istanbul.

Meanwhile many of the families of those soldiers killed by the PKK are up in arms, and agitating in an attempt to stop the whole Kurdish opening. Needless to say the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, are doing their utmost to spoil the process as well.

Given all this, it is clear that the government will have to tread very cautiously in the coming days and weeks. Eyes will however be very much on the DTP and other Kurdish community leaders and elders to see how they manage this sensitive process to bring it to a positive conclusion.

The bottom line is, however, that the Rubicon appears to have been crossed this time. The environment will not be the same anymore given the steps that have already been taken within the context of the government’s Kurdish opening. But to reach a happy ending still requires very large doses of courage and wisdom all around.