Report says Turkey's Kurdish conflict has turned more violent
September 18, 2012 -- Updated 1628 GMT (0028 HKT)
"Turkey's Kurdish
conflict is becoming more violent, with more than 700 dead in fourteen
months, the highest casualties in thirteen years," concluded the
International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution organization that has
extensively researched Turkey's war with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or
PKK.
"We're seeing the longest
pitched battles between the army and the PKK, we're seeing a
wide-spread campaign of kidnapping, suicide bombings and terrorist
attacks by the PKK. They're very much on the offensive and unfortunately
this is matched by much harder line rhetoric on both sides," added Hugh
Pope, the chief author of the International Crisis Group report, in an
interview with CNN.
Last weekend alone, at
least eight Turkish police officers and four soldiers were killed in two
separate ambushes in southeastern Turkey. The PKK promptly claimed
responsibility for both attacks.
The Turkish government,
meanwhile, claims to have killed hundreds of PKK fighters in recent
months, both in operations in southeastern, predominantly
Kurdish-populated Turkey and during air raids against suspected PKK
camps in the mountains of northern Iraq.
"Within the last month,
in the operations executed throughout the region, about 500 terrorists
were eliminated," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a
speech Monday. "We will on the one hand develop Turkey and on the other
hand continue to tirelessly struggle against this terrorist organization
that has bloody hands."
The escalation of
violence and hard-line rhetoric on both sides has jeopardized hopes of
bringing an end to a conflict that has bedeviled Turkey for 30 years. It
also threatens to destabilize a member of the NATO military alliance
that is already grappling with the influx of more than 80,000 refugees
fleeing the civil war in neighboring Syria.
For decades, the Turkish
state discriminated against the Kurds, Turkey's largest ethnic minority,
which now makes up roughly 20% of the population. The Kurdish language
was banned, and Kurds were long referred to as "mountain Turks."
The PKK, led by one of
its founders, Abdullah Ocalan, launched a bloody campaign to carve out
an independent homeland for Kurds from Turkey, as well as neighboring
Iran, Iraq and Syria, in the 1980s. The conflict killed more than 30,000
people, most of them ethnic Kurds.
The war that raged
across southeastern Turkey subsided when the PKK declared a unilateral
cease-fire for several years after Ocalan was captured in 1999.
In 2005, Erdogan's government began secret talks with PKK leaders.
His Justice and
Development Party, or AKP, also made a number of overtures toward the
Kurds, relaxing bans on Kurdish language education, appearing to
apologize for past discriminatory policies and launching a state
Kurdish-language TV station.
"The AKP government
actually did more for the Kurds than anyone up until now," Pope said.
"[But] when a wave of massive arrests of legitimate Kurdish politicians
began, that's when I think young people especially lost hope and the
PKK's arguments for the legitimacy of armed struggle became persuasive
to them."
Turkish authorities have
arrested thousands of Kurdish activists, intellectuals and politicians
in the past several years. Many of those targeted are members of the
Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, a legal Kurdish political party that
elected 29 members to parliament on independent ballots in 2011.
According to this
month's International Crisis Group report, those arrested "include
elected deputies, mayors (some from major cities and districts),
provincial councilors, party officials and ordinary activists. Many have
been accused of membership in a terrorist organization, but not of
committing any violent act."
Last week, 44
journalists and media workers from Kurdish news outlets appeared in an
Istanbul courthouse on terrorism charges. Many of them have been
awaiting trial in prison since their arrest last December.
"This is to silence the
opposition," said Baran Dogan, one of the defense attorneys in the case.
"This is not only about press freedom but also an intervention into a
citizen's right to choose where to get news from."
In fact, in recent
weeks, Turkey's fiery prime minister has publicly urged the Turkish
media not to report on the growing number of Turkish casualties in the
conflict, drawing criticism from media freedoms groups.
"Erdogan's most recent
televised 'message to all the media' crosses from reprimanding into
directly instructing journalists to stop covering the long-standing
conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK). This is unthinkable," the New York-based Committee
to Protect Journalists said in a news release this week.
One of the major
obstacles to the peace process, however, is the position staked out by
the leaders of the Kurdish movement in Turkey.
Video emerged last month
showing several BDP lawmakers embracing and celebrating with armed PKK
fighters in the mountains of southeastern Turkey. The scene provided
further ammunition for critics who accuse the party of being a public
face for the armed rebels.
The International Crisis
Group report also points out that the BDP has essentially marginalized
itself from negotiations with the Turkish government.
"The BDP says 'don't negotiate with us, negotiate with Abdullah Ocalan in prison,' " said Pope, the report's chief author.
Members of the party insist they do not have the power to persuade PKK fighters to lay down their weapons.
"We are not an armed
group. If we tell them (the PKK) to lay down arms, will they obey?"
Meral Danis Bestas, deputy chairwoman of the BDP, said in a phone
interview with CNN.
Over the last decade,
Turkey succeeded in forging alliances with neighboring Iran, Syria and
Iraq to target Kurdish rebels operating in their respective territories.
But Turkey's relations
with all three governments have deteriorated sharply over the past
several years, and the conflict threatens to spill across borders.
This month, Turkish warplanes repeatedly bombed suspected PKK camps in the mountains of northern Iraq.
Meanwhile, Turks watched
with alarm this summer as members of the Syrian branch of the PKK
raised the guerilla movement's flag over several predominantly Kurdish
towns along Syria's border with Turkey.
This has led to
accusations from Ankara that Syria and its ally Iran are providing
support to the PKK, charges denied by both Damascus and Tehran.
"If Turkey feels
vulnerable to empowered Kurds in Syria, the only way to defend itself is
to solve its domestic Kurdish problem," said Pope, the International
Crisis Group report author.
The report urged the
Turkish government to expand Kurdish language education, redefine
Turkey's broad definition of terrorism and launch a package of measures
for reintegration of former Kurdish insurgents. The group also appealed
to Kurdish leaders to drop demands for a "self-defence militia" in
Kurdish areas of Turkey.
One hope for resolution
of the conflict may lie in an effort to rewrite Turkey's constitution.
The document was drafted by a military junta that swept into power in a
coup in 1980.
Kurdish lawmakers have
joined with Erdogan's party, as well as two other parties represented in
the Turkish parliament, to write a new version of the constitution.
But these reform efforts are being overshadowed by deadly, daily attacks in southeastern Turkey.
On Tuesday morning,
Turkish television showed smoke billowing from a burning bus after a
suspected PKK attack on a military convoy in eastern Bingol province.
According to Mustafa
Hakan Guvencer, the governor of Bingol, the targeted convoy included
buses carrying "200 military personnel returning from their vacations
unarmed and dressed in civilian clothes."
The governor said the ambush killed at least 10 soldiers and wounded at least 60.
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