Turkey aims to disarm PKK through a new initiative
Middle East Eye
Your eye on the ground. Independent Middle East and North Africa news.
By Ragip Soylu - MEE Turkey Bureau Chief
Turkey’s always controversial politics have become even more complex after Turkish nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli surprised the nation by reaching out to the pro-Kurdish People’s Equality and Democracy Party (Dem) earlier this month.
Bahceli, a key member of the ruling coalition who leads the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), shook hands and briefly chatted with Dem members at the opening of parliament on 1 October. Since then he has called for peace and brotherhood with the party which represents a large number of Kurds.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has supported the move, saying that Turkey needs to be able to resolve “the problems” without its people resorting to terror.
Bahceli’s comments on the need for domestic peace signal for the first time since 2015 an attempt by the then coalition to begin politically disarming the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
On Tuesday Bahceli called on PKK’s imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan and said his organisation needed to disband itself.
Even though Bahceli’s language was very demeaning to Ocalan, describing him as the chief terrorist, it was also another sign that Ankara is preparing the public for possible talks with the PKK.
Many believe Bahceli’s move is as much about throwing a lifeline to Erdogan, who cannot run for another term as president under the current constitution unless parliament calls for a snap election or ratifies a fresh constitution.
The support of Dem would be essential for both.
Sources close to the ruling AK Party, speaking to MEE, deny that the moves are only about the president staying in power.
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So what’s going on?
A Turkish source familiar with the government’s thinking told MEE that Ankara had been holding internal discussions about what to do about the PKK and the so-called Kurdish question for the last two years. A new approach to Ocalan and Dem had been on the cards for months.
The two-year timeframe also fits with two key developments: the 2023 presidential election and the 2024 March local elections.
On each of these occasions, Erdogan needed the Kurdish vote. It makes sense for his government to improvise a strategy with the Kurds.
Earlier this year, sources speaking to MEE speculated that Dem had tried to cut a deal with Erdogan, asking for written guarantees that he would not unseat elected Dem mayors if its voters did not back the main opposition candidates in Istanbul, Ankara and elsewhere.
The response from Erdogan was a straight no.
Both AKP and Dem have denied this allegation and called it baseless.
But some Dem heavyweight including Leyla Zana and Ahmet Turk, who were key figures in the previous failed resolution process, have tried to distance the party from the Turkish opposition during municipal elections.
It has also made sense for the Turkish government to resolve this during the past two years for external reasons.
First, the United States is contemplating a withdrawal of its forces from Syria. Ankara wants to pre-emptively resolve any Kurdish state emerging near its borders, especially if Donald Trump wins the US elections in three weeks time.
Second, a fresh political effort to address the Dem grievances and thereby strategically neutralize the PKK is logical, at least for the time being.
“Ankara doesn’t want an autonomous Kurdish region that would be very appealing to Kurds living in Turkey. Therefore it wants to make Turkey more appealing,” a source familiar with the issue told Middle East Eye.
Since 2015, the Turkish state has arrested thousands of Kurdish politicians and activists, and unseated dozens of elected mayors.
Ankara was also able to push the PKK outside of the country’s borders through large military operations both inside and outside Turkey, including in Iraq and Syria.
The military’s drone technology and signal intelligence capabilities have effectively broken the PKK’s tactics to hit Turkish targets through guerilla warfare.
Turkey is acting from a position of strength, not weakness. It also feels confident enough to discuss this issue publicly as the next election is not until 2028.
Two separate Turkish sources familiar with the issue said that Bahceli initiated the move himself and symbolically indicated that as “the Turkish nationalist” of the government he wouldn’t block any new move.
Then Amberin Zaman, the seasoned Turkish journalist, published a report, which said that Ankara had already arranged talks with Ocalan and the PKK leader was already in contact with the Qandil mountains to negotiate terms.
Two senior Turkish officials with direct knowledge of the issue told Middle East Eye that Zaman’s report was “false in its entirety.”
The first source said some segments of the Turkish government had been in regular contact with Ocalan for years but that the fresh process that began with Bahceli’s recent approach had not progressed to a formal negotiation yet.
“Let’s not put the cart before the horses,” said the source, adding that everything was premature and more time was needed to see how things would progress.
The second source with direct knowledge of Ocalan’s communications said no political discussions had been made with the PKK leader, yet.
Yildiray Ogur, a Turkish columnist who has been closely following the issue, wrote last week on Karar daily that the government was aiming to only disarm the PKK in Turkey, rather than repeating the failed “peace process” which sought to dissolve the PKK entirely.
“The aim of this process is not to completely solve the Kurdish question. The main aim is for the PKK to declare the end of the armed struggle in Turkey,” Ogur wrote. ”The PKK did this for its offshoot PJAK in Iran in 2011, without achieving any gains.”
Dem say they cannot address any of these issues until they are granted access to Ocalan, who has now been kept in isolation for more than 44 months.
But they are still open to taking part in disarmament talks or deals relating to a new constitution.
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