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Who is behind the bombings in Turkey, and
what do they want?
30.8.2006
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How serious is the
latest outrage?
It appears Turkey is facing a new bombing campaign -
and this time the targets are tourists. Coordinated
blasts in Istanbul and two major tourist centres on
Sunday and Monday have left at least three people
dead and 47 injured, including 10 Britons.
Istanbul was the target of al-Qa'ida-style bombings
in 2003, but this does not appear to be the work of
Islamic militants. Instead, it seems an older enemy
has come back to haunt Turkey: Kurdish separatists.
A group calling itself the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons
(TAK) has claimed responsibility and said on its
website: "We had warned before, Turkey is not a safe
country. Tourists should not come to Turkey."
The latest bombings seem to bear out earlier reports
that Turkey has been trying to cover up a bombing
campaign against tourist resorts for some time.
There has been a series of blasts in Istanbul and
popular resorts all year. When four people were
killed in an explosion at Manavgat in June, the
authorities said it was caused by a faulty gas
cylinder - but the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons claimed
responsibility, and Turkish newspapers claimed there
was footage of a bomb being hidden. |
Kurdish woman, PKK guerrilla fighter carrying a
Kalashnikov rifle. Fighting for the rights of Kurds
in Turkey |
Who are the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons?
It's not entirely clear. Some observers believe it's
little more than a front for the PKK (Kurdistan
Workers' Party), the Kurdish separatist group that
fought a 15-year civil war with the Turkish
authorities in the Eighties and Nineties. But others
say there is strong evidence it is a splinter group
led by commanders who have split from the PKK
because of dissatisfaction with its tactics, along
the lines of the Real IRA and the IRA.
The Falcons first appeared in 2004 - the same year
the PKK renounced a unilateral ceasefire. The direct
targeting of tourists would be a change in recent
tactics for the PKK. Even in its heyday, much of the
PKK's efforts were directed against the Turkish
military - although there were attacks on civilians,
including tourists.
At least 30,000 people are believed to have died in
the war between the PKK and Turkey. But today the
PKK is a shadow of its former self. The guerrilla
army which fought for control of cities in
south-eastern Turkey during the Nineties is largely
gone, defeated by a combination of brutal tactics by
the Turkish army, and a dramatic coup when Turkey
captured its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1999, and
paraded him before television cameras in chains.
After Ocalan called for a peaceful solution from the
dock, during his trial by Turkey, the PKK declared a
unilateral ceasefire. But it ended the ceasefire in
2004. Since then, the PKK has resumed violence,
mostly against the Turkish military. In the
meantime, the Falcons have emerged with a series of
attacks on civilians.
What is the status of the Kurds in Turkey today?
The Kurds remain one of the world's largest
stateless peoples, and they make up somewhere
between a quarter and a third of Turkey's
population. At one point it was illegal to call
yourself a Kurd or to speak a word of Kurdish in
Turkey - which meant for thousands of rural Kurdish
women, who only knew their own language, it was
illegal to speak.
During its brutal suppression of the PKK insurgency,
the Turkish military burned more than 3,000 Kurdish
villages to the ground, leaving hundreds of
thousands of people homeless and penniless.
The worst excesses are now a thing of the past -
largely thanks to Turkey's ambition to join the
European Union. The EU has made it clear Turkey will
have to give the Kurds minority rights as part of
the price of joining.
But critics say the changes Turkey has made in its
treatment of the Kurds to satisfy the EU have been
little more than 'cosmetic'. And it is clear from
the resurgence of violence that there is still
resentment at their treatment among Turkey's Kurds.
What does this mean for Turkey's hopes of EU
membership?
The opponents of Turkish membership inside the EU -
and many still remain - may seize on the latest
violence as evidence that Turkey has not resolved
the Kurdish issue. The EU does not want to import a
major ethnic insurgency inside its own borders.
But those behind the bombings, whoever they actually
are, may find there is far less tolerance for such
tactics in the post-9/11 world. Certainly Turkey can
expect complete backing from the US against the
militants - but then it always could. It was the EU
that Turkey found harder to convince.
The EU's reaction will have major implications for
how Turkey responds to a new wave of Kurdish
violence. It succeeded in crushing the PKK in the
Nineties with a campaign of extraordinary brutality
in which, as well as burning thousands of Kurdish
villages, it responded to the rebels with guerrilla
tactics of its own, sending commandos into the
mountain to hunt down the rebels -and snatching
Ocalan from the streets of Nairobi in a Mossad-style
operation.
It is open to question whether the EU will be able
to stomach such extreme tactics in a candidate
state. The Kurdish issue was cited when the EU
rejected Turkish membership overtures again and
again for many years.
Is the situation in Iraq to blame for the renewed
violence?
Turkey certainly says so. The PKK used the Kurdish
mountains of northern Iraq as a base for many years,
when they were turned into "safe havens" where
Saddam's army was not allowed to go after the 1991
Gulf War. They were supposed to be forced out after
the fall of Saddam, but with Iraq mired in anarchy
and violence, Turkey claims the PKK are back in
their old mountain bases there.
In the old days before the US-led invasion, the
Turkish army used to cross the border regularly to
hunt down the PKK in northern Iraq. Turkey says the
situation is worse than ever now.
The Iraqi government does not want the Turkish army
flitting across its border whenever it suits it -
not least because the Turks have always been
suspected of territorial designs on Kurdistan
(northern Iraq).
But Iraq's security forces, unable to contain their
own insurgency, are in little position to do much
about the PKK.
On top of that, the sight of Iraq's Kurds enjoying
considerable autonomy just across the border is sure
to fuel the aspirations of Turkey's Kurds for the
same.
independent co.uk
More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984
when the PKK, blacklisted by Turkey, the United
States and the European Union, took up arms for
self-rule in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast
of Turkey.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan".
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France.
About half of all Kurds which estimate to 20 million
live in Turkey
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan (
Kurdistan-Turkey) wikipedia
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