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Turkey raises hopes of peace with Kurds
24.7.2007 |
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Poll victory gives Erdogan power to resist military
· Kurdish party wins 23 seats in new parliament
July
24, 2007
Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is
likely to use his sweeping election victory to open
a dialogue with his country's Kurdish insurgents,
according to Turkish and Kurdish experts.
He is also expected to oppose an invasion of
Kurdistan (northern Iraq) and has invited the Iraqi
prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to Ankara for talks
that would include US officials.
Mr Erdogan is in a strong position to dismiss
military pressure for a cross-border crackdown on
PKK Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq and to
extract concessions on the Kurdish conflict from the
Americans and Kurdish leaders.
Turkey has massed tens of thousands of troops on the
Iraqi border in recent weeks, with hawks in the high
command pressing for an invasion. Mr Erdogan has
resisted. Thrust into an unassailable position by a
landslide election victory on Sunday, he now looks
better placed to push a new political initiative on
the Kurdish issue rather than opt for military
action.
"Invasion is off the agenda now, there's a new
momentum," said Cengiz Candar, a Turkish analyst.
As well as securing a national victory on Sunday, Mr
Erdogan scored a remarkable triumph in the Kurdish
south-east, doubling the vote of his AKP or Justice
and Development party in mainly Kurdish areas to win
an absolute majority of the vote with 52%.
"The AKP beat us. The government now has complete
power and legitimacy," said a Kurdish official in
the regional capital of Diyarbakir.
Having received such a vote of confidence from the
Kurds, Mr Erdogan is unlikely to alienate them by
invading. The Americans are fiercely opposed to a
Turkish incursion into Kurdistan, the only bit of
Iraq that is relatively stable and successful.
At the weekend, the British ambassador in Ankara
said he could not see what Turkey had to gain from
invading Kurdistan (northern Iraq). Government
officials and diplomats agree.
One former Turkish ambassador said Turkish forces
would get bogged down "in a quagmire" in the
guerrilla territory of mountainous Kurdistan region
(northern Iraq).
An aide to Mr Erdogan said: "There's been 26
cross-border operations in 30 years. If Turkey had
the feeling that a 27th would put an end to the PKK,
it would not blink."
In addition to the AKP's electoral success in the
Kurdish areas, the main Kurdish party in Turkey, the
DTP, took 23 seats, putting it in the new parliament
for the first time since 1994. The DTP is seen as
the political wing of the PKK. The Turkish election
system is stacked against it by setting a 10%
national threshold for representation in parliament.
The DTP beat the system by running candidates as
independents.
"That will make a difference," said Hizsar Ozsoy, a
Kurdish analyst in Diyarbakir. "There's definitely a
chance for a political opening."
The Erdogan camp has been trying to open political
channels to the Kurdish leadership in Iraq for
months, but has been stymied by the military top
brass and the outgoing hostile president of Turkey.
When Mr Erdogan wanted to invite the Iraqi president
and Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, to Ankara,
Turkey's president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, vetoed the
move.
In Istanbul and Ankara, the military pressure for an
invasion was also seen as a warning to the Erdogan
government against dialogue with the Kurdish
leadership.
Turkey has been at war with the PKK for 30 years in
a conflict that has taken almost 40,000 lives. At
least 70 Turkish security forces have been killed
this year. Turkey is home to around 15 million
Kurds, by far the biggest of the Kurdish populations
also native to Iraq, Iran and Syria.
Officially, Turkey does not recognise the regional
government of Kurdistan led by president Massoud
Barzani. But, sources say, there were attempts
several months ago to set up a secret meeting
between the Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul,
and Mr Barzani, who, when leading the Kurdish
insurgency against Saddam Hussein, travelled on a
Turkish diplomatic passport.
"If there's an improvement in contacts with
Kurdistan and with Barzani, that will be good for
the Turkish Kurds," said the Kurdish official.
The key to any breakthrough, said the Erdogan aide,
was a clear signal on "terrorism" from Mr Barzani.
guardian co.uk
** 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" Southeast
Turkey.
Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in
Turkey and are denied rights granted to other
minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and
education in the Kurdish language, but critics say
the measures do not go far enough.
Others estimate over 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.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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