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Why Turkey Should Woo the PKK and Syria's
Kurds
8.8.2012
By Hoshank Awsi - Al-Monitor |
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Turkey which still
denies the constitutional existence of Kurds,
refuses to recognize its Kurdish population as a
distinct minority. Kurds and PKK ask for more
cultural rights for ethnic Kurds who constitute the
greatest minority in Turkey, numbering more than 20
million. Kurds call for lifting the ban on education
in Kurdish, paving the way for an autonomous
democrat Kurdish system within Turkey. A large
Turkey's Kurdish community openly sympathise with
the Kurdish PKK rebels. •
See Related Links
Students Baver, Aslan aged 21 (L) and Dilan Yilmaz,
aged 19, from the Kurdish south eastern city of
Diyarbakir, Turkey's Kurdistan region, pose in
traditional outfits during a May Day rally in
Istanbul May 1, 2012, Photo: Reuters.
August 8, 2012
The Turks have returned to their old/new
threats, refusing to permit the "presence of
terrorists" on their southern border — the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), to be precise.
Turkey knows that the PKK is in Istanbul, Ankara and
all Kurdish cities in the southeast of the country.
It knows that the PKK is in the heart of the Turkish
Parliament and that this party's fighters, cadres
and political and cultural institutions are all over
the Turkish mountains, villages, cities and prisons.
Moreover, Turkey knows that the PKK fighters are
located on the eastern (Iranian Kurdistan) and
southeastern borders (Iraqi Kurdistan). If Turkey is
afraid of the "terrorists" risk, then it must
declare war on three neighboring countries. It also
has to further engage in war against the Kurds of
Turkey in the Kurdish and Turkish mountains and
cities.
The Turkish arguments and justifications that the
government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is advancing
regarding the possibility of invading Syrian-Kurdish
cities on account of PKK-affiliated "fighters" are
meaningless. In fact, even when the Adana Treaty on
security was mostly respected, and when the alliance
between Erdogan and Assad against the PKK was at its
best, Damascus, Ankara and Tehran were unable to
extract the PKK from the Kurdish community — neither
in Syria, Turkey nor Iran.
On the other side, the performance of the
Kurdish-Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), which
is pro-PKK, has reached (by posting photos of Ocalan
and raising PKK flags in the Kurdish-Syrian areas,
and through efforts to impose its hegemony on the
society by force) a disturbing, unfortunate and
irresponsible level of party dogma that has
obviously provoked the Turks.
However, the Turkish threats are still met with
unprecedented Kurdish-Syrian condemnation and
denouncement.
Should Turkey carry out its threats against the PKK
in Syria, and should the PKK keep provoking Turkey
in Syria, a new hell will await the Kurdish areas,
one that is added to the hell that Kurdish-Turkish
cities have been experiencing for three decades of
bloody conflict.
On the other hand, Turkey will have achieved the
Syrian regime's goal by sparking conflict between
the Kurds and the Turks. The Syrian regime's
evacuation of some centers and security headquarters
in some Kurdish-Syrian cities, and the fact that
these centers are now run by Ocalan's Kurdish Party
and some other Kurdish parties is a step that was
intended to provoke the Turks and incite them to
invade the Kurdish areas so that the Assad regime
hits two enemies (the Kurds and the Turks) with one
stone.
Therefore, Turkey must beware falling into the trap
of the Assad regime, a trap erected in the north of
Syria. Syrian Kurdistan is different from Iraqi
Kurdistan. In other words, the Turkish army cannot
enter it and leave it whenever and however it
wishes.
The Turkish regime knows nothing about the
psychology of Syria's Kurds. If the Erdogan
government commits this folly, then it will put
Turkey in Syria's Kurdistan tunnel, which would
swallow up Turkey. In fact, 5,000 of Syria's Kurds
have been martyred in defense of the Kurdish issue
in Turkey,www.ekurd.net
and twice as many have fallen prey to disability.
Add to this that there are about 3,000
Syrian-Kurdish fighters in the PKK and that the most
prominent military leaders in this party are Syrian
Kurds.
By considering the invasion of Syria's Kurdistan,
Turks are targeting themselves and Turkey. Such an
invasion will have bad results and consequences for
Turkey. To say the least, it will give Turkey back
an occupation force, and Turkey will be similar to
Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon and the
Golan Heights under the same Turkish pretext:
Protect its border from "terrorists.”
This invasion will unite the world's Kurds against
Turkey for longer than when they were united during
the abduction and the arrest of Ocalan in 1999,
longer than the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan
in February 2008.
Moreover, Turkey will be occupying two neighboring
countries (north Syria and north Cyprus), and the
entire regional and international reputation gained
by the government of the ruling Justice and
Development Party during the last ten years will
fall. Add to this that with the Turkish invasion of
northern Syria, the "zero problems" theory adopted
by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will also fall.
If Turkey invades Kurdish-Syrian cities, Ankara will
have turned those who criticize the PKK the most and
who are the most disgruntled into its most powerful
advocates. It will have offered the PKK a golden
service which would allow it to turn the tables on
the Turkish government, both within and outside
Turkey, whenever it wants.
Ankara should actively seek to gain the Kurds. If
the Kurdish issue is resolved in Turkey, and the
secret negotiations between Ankara and PKK leader
Abdullah Ocalan succeed, as described in the Turkish
media, the PKK will engage in Turkish politics,
projects and ambitions, and fears of a "secret
alliance" between the PKK and the Syrian regime will
disappear. Thus, Turkey will win over Syria's Sunnis
and Kurds.
Turkish strategy planners should pay attention to
these ideas, and be extremely cautious about being
drawn into the follies of invading Kurdish-Syrian
cities, and about having the Kurds, everywhere, on
Turkey's bad side.
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