Turkish Forum

Category: Turkey

  • “Ottomans Were The First to Reach The Moon,” says Turkish President

    “Ottomans Were The First to Reach The Moon,” says Turkish President

    KAYNAK:

    by Barbara Johnson

    Istanbul| Ottomans were the first to walk on the surface of the moon, not Neil Armstrong, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, yesterday, during an iftar (fast-breaking) dinner hosted by the Turkish Green Crescent.

    Mr. Erdoğan claimed that Muslim explorers reached the Moon more than 300 years before the beginning of the Appolo program, vowing to build a mosque “in the crater” where they landed.

    “It is alleged that the first man to walk on the moon was Neil Armstrong in 1969,” Erdoğan said. “In fact, Muslim space explorers reached our satellite 334 years before that, in 1635. Everyone knows the story of the famous aviator, Lagâri Hasan Çelebi, the “Ottoman Rocket Man”, who made the first successful manned rocket flight in 1633. What you might not know, is that he attempted to reach the moon, two years later, and could very well have succeeded!”

    The story of Lagari Hasan Çelebi was purported by a famous 17th century Arab merchant and traveller, Mehmed Zilli, also known as Evliya Çelebi. In his famous travelog, he explains that Lagari Hasan Çelebi launched in a 7-winged rocket using 50 okka (63.5 kg or 140 lbs) of gunpowder. It took off from Sarayburnu, a site below the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.

    As Evliya Celebi wrote, Lagari proclaimed before launch “O my sultan! Be blessed, I am going to talk to Jesus!”, before lighting the rocket’s gunpowder.  He then ascended more than 200 meters in the air and landed in the sea, hundreds of meters from his takeoff point. Swimming ashore, he allegedly reported: “O my sultan! Jesus sends his regards to you!”.

    President Erdoğan’s surprising claim generated some whispers and laughter from the audience, a reaction that clearly angered the Turkish politician. He slammed the skeptics for mocking his claims, adding that he would soon have the proofs to back his claims.

    “Why do you not believe it? Because you’ve never believed that a Muslim can do such a thing, just like you’ve never believed that our ancestors could manage to launch ships in the Golden Horn after transporting them across land,” Erdoğan said, referring to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II’s conquest of Istanbul in 1453. “This claim is not new. A number of academics in Turkey and in the rest of the world have made this claim, and I believe they are right. NASA may have destroyed most of the physical evidence of the Ottoman’s success during the Apollo 11 mission, but we’ll try to find any evidence that might have escaped the cover up.”

    The Turkish President did not, however, give any precision about the proofs he was expecting to find nor how he was hoping to gather them.

    The story of Lagâri Hasan Çelebi is considered a legend by most historians, and most experts believe that it is impossible that the “aviator” could have survived a flight into outer space.

    His first flight was, indeed, addressed in an experiment by the television show MythBusters, on November 11, 2009, in the episode “Crash and Burn”.  The rocket constructed for the TV show did not adhere closely, however, to Evliya Çelebi’s descriptions and the final design did not attempt to utilize materials of the period;

    The team noted that Evliya Çelebi had not sufficiently specified the alleged design used by Lagâri Hasan, but concluded that it would have been “extremely difficult” for a 17th-century figure, without access to modern steel alloys and welding techniques, to land safely or even achieve thrust at all. This conclusion was backed by the fact that, although the re-imagined rocket rose, it exploded in midflight

    History Moon Science space Space Travel Turkey
    Comments
    Newer Comments →
    1. MARK LANDIS says:
      July 7, 2015 at 3:59 pm

      EVEN IF HE MADE A ROCKET THAT WOULD REACH THE MOON HE NEVER TOOK IN THE FACT THERE IS NO OXYGEN IN SPACE OR ON THE MOON

      Reply
    2. jos van Veen says:
      July 7, 2015 at 5:35 pm

      de man wordt steeds zieliger…

      misschien denkt hij dat minaretten de raketten zijn…of zo

      Je vindt dit soort gedrag ook bij lijders aan syphillis, gevorderd stadium

      Tijd voor het gesticht voordat er echt domme dingen gebeuren

      Reply
    3. Sub says:
      July 7, 2015 at 6:35 pm

      I may be the only one to notice this, but the author refers to the show “Mythbusters” and says

      “the final design did not attempt to utilize materials of the period;”

      I would like to clarify that the reason the final design did not utilize materials of the time is because they try to test the myth using time appropriate materials and methods, and if this fails, they then attempt to re-create it using modern methods.

      Reply
    4. Craig says:
      July 13, 2015 at 5:45 pm

      Did he bring back drawings as proof?

      Reply
      • Ray Martin says:
        July 13, 2015 at 7:31 pm

        He was unable to to do that because, as you probably know, drawings are forbidden by the Koran.

      • Kutay says:
        July 14, 2015 at 11:08 am

        @Roy Martin, Mehmet II was the first emperor who painted his portrait.

      • Lessie says:
        July 15, 2015 at 12:26 pm

        @Kutay. Yeah after him, his son sold the portrait to non-muslims and banned to drawing

    5. MrFurious says:
      July 13, 2015 at 5:48 pm

      This guy is the president of a nation. How scary is that?

      Reply
      • Stephen Tyler says:
        July 13, 2015 at 6:23 pm

        Actually, it was pretty scary having George W Bush in the hot seat. He and Mr Erdoğan would have some verrry interesting conversations – without needing to get stoned first.

      • Ali Emre Demir says:
        July 14, 2015 at 1:36 am

        Unfortunately, he is our president

      • Berkay says:
        July 14, 2015 at 8:32 am

        The scary thing is if you living in that nation and witness all the things that man do and see how much supporters he has.This is an embarasment.

      • deniz says:
        July 15, 2015 at 11:10 am

        Poor secular turkish people this tayyip is the emberesment of Turkey

  • Ankara cracks down on IS; but is it too little too late?

    Ankara cracks down on IS; but is it too little too late?

    Members of the Turkish police counterattack team responsible for guarding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stand in front of a mosque as Erdogan departs, following Friday prayers in Istanbul, May 29, 2015.  (photo by REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

    Estranged from his family and ravaged by a drug habit for most of his adult life, Murat reckoned he had nothing to lose the day he left his home in Ankara for the self-proclaimed caliphate of the Islamic State (IS). As he crossed the Syrian border in full view of Turkish troops in February 2014, Murat concluded that his own government was equally nonchalant about his future. When the 29-year-old returned home late last month, he discovered that the rules of engagement along Turkey’s border had changed. Apprehended by the Turkish military within minutes of his crossing, Murat was arrested and charged with membership in a terrorist organization.

    Turkey has recently moved to counter Islamic State recruitment in the country, but it faces a difficult time reintegrating jihadist returnees from Syria and Iraq, some of whom have been traumatized by their experiences.
    Author Noah Blaser Posted July 13, 2015

    Released pending trial, Murat returned to his tumbledown home district of Haci Bayram, in Ankara, to find police staking out the men who had helped funnel recruits like himself into Syria. “It was never like this before,” said Murat, who asked that his real name be withheld for fear of retribution. “Now there are police here. Now we are being followed.”

    On July 10, Turkey launched its first major crackdown on IS’ domestic recruitment network, detaining 18 Turkish citizens and three foreign nationals and confiscating a cache of assault weapons and military uniforms. Of the 21 people taken into custody in raids around the country, including in Haci Bayram, police detained at least 12 of the suspects and pressed charges against the other nine.

    While Turkey has markedly stepped up detention of would-be foreign jihadists at airports and border crossings over the past year, it had avoided domestic crackdowns and neglected censoring Turkish-language jihadist websites and other media.

    “After launching 10 raids this past week, Ankara is showing it thinks the IS can no longer be managed by de facto nonaggression,” said Aaron Stein of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank. “Turkey is conceding to a more US-styled approach,” he said, pointing to a meeting between US and Turkish officials just days before the arrests. Turkish officials, however, have downplayed the significance of the meeting. “Serious operations take months to plan out and Turkey has long showed its resolve against the [IS],” said a Turkish official who requested anonymity.

    In Haci Bayram, the arrests represent a once unimaginable about-face. Last year, despite reports that the neighborhood — long blighted by drug use and sweeping urban renewal — had become a major IS recruitment hub, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced foreign news reports of jihadist recruitment in Haci Bayram as a campaign of “shamelessness, sordidness and vileness.” Turkey’s pro-government press forcefully denied the reports and took aim at New York Times reporter Ceylan Yeginsu, who fled the country amid a flurry of death threats.

    Although Turkish police have acted in Haci Bayram and other IS hot spots, it will be a struggle to manage the returning fighters who in the end walk free. The Turkish official estimates that around 1,400 Turkish nationals have joined IS, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra and other rebel groups in Syria since 2012.

    Many returnees will earn acquittal barring explicit evidence of violent acts committed in Syria, said Omer Behram Ozdemir, a researcher at Sakarya University who focuses on jihadist extremism in Turkey. “Unlike the Turkish jihadists who fought in the Bosnian, Afghan and Chechen conflicts, those who fight with [IS] see their conflict extending beyond the borders of Syria,” he warned.

    Near his new apartment on the streets of impoverished Haci Bayram, Murat says he is slowly reconnecting with his family and does not see Turkey as enemy territory. That conviction is tied to his belief that Turkey won’t decisively crack down on IS while the jihadists battle Kurdish militants in northern Syria.

    When asked about the recent arrests, his view of Turkey quickly soured. “We will regard any punishment in [Turkey] as a reward,” Murat declared. Emotionally volatile and wracked by post-traumatic stress disorder, Murat vacillates between disbelief at the violence of his actions in Syria and longing to return to combat. He expressed bewilderment at his commander’s order to carry out a grisly execution of a peshmerga captive in Iraq earlier in the year. “I couldn’t sleep for 10 days,” he said. Staring ahead blankly, Murat added unapologetically, “The laws are strict, but these are our commandments.”

    Ankara has admitted to the security risk the former jihadist fighters pose, but Turkish officials have declined to comment on how they plan to rehabilitate them. “So far, I haven’t heard of any plans for dealing with returnees from [IS],” said Ozdemir. Turkish Interior Minister Sebahattin Ozturk conceded July 7 that “negligence” had allowed Orhan Gonder, a 20-year-old returnee from IS, to elude Turkish intelligence and carry out twin bombings at a June 5 election rally in Diyarbakir. Four people were killed in the attack.

    If Turkey sustains its crackdown on native-born jihadists, it will find more of them within its borders than ever, Murat warned. Wary of a 10-year prison term if he skips trial, he has no plans to return to Syria. He also said IS recruits feel trapped in Turkey by the buildup of troops between the border towns of Kilis and Karkamis that has squeezed IS’ last smuggling route into Turkey after it lost the border city of Tell Abyad to Kurdish forces in June.

    “The war is also getting harder in Syria,” he said. Claiming to have been detained by fellow militants wary of escapees in Syria, he added, “More and more, fighters want to come home.”

    It remains to be seen how serious Ankara’s crackdown will be. The New York Times reported July 10 that some suspects had been freed just hours after their detention. Although the crackdown has included key names, including IS proponent Murat Gezenler, the jihadist web editor Abdulkadir Polat and pro-al Qaeda pundit Cumali Kurt, Ankara notoriously released the foremost pro-IS preacher, Abu Hanzala, during the height of the riots last October over Ankara’s response to the siege of Kobani.

    How Ankara deals with those it cannot hold in jail cells is a no less critical issue, said Ozdemir. “[IS] will publish its Turkish propaganda magazine’s new issue soon. We will see if it mentions Turkey’s policy on Turkish pro-IS supporters,” he said. “Regardless, returning [IS] fighters will pose a serious threat to the Turkish state.”

    Dogu Eroglu contributed to this article.

  • The Coalition’s quagmire with Syrian Kurds

    The Coalition’s quagmire with Syrian Kurds

    Kurdish People’s Protection Units fighters drive a tank at the eastern entrances to the town of Tell Abyad in the northern countryside of Raqqa, Syria, June 14, 2015.  (photo by REUTERS/Rodi Said)

     

    Syrian Kurdish battlefield successes in the past month have reinforced Coalition efforts to liberate the Islamic State (IS) stronghold of Raqqa. Having expelled IS from safe havens in eastern Syria with Coalition military support, including the strategic border town of Tell Abyad, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) are regarded as the only reliable and effective ground force to continue the momentum. Yet a deeper look into local dynamics challenges this narrative and raises concerns about strategic end-states. Most Sunni Arab populations may despise IS; however, they also oppose the YPG and its political wing, the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party (PYD), and seek to prevent Syrian Kurds from moving forward into non-Kurdish territories. Any hopes for a Kurdish-led offensive without an effective local Arab partner will not only enhance support for IS and other radical groups, but will have a backlash on Kurdish populations and deepen ethnic, resource and territorial conflicts in Syria.

    Summary⎙ Print A deeper look into local dynamics challenges the narrative that the Kurdish People’s Protection Units is the only reliable and effective ground force against the Islamic State, and raises concerns about strategic end-states.
    Author Denise Natali Posted July 14, 2015

    Liberating Raqqa is highly politicized and involves more than expelling IS from the region. One of the immediate aims of the Coalition and PYD is to cut IS’ supply route that is centered on Jarablus, which would leave IS with one remaining border point with Turkey at Araz. The PYD also seeks to rid all radical Islamist elements from the region beyond IS, to include the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra. A PYD-controlled Jarablus would link the Kurdish territories of Afrin and Kobani and create a Kurdish belt across 200 kilometers (124 miles) of border with Turkey.

    Arab groups and Turkey have harshly reacted to Kurdish territorial gains. Immediately after PYD took Tell Abyad, which has a Kurdish minority population, IS retaliated with suicide attacks in other Kurdish-controlled territories in Kobani and Hasakah. Leaders from the Islamist militant group Ahrar al-Sham, which has support in Turkey, have also condemned PYD, asserting that the “territorial integrity of Syria is a red line for Syrian opposition and revolutionary forces.” Kurdish advances in Tell Abyad have also had repercussions on Kurdish-Arab relations outside of Raqqa. In Aleppo, the regional assembly of Syrian opposition forces have suspended their September 2014 agreement that allowed the PYD to administer Kurdish neighborhoods in the city. Ankara has also reacted to PYD territorial expansionism, reaffirming its demands for a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile)-deep security zone at Jarablus to prevent a Kurdish-controlled border area.

    These dynamics will prevent the YPG from liberating Raqqa city — which has no native Kurdish populations — even if the Coalition intensifies airstrikes. Raqqa has symbolic value not only for IS but for Sunni Arab groups who have been resisting the Syrian regime since the civil war started in 2011. After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces pulled out of Raqqa in 2012, it was largely controlled by Ahrar al-Sham and then by Jabhat al-Nusra before being taken over by IS in 2014.

    These radical groups remain powerful throughout the province and would not cede territories or resources to the Kurds, particularly given Raqqa’s strategic position on the Euphrates and its dams that source electricity and local war economies. Radical Islamic and opposition groups in the region could also mobilize local Sunni Arab tribes against the YPG and its Syrian Kurdish affiliates.

    Equally problematic is how the PYD could secure and govern Raqqa and other former IS safe havens. To be sure, the PYD has attempted to create power-sharing arrangements in territories it has retaken from IS, particularly areas with mixed populations. Since expelling IS from Tell Abyad, referred to by Kurds as Girê Spî, the PYD-backed Rojava Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) has brought together different communities of Armenians, Turcoman and Arabs in a localized “constituent assembly.”

    The PYD also continues to stress that it does not seek independence but rather distinct self-rule local administrations in collaboration with other groups. In fact, the PYG has been able to expel IS and secure territories in eastern Syria only by establishing pacts with different Syrian rebel groups and regime forces: Jabhat al-Nusra (2012 and early 2014) in Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye), Assad forces and Sunni Arab tribes in Qamishli, with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Kobani and Tell Abyad, and Islamic groups in Aleppo. The co-chairman of the Syrian Kurdish canton of Jazirah is the head of the Sunni Arab Shammar tribe.

    Still, in Raqqa there are no Syrian opposition groups that the PYD can rely on to share power since most are dominated by Jabhat al-Nusra. FSA forces are weak and symbolic at best, reflecting the inefficacy of the train and equip program — which has trained only about 75 forces per month — and the near absence of Syrians willing to fight IS as a priority and not Assad.

    These trends are shaped by regional politics and have deepened political rifts. While most Sunni Arab opposition groups regard the Syrian regime as much or more of a threat than IS, the PYD considers Assad as the only potential partner to fight IS and other radical groups. Iran also continues to influence Damascus and the Syrian Kurdish regions, both of which are at odds with the Coalition’s Sunni Arab and Turkish partners.

    These dynamics have implications for US and Coalition strategy and expectations in Syria. Intensifying airstrikes against IS in the absence of reliable Arab partners and Turkish help, even in part, risks undermining Kurdish battlefield successes and creating a backlash on local populations. While coordinating with the PYD militarily, the United States should seek ways to minimize further local fragmentation by supporting shared border security, power sharing, commerce and reconstruction in IS-free territories among Syrian Kurds, Arabs and Turkey. These challenges beg the larger question of what Syria will look like once IS has been contained and who can assure local stability and under what terms. Kurdish territorial gains without sufficient local support and capacity to govern is a recipe for political failure and future instability.

    Denise Natali
    Columnist

    Denise Natali is a columnist for Al-Monitor. She is a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University where she specializes on regional energy politics, Middle East politics and the Kurdish issue. The views expressed are her own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the US government.

  • George Soros’ 28-year-old son was injured in a boating accident in the Hamptons

    George Soros’ 28-year-old son was injured in a boating accident in the Hamptons

    George Soros’un 28 yaşındaki oğlu Gregory J. Soros, 6 Temmuz’da tatil için New York Hampstoms’a gitti. Satisfactory adlı süper lüks sürat teknesiyle denize açılan Gregory, direksiyonun kilitlemesi sonucu dev bir kayaya çarptı. Ağır yaralanan Gregory’nin bilincinin kapalı olduğu ve hala hastanede tedavide olduğu açıklandı. Hem kaza haberi hem sağlık durumuyla ilgili bilgiler çok sonra ortaya çıktı! Acaba bu kaza değil miydi? SOROS’un düşmanları olduğu gibi kendisini sevmeyen de çoktu!

    The 28-year-old son of billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros was injured in a boating accident in the Hamptons over the holiday weekend, The New York Post reports.

    Gregory J. Soros was a passenger onboard a 40-foot recreational boat called “Satisfactory” that hit a sandbar in Shinnecock Bay on Sunday evening around 6:30 p.m.

    According to Southampton Patch, Gregory lost consciousness when the boat hit land. He was taken to the hospital for possible rib and head injuries, the report said.

    The boat’s captain, 34-year-old Gregory Nissen, was also taken to the hospital.

    We’ve reached out to Southampton Town Police for an update.

     

    The son of billionaire hedge fund mogul George Soros was injured along with the captain of a boat that ran aground on Long Island this weekend.

    Gregory Soros, 28, was aboard the 40-foot “Satisfactory,” which struck a sandbar about 6:30 p.m. Sunday in Shinnecock Bay, Southampton town cops told The Suffolk Times.

    Skipper Gregory Nissen, 34, of Greenport, NY, told constables and the US Coast Guard that the mishap caused injuries on the vessel.

    Soros, of Shelter Island, lost consciousness and taken to Southampton Hospital with possible rib and head injuries, cops told the paper.

    A hospital spokeswoman told The Post there was no one with his name hospitalized there Tuesday.

    George Soros is chairman of the $28 billion investment firm Soros Fund Management, where no one was made available to comment Tuesday.

    Nissen also was taken to Southampton Hospital with a possible head injury, cops told Patch.com

    Another passenger, Courtney Sherwood, 29, of Manhattan, reported no injuries, cops said.

    The boat was later towed to a marina.

    A call to the Southhampton Bay Constable’s office was not immediately returned.

     

     

  • Thoughts On City Of Carson Vote Rejecting An Ataturk Monument

    Thoughts On City Of Carson Vote Rejecting An Ataturk Monument

    Ergun Kirlikovali
    The City Council of City of Carson voted down unanimously on March 4, 2015, Wednesday, a measure to erect a monument to Ataturk, founding father of the Republic of Turkey—considered one of the most inspiring leaders in the 20th Century—in the city, after a heated debate during the regular city council session.

    In the public comment session,  only six speakers from each side were given the chance to speak, although some 298 people on the opposing side and 101 on the supporting side expressed interest.

    The Armenian lobby was represented by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Armenian Youth Federation, American Hellenic Council, and mayors of Glendale and Montebello.  No surprises there.

    The Armenian lobby presentations were replete with distortions, omissions, errors, slanders, and fabrications.  So, no surprises there, either.

    The biggest surprise was Mayor Jim Dear who made such a swift 180 degree turn in his stand that would make the best ballet dancer envious.  He went from praising the leadership of Ataturk for the last two years to voting against his monument in one night, even pronouncing the “G” word, the long-discredited and baseless political claim of genocide, in the process.  Mayor Pro Tempore Elita Santarina, and Councilmembers Lula Davis-Homes and Albert Robles chose to take crude Armenian allegations at face value.   I do not know them, so I cannot decide if there is any suprises there.

    Be that as it may, it is City of Carson’s loss and another city’s gain, the latter being the future location of the inspiring memorial to Ataturk, soldier, statesman, reformer, and visionary.  The Turkish American community is wiser, sharper, and more determined than ever now.   With the project ready, community motivated, momentum built, the determination of the Turkish-Americans just shot through the sky.  The funds collected will grow many fold in no time, efforts will redouble and, as sure as the sun will shine tomorrow, we shall be back.

    Memorials to Atatürk represent far more than inanimate marble objects in some peaceful garden setting; they collectively represent the memory of a nation. They are also the symbols of hope and vision for the Americans of Turkish heritage, as well as all Turks around the world and in Turkey.  They mean independence, liberty, and justice… They symbolize respect for equality, fraternity, human rights, democracy, and rule of law. They are reminders of singular dedication to womens’ rights, choices, freedoms, and secularism. They show the entire world perhaps the most striking way out of dogma-based-radicalism with which the world grapples today.

    Those memorials are a testament to the free will of the people, and the respect and admiration with which Turks embrace Atatürk and his comrades, the Forefathers of the Modern Republic of Turkey. To be against such a memorial is to deny all values revered by peoples of leading industrialized nations East and West, North and South. To oppose an Ataturk memorial is to live in the darkness of the past.

    I still have high hopes for peace which can only come from down-to-earth enlightenment of those who chase ghosts, cultivate hate, sow discord, and harvest vengeance and violence. Sooner or later, those radicals will realize that all they accomplish with hate is a piece of custom-made hell enslaving their hearts and minds. As George Bernard Shaw so aptly put it, “Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.”

    So, fight on, Turkish-Americans, for dignity, truth, and fairness.

  • The Kurdish Consolidation

    The Kurdish Consolidation

    Amassing Power at Ballot Box and on the Battlefield

    By Micha’el Tanchum

    Recently, Kurds on each side of the Turkey-Syria border have made significant advances in their quest for autonomy. In Turkey, those gains were won at the ballot box, while in Syria they were won on the battlefield. After garnering global sympathy and the support of U.S. airpower with their defense of Kobani against a formidable siege by the Islamic State (also called ISIS), Syria’s Kurds went on to capture the strategic town of Tel Abyad from ISIS on June 15. And as a result of Turkey’s elections a week earlier, the Kurdish-led People’s Democratic Party (HDP) has entered parliament, irrevocably altering Turkey’s political landscape. Indeed, seating the first Kurdish-oriented party in parliament constitutes a milestone for civil rights in Turkey. But in the context of events on both sides of the border, the true winner is Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a party and militant group that initiated the HDP’s creation and whose Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party (PYD),is responsiblefor the recent victories against ISIS.

    The HDP’s entrance into Turkey’s parliament and the PYD’s control of Syrian territory mark a new chapter in the PKK’s decadelong attempt to create a pan-Kurdish confederation that would bring together the Middle East’s 30 million Kurds.

    The PKK leadership has already outlined a path for Kurdish autonomy that obviates the need for independence. The HDP, with whom the PKK shares its grassroots support, has made sufficient gains in Ankara to begin making the PKK’s vision for a pan-Kurdish confederation a reality. In March 2005, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan issued the Declaration of a Democratic Confederalism, which created a road map for establishing a confederation out of four autonomous Kurdish regions, each tied to its country of origin—Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Turkey—through federal relationships. Political advances like the HDP’s victory and military victories like the PYD’s advances in Syria are helping Ocalan’s plan become a reality. In other words, the PKK’s future has never looked brighter.

    NEW PARTNERSHIPS

    In 2012, the PKK-affiliated PYD established three autonomous cantons in Syrian Kurdistan, a major breakthrough for Ocalan, whose plan began with the establishment of affiliated political parties within the Kurdish-populated territories of Iran, Iraq, and Syria that would later pave the way for a cross-border confederation with Turkish Kurdistan. The PYD’s cantons became known as Rojavaye Kurdistane (Western Kurdistan), or more commonly as Rojava (the West), implying that the KRG’s Iraqi Kurdistan was merely its southern counterpart. Ultimately, Ocalan seeks to subsume Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), led by the rival Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), into a PKK-dominated confederation.

    The KRG, however, was not content to let this happen without a response. The group subsequently dug a 10.5-mile trench between Rojava and Iraq’s Kurdish areas in April 2014 ostensibly to protect against Syrian ISIS fighters. The trench established a flimsy land boundary between the PKK’s growing sphere and the KRG’s territories. Months later, the KRG’s peshmerga abandoned the region in the face of ISIS’ advance into northern Iraq.

    People march in solidarity with people of Kobani in Diyarbakir, Turkey, June 26, 2015.

    When ISIS militants laid siege to Mount Sinjar in northwestern Iraq, fighters from the PYD-affiliated People’s Protection Units (YPG) created a corridor from Rojava to rescue 10,000 besieged Kurdish Yezidis. Media images of PKK and YPG fighters rescuing Yezidis from ISIS militants earned the PKK widespread appreciation and enhanced its pan-Kurdistan mission.

    Similarly, the ISIS attack on the Syrian town of Kobani may have cemented a partnership between the West and the PKK-aligned Kurdish forces, seeing an alliance as a way forward against the advances of ISIS within Syria. The Western-led anti-ISIS coalition adopted a policy of supporting Rojava through air strikes. This was a marked shift in the West’s approach to PKK-affiliated organizations, which had previously been adversarial. The United States relied on Kurdish troops to fight ISIS on the ground, providing air strikes during the Sinjar offensive and airdropping weapons and munitions to PYD forces during the siege of Kobani.

    The West may have warmed up to the PYD’s fighting groups, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan maintained a cool distance from Rojava. Eight months after the PYD established autonomous Kurdish cantons in Syria, Ocalan declared a historic unilateral cease-fire with the Turkish state, halting a 30-year insurgency that cost over 40,000 lives. The resulting peace talks between the government of then Prime Minister Erdogan and Ocalan enjoyed broad public support and presented an enormous opportunity for Erdogan to strike a grand bargain. If Ankara were able to reach an understanding with Ocalan and provide Turkish Kurdistan with some semblance of autonomy, an Ankara-oriented PKK/PYD-led Kurdish confederation that subsumed the KRG would prevent Kurdish independence while transforming the KRG and Rojava into client entities. Turkey’s southern borders would be secured by a Kurdish buffer zone and Ankara’s diminishing status as a regional power would be restored. Nevertheless, Erdogan demurred.

    As late as October 18, 2014, a month into ISIS’ siege of Kobani, Erdogan continued to push the notion that the PYD, as a PKK affiliate, was a terrorist organization and therefore no different from ISIS. Turkey’s Kurds were further astounded by Erdogan’s apparent delight in the impending collapse of the Kurdish stronghold to ISIS when the Turkish president exultantly declared, “Kobani is on the verge of falling.” The United States came to the PYD’s aid. Ankara subsequently allowed 200 KRG peshmerga to transit through Turkey to join the defense of Kobani, but continued to reject the PYD’s requests to open a land corridor for resupply efforts.

    blossoming international support. The ballot box would be their next battlefront for political legitimacy.

    A Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighter walks near residents who had fled Tel Abyad, as they re-enter Syria from Turkey after the YPG took control of the area, at Tel Abyad town, Raqqa governorate, Syria, June 23, 2015.

    ROCK THE VOTE

    Both Kurds and non-Kurds who opposed the ruling AKP had much to gain by voting for the leftist HDP. And as a result, the Kurdish-oriented party obtained enough support from Turkey’s non-Kurdish left to receive 13.1 percent of the vote—comfortably passing the nation’s 10 percent electoral threshold to gain 80 seats in parliament. The HDP’s triumph ended the AKP’s parliamentary majority and prevented Erdogan from changing the nation’s constitution to discard its parliamentary system in favor of a presidential one, a move that otherwise would have given him unbridled executive power.

     The HDP’s success marks a new era for Kurdish political representation. The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), the HDP’s predecessor, sat on the sidelines during Turkey’s nationwide Gezi Park protests in 2013, which occurred only two months after Ocalan’s declaration of a unilateral cease-fire and the onset of negotiations with the AKP government. Many on Turkey’s left believed that the BDP’s abstention was a political quid pro quo between Ocalan and Erdogan. To quell a growing movement to separate Kurdish rights from broader liberal efforts, Ocalan called for the BDP to reform into a new, inclusive party in order “to bring the Kurdish movement and the Turkish left together.”

    In the run-up to the June 7 elections, the HDP ran a disciplined campaign aimed at building support beyond its Kurdish base, reaching out to Turkish left-leaning youth, women, and minority voters. After the party’s electoral successes, HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş called the results a victory of “all the oppressed people.”

    The HDP’s success marks a new era for Kurdish political representation. Despite the gains the HDP made among Turkey’s non-Kurdish left, the bulk of its votes came from conservative Kurds. According to the statistical analysis conducted by Stockholm School of Economics professor Erik Myersson, approximately 1.5 million conservative Kurds switched their support from the AKP to the HDP. A Turkish polling and research firm estimates that approximately a third of the HDP’s vote total came from AKP voters who crossed over to the HDP.

    WHAT COMES NEXT
    Enjoy this free article from Foreign Affairs

    All visitors get access to one full-length article each month. Register for free to continue reading.

    Registered users get access to two free articles every month.
    Register
    Related Tweets

    Now that the HDP has been voted into parliament, it will have to make good on its promises to both the Kurds and Turkey’s urban left. Doing so will hinge on its program to expand rights and entitlements to all of Turkey’s lower classes and minority groups. In Turkey’s Kurdish heartland, however, party support will be based on how well the HDP advances the cause of Kurdish autonomy. Given that the nation’s Kurdish regions boast the highest birth rates in the country, with total fertility rates reaching either 4–5 children or 3–4 children, depending on the particular province, the Turkish left must accommodate the Kurdish autonomy agenda if it wants to remain a political force in parliament.

    Before it even had time to start on that agenda, though, YPG forces captured Tel Abyad, the Syrian town strategically located at the border crossing to the Turkish town of Akcakale. In capturing Tel Abyad, the YPG cut off a vital north-south supply route from ISIS’ capital in Raqqah. This strategic victory advanced PYD efforts to link Kobani with the Kurdish Cizire canton in Syria’s northeastern triangle, creating a contiguous territory eastward from Kobani to the Iraqi border. The PYD must now clear ISIS from territories between Kobane and the autonomous Kurdish canton of Efrin. The YPG has already begun a campaign to capture the mixed Kurdish-Arab town of Jarabulus in order to achieve this objective. As Turkey’s foremost voice in support of PYD forces fighting ISIS, the HDP will now be able to rally domestic and international support from the halls of Turkey’s Parliament.

    With continued Western support, the PYD could soon establish a contiguous Kurdish territory in Syria that spans most of the region along Turkey’s southern border, despite President Erdogan’s new, hard-line vow last week to “never allow a state to be formed in northern Syria.” In Turkey, the PKK-sympathetic HDP will be an increasingly powerful advocate for granting the Kurds some semblance of autonomy within the nation. As the cease-fire between the PKK and Ankara continues, it is becoming more and more possible that the Kurds can achieve their dream of autonomy through democratic means. Whether the PKK’s ambition to establish autonomous Kurdish regions on both sides of the Turkey-Syria border is ever realized, the progress it is making toward that goal has already altered the political maps of Turkey and the Middle East.