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  • Turkey sees accords with Israel, Kurds as first step to greater regional role

    Turkey sees accords with Israel, Kurds as first step to greater regional role

    By Roy Gutman — McClatchy Newspapers

    ISTANBUL, TURKEY — After two major breakthroughs in less than a week – an accord to end a three-year squabble with Israel and a landmark step by a jailed Kurdish leader to settle a 30-year insurgency – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s star appears to be rising – and with it, Turkey’s role as a major regional power.

    Erdogan, 59, a moderate Islamist and a former mayor of Istanbul, is described as a man of passion and plain speech, two characteristics that sometimes get him in trouble, such as when he recently equated Zionism with a crime against humanity.

    He seemed matter-of-fact and serious on Saturday as he voiced hope that the Turkish-Israeli reconciliation that President Barack Obama brokered on Friday might even help resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute – though he also called for Israel to return to the borders that existed before its 1967 victory in the Six-Day War, something that Israeli officials have rejected previously.

    “My wish is that common sense prevails in this process, and we make this process a permanent one, to end the years-long suffering, with (Israel’s) withdrawal to the 1967 borders,” he told reporters Saturday.

    Israel, for the first time in memory, formally apologized for a military operation and promised compensation to families of eight Turks and one Turkish-American killed in the attack against the Mavi Marmara, an aid ship bringing supplies to civilians in Gaza in July 2010.

    Erdogan avoided hyperbole as well on Thursday when Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the PKK guerrilla group, called for his followers to end their three-decade-long military campaign for Kurdish independence in favor of constitutional reform and political struggle. Erdogan termed the move, announced in a letter read before a crowd of 1 million Kurds, a “positive development.”

    But close students of Turkish affairs say the twin events could be a turning point for both Turkey’s democracy and the Middle East region, as well as providing Erdogan, who became prime minister in 2003, a longer lease on power, possibly as popularly elected president under a new constitution.

    “This is an extraordinarily important set of developments,” said James Jeffrey, who retired last year as U.S. ambassador to Iraq and served as U.S. envoy in Turkey before that. “It shows the capability of Turkey to be an extraordinary player in the region. They have reached these accords with folks they’ve been in conflict with, in one case a diplomatic conflict, in the other a guerrilla war.”

    He expressed hope that Israel and Turkey would recognize the need for cooperation in addressing Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel is convinced will produce nuclear weapons, and in addressing Syria, which borders both Israel and Turkey and is now in the third year of a brutal civil war.

    “Sooner or later, we’re going to have to do something about Syria,” Jeffrey said. Having Israel and Turkey talking to one another again may help the U.S. find a policy that satisfies both U.S. goals and those of Israel and Turkey, Jeffrey said.

    Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish Foreign Minister, said the deal with Israel showed the value of Erdogan’s insistence on an apology for the Mavi Marmara incident.

    “From the outset, we had a principled approach,” he said in a television interview. “This time Israel felt isolated in the process.” Without the apology, he said, “this issue would not have ended, even if it lasted for a century.”

    While the Israel-Turkey reconciliation may have received more headlines abroad, in Turkey, the letter written by Ocalan from his prison on Imrali Island in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul, got equal billing, and may be of even greater significance.

    Davutoglu frequently compares the Kurdish insurgency to “shackles on our feet” and tells visitors: “Once we solve this problem, we will be unleashed from those shackles, and we will be able to use our full potential.”

    Other officials have compared the insurgency, which has claimed an estimated 40,000 lives since it began in 1984, to a cancer. The end of the fighting, officials hope, will make Turkey a more attractive place for both investment and as a partner in regional political efforts.

    “We will be rejuvenated in every sense,” was the way one official put it.

     

    Davutoglu gave a hint of the optimism Turkish officials hold for the agreement in a visit he paid 10 days before the Ocalan letter was read to Diyarbikar, the mostly Kurdish city in southern Turkey. There, he spoke about the historic significance of reconciliation with the Kurds, who comprise a little less than one fifth of Turkey’s 80 million population.

    He said the peoples of what is now Turkey were formed in several major historical waves dating back to the 3rd century B.C. “Whatever anybody says, wherever there is anyone with whom we share this common history, they are our relatives and those with whom we share our destiny,” he said in a speech at Dicli University. “That is also the main element if our foreign policy. When defining this we never differentiate between Turks, Kurds, Albanians or Bosnians. All these are peoples to which we are indebted by virtue of our shared history.”

    And then he said reconciliation with the Kurdish minority would liberate Turkey to play a bigger role on the world stage.

    “Just such a responsibility rests on our shoulders, my brothers,” he said. The restoration of peace in Turkey “will have a domino effect in other places,” he said. “The winds of the resolution process blowing in here with the spring breeze will result in great spring winds.”

    Read more here:

     

  • Commentary: Is Turkey Ready for a Kurdish Peace?

    Commentary: Is Turkey Ready for a Kurdish Peace?

    Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 28-year war against the Turkish state, is an unlikely candidate for peacemaker. Yet recently he has become Ankara’s key ally in its efforts to end the three-decade-old armed struggle.

    pkk_demo_in_paris_ccOn December 28, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) had been holding talks with Ocalan in an attempt to convince the PKK to lay down arms and withdraw from Turkish soil. As part of the new initiative dubbed the “Imrali Process,” after the island where Ocalan is serving a life sentence, three members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), were allowed to visit Ocalan this past weekend to assess his position on the peace talks.

    The broad outlines of the roadmap inked between Ocalan and the MIT are said to include a declaration of ceasefire by the PKK next month during Kurdish New Year celebrations, a possible release of Turkish hostages held by the PKK and a withdrawal into Northern Iraq in August after laying down their arms. In return, the Turkish government is expected to craft legislation to overhaul the current definition of terrorism, which would pave the way for the release of hundreds of imprisoned Kurdish activists.

    The government is also expected to adopt constitutional reforms removing obstacles to Kurdish language education, a long-time Kurdish demand. In addition, it is expected to agree to strengthening local administrations and embracing an ethnically neutral definition of citizenship.

    Ocalan seems to have toned down Kurdish demands for “democratic autonomy”, the most contentious of all Kurdish demands and a non-starter for Turkey. Since 2011, the PKK has officially demanded “democratic autonomy” but even the Kurdish activists admit it is a vague term that is not empirically grounded. Other Kurdish demands include general amnesty for PKK fighters and the transfer of Ocalan to house arrest. The government dismisses claims that these significant concessions on Turkey’s part are on the agenda but analysts argue that for the talks to succeed, the outcome is likely to address these and other contentious Kurdish demands.

    The current initiative is not the first government effort to negotiate with the PKK. Ankara started secret negotiations with the PKK after 2005, culminating in what became known as the “Oslo Process.” During the talks, both the Turkish security forces and the PKK scaled back their offensive operations. The initiative ran aground in the run-up to the Turkish general elections in June 2011, resulting in a reescalation of violence that increased casualties to a level not seen in more than a decade.

    This time, however, the talks are being carried out publicly and there are reasons to be optimistic. They have the backing of the main Turkish opposition party, the CHP, the pro-Kurdish BDP, civil society organizations and the mainstream Turkish media. Ocalan stands at the center of the negotiations as a man who appears to have softened his approach after thirteen years of jail and apparently is more willing to play a mediating role. In meetings with BDP members of parliament, the PKK cadres in Europe and Iraq have also expressed their support for the ongoing talks.

    Prime Minister Erdogan seems intent on pushing the negotiation process forward and has considerable political capital at his disposal. After a year of heightened PKK attacks that killed more than 700 in fourteen months, a conflict-weary Turkish public is now debating how to solve the country’s bleeding wound. Yet risks abound and past experiences counsel against premature optimism.

    The current process is built on the premise that Ocalan wields absolute power over the PKK. The PKK is a large entity with several thousand armed militants, long-established networks in the Middle East and Europe and competing hardline factions. Despite being the leading figure of Turkey’s Kurdish political movement, Ocalan’s grip on the PKK appears to be slipping after thirteen years in jail. Since 2009, the PKK has carried out several attacks to disrupt peace negotiations between Ocalan and the government.

    Another challenge in ending the insurgency is that large sums of money are at stake. Since the late 1990s, the PKK’s main sources of financing have shifted from states such as Syria, Greece, Iran and Iraq towards financial independence. Most of the group’s money now comes from the Kurdish diaspora in Europe and drug trafficking. Although reliable information about PKK financing is comparatively scarce, its revenues have been estimated by various countries at tens of millions of dollars annually, monies that are expected to dry up if the Kurdish-Turkish conflict is resolved. With so many profiting from the conflict, it is feared that some radical factions within the PKK may have little incentive for peace.

    via Commentary: Is Turkey Ready for a Kurdish Peace? | The National Interest.

  • A decade after US-led invasion, Kurds look to Turkey, the West, mull future without Iraq

    A decade after US-led invasion, Kurds look to Turkey, the West, mull future without Iraq

    IRBIL, Iraq –  At an elite private school in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, children learn Turkish and English before Arabic. University students dream of jobs in Europe, not Baghdad. And a local entrepreneur says he doesn’t like doing business elsewhere because the rest of the country is too unstable.

    In the decade since U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq, Kurds have trained their sights toward Turkey and the West, at the expense of ties with the still largely dysfunctional rest of the country.

    Aided by an oil-fueled economic boom, Kurds have consolidated their autonomy, increased their leverage against the central government in Baghdad and are pursuing an independent foreign policy often at odds with that of Iraq.

    Kurdish leaders say they want to remain part of Iraq for now, but increasingly acrimonious disputes with Baghdad over oil and territory might just push them toward separation.

    “This is not a holy marriage that has to remain together,” Falah Bakir, the top foreign policy official in the Kurdistan Regional Government, said of the Kurdish region’s link to Iraq.

    A direct oil export pipeline to Turkey, which officials here say could be built by next year, would lay the economic base for independence. For now, the Kurds can’t survive without Baghdad; their region is eligible for 17 percent of the national budget of more than $100 billion, overwhelmingly funded by oil exports controlled by the central government.

    Since the war, the Kurds mostly benefited from being part of Iraq. At U.S. prodding, majority Shiites made major concessions in the 2005 constitution, recognizing Kurdish autonomy and allowing the Kurds to keep their own security force when other militias were dismantled. Shiites also accepted a Kurd as president of predominantly Arab Iraq.

    Still, for younger Kurds, who never experienced direct rule by Baghdad, cutting ties cannot come soon enough.

    More than half the region’s 5.3 million people were born after 1991 when a Western-enforced no-fly zone made Kurdish self-rule possible for the first time by shielding the region against Saddam Hussein. In the preceding years, Saddam’s forces had destroyed most Kurdish villages, killing tens of thousands and displacing many more.

    Students at Irbil’s private Cihan University say they feel Kurdish, not Iraqi, and that Iraq’s widespread corruption, sectarian violence and political deadlock are holding their region back.

    “I want to see an independent Kurdistan, and I don’t want to be part of Iraq,” said Bilend Azad, 20, an architectural engineering student walking with a group of friends along the landscaped campus. “Kurdistan is better than other parts of Iraq. If we stay with them, we will be bad like them and we won’t be free.”

    Kurds are among the main beneficiaries of the March 20, 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam, and sympathy for America still runs strong here.

    Rebaz Zedbagi, a partner in the Senk Group, a road construction and real estate investment company with an annual turnover of $100 million, said his own success would have been unthinkable without the war.

    The 28-year-old said he won’t do business in the rest of Iraq, citing bureaucracy and frequent attacks by insurgents, but said opportunities in the relatively stable Kurdish region are boundless.

    “I believe Kurdistan is like a baby tiger,” said Zedbagi, sipping a latte in a Western-style espresso bar in the Family Mall, Irbil’s largest shopping center. “I believe it will be very powerful in the Middle East.”

    The Kurdish region has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past decade.

    Its capital, Irbil, once had the ambiance of a large village. It has grown into a city of 1.3 million people, with the beginnings of a skyline, several five-star hotels and construction cranes dotting the horizon.

    The SUV-driving elites have moved into townhouses in new gated communities with grand names like “The English Village.” Irbil’s shiny glass-and-steel airport puts Baghdad’s to shame.

    The number of cars registered in the province of Irbil — one of three in the Kurdish region — jumped from 4,000 in 2003 to half a million today and the number of hotels from a handful to 234, said provincial governor Nawzad Mawlood.

    Planning Minister Ali Sindi took pride in a sharp drop in illiteracy, poverty and unemployment in recent years.

    But the Kurds have a lot more work cut out for them. The region needs to spend more than $30 billion on highways, schools and other basic infrastructure in the next decade, Sindi said. A housing shortage and a high annual population growth rate of almost 4 percent have created demand for 70,000 new apartments a year.

    There’s also a strong undercurrent of discontent, amid concerns about the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Opposition activists complain of official corruption, and the international group Human Rights Watch said security forces arbitrarily detained 50 journalists, activists and opposition figures in 2012.

    The region’s parliament “is weak and cannot effectively question the (Kurdish) government,” said Abdullah Mala-Nouri of the opposition Gorran party.

    Iraq’s central government strongly opposes the Kurds’ quest for full-blown independence.

    Iraqi leaders bristle at Kurdish efforts to forge an independent foreign policy, and the two sides disagree over control of disputed areas along their shared internal border. In November, Kurdish fighters and the Iraqi army were engaged in a military standoff, and tensions remain high.

    Oil is at the root of those disputes.

    Iraq sits atop the world’s fourth largest reserves of conventional crude, or about 143 billion barrels, and oil revenues make up 95 percent of the state budget. Kurdish officials claim their region holds 45 billion barrels, though that figure cannot be confirmed independently.

    The central government claims sole decision-making rights over oil and demands that all exports go through state-run pipelines. The Kurds say they have the right to develop their own energy policy and accuse the government of stalling on negotiating a new deal on sharing oil revenues.

    The Kurds have also passed their own energy law and signed more than 50 deals with foreign oil companies, offering more generous terms than Baghdad.

    An oil company doing business in the region, Genel Energy, began shipping Kurdish oil by truck to Turkey in January.

    The planned direct export pipeline is of strategic importance, said Ali Balo, a senior Kurdish oil official. “Why are we building it? Because we always have problems with Baghdad.”

    The project also highlights Turkey’s growing involvement in the region, a marked change from just a few years ago when ties were strained over Ankara’s battle against Kurdish insurgents seeking self-rule in Turkey.

    Mutual need forged the new relationship.

    Turkey, part of the region’s Sunni Muslim camp, needs more oil to fuel its expanding economy. It prefers to buy from the Kurds rather than the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, seen as a member of the region’s rival Iranian-influenced axis. The Kurds, also predominantly Sunni, need Turkey not just as a gateway for oil exports but also as a business partner.

    Almost half of nearly 1,900 foreign companies operating here are Turkish, government officials say. Seventy percent of Turkey’s annual $15 billion Iraq trade is with the Kurdish region.

    In a sign of the times, Turkish and English are the languages of instruction at a top private school in Irbil. During music class at the Bilkent school, third-graders sitting cross-legged on a large carpet sang “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” in Turkish, followed by “London Bridge” in English.

    The 351 students start studying Kurdish, the native language of most, in third grade. Arabic is introduced last, in fourth grade.

    The curriculum reflects the priorities of the school’s founder, a member of Iraq’s ethnic Turkmen minority. But it also suits Kurdish parents who believe their children’s future is tied to Turkey.

    Oddly, Turkish-Kurdish ties are flourishing at a time of continued cross-border violence.

    Turkish warplanes routinely strike bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Turkish rebel group operating from the Qandil mountains of Iraq’s Kurdish region. The PKK launches raids into Turkey from its mountain hideouts.

    Both sides are simply keeping the two issues separate.

    Turkey has stopped linking improved ties with Irbil to resolving Turkey’s conflict with the PKK, a fight which has claimed thousands of lives since 1984. The Kurds keep quiet about Turkish airstrikes on their territory.

    As problems with Baghdad fester, Kurdish officials say their region’s departure from Iraq is inevitable. Many here dream of an independent Kurdistan, made up of parts of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, home to more than 25 million Kurds.

    “As a people, we deserve that,” said Bakir, the foreign policy official. “We want to see that in our lifetime.”

    But with key allies such as the U.S. and Turkey opposed to splitting up Iraq, the Kurds say they won’t act with haste or force.

    Asked if the Kurdish region would declare independence once it can export oil directly, Bakir said: “We will cross that bridge when we get there. At this time, we are still committed to a democratic, federal, pluralistic Iraq.”

    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/10/decade-after-us-led-invasion-kurds-look-to-turkey-west-mull-future-without-iraq/#ixzz2NDU9esgq

  • Could a Kurdish PM of Turkey lead the Movement to redraw the Boundaries of the Middle East?

    Could a Kurdish PM of Turkey lead the Movement to redraw the Boundaries of the Middle East?

    by Hamma Mirwaisi and Alison Buckley

    March 8, 2013

    In 1962, when Nelson Mandela was given a life sentence for his attempts to free his country from oppression, few thought he would become the President of South Africa after twenty-seven years of imprisonment. When Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, who would have dared to hope that a black man would one day be President of the United States? Similarly, in today’s Middle East, the possibility of a Kurdish guerrilla leader ever becoming the President of say, Iraq, also seems remote, but not impossible.

    However, potential changes in the political leadership of nearby Turkey are much more likely. Apart from the proposition that current Turkish President Abdullah Gül is prepared to co-operate with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s long held Presidential ambitions by switching jobs with him, political pundits and voters would do well to consider Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan as the most likely Prime Ministerial candidate to bring Turkey true peace.

    Left field answers are needed to solve the range of problems in the Middle East. The previously troublesome relations between the Turks and the Kurds of Turkey could be vastly improved by the election of Abdullah Öcalan to the position of Prime Minister of this divided nation.

    A brief survey of Ocalan’s personal and political history, including his participation in the struggle to unite Kurdish people within the Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian territories of their Ancient Median ancestors, explains the recent recognition by middle power Turkey of his considerable influence and value as a potential peace maker and promoter of stability in the region.

    As a child of poor parents Abdullah Ocalan was born in Omerli, a village in the Halfeti-District, Province of Urfa, in the Kurdish Southeast of Turkey in 1949. Leaving his village after secondary school, he studied Political Sciences at the University of Ankara. He successfully completed his studies and entered the civil service in Diyarbakir.

    Rejecting the unacceptable treatment of the Kurdish people, who were denied the right to live their own identity and culture by the Turkish state, Abdullah Ocalan became an active member of the Democratic Cultural Associations of the East, an organization supporting the Kurdish people’s demands. After the military coup in 1971 he progressively investigated the Kurdish question.

    In 1978 the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, was founded with Ocalan as party leader, a post he retains until today. Besides numerous works on culture and the general situation of his people, Mr. Ocalan has explored subjects like philosophy, matters of faith, gender and environmental issues in plenty of lectures and books.

    In response to continuing persecution, the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK launched an armed struggle against the Turkish central government in 1984. Their aim was to exercise the right of the Kurdish people to self-determination. During this war approximately 40,000 people lost their lives.

    When Israeli commandos raided Nairobi fourteen years ago, Kurdish leader Ocalan was ‘coincidentally’ tracked down to Kenya and captured by the Israeli Mossad in a spy drama worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster movie.

    The six travelers arriving at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport looked like any other tourists on safari. They were casually dressed and carried huge jungle green backpacks.

    Nothing betrayed the fact that this party of five men and a woman were Mossad agents whose mission in the country would thrust Kenya into the international spotlight, expose its close ties to Israeli security services and cause a diplomatic row that saw then Foreign Affairs minister Bonaya Godana order all Kenyan embassies closed for a day.

    The Israelis came to town 14 years ago last month because of the presence in Nairobi of Abdullah ‘Apo’ Ocalan, at the time one of the world’s most wanted men.

    Turkey’s secret services with US and Israeli co-operation kidnapped Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and returned him to Turkey to be humiliated on a TV show and then sentenced to death, which was later, commuted to life imprisonment.

    Today, in a significant turnaround, Turkey is negotiating with imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan to bring peace for the Kurds in Turkey.

    The success of these efforts depends substantially on the willingness of the people of Turkey to acknowledge the historical and cultural origins of the Kurdish people living amongst them and to respect their deep connections to the roots of their Aryan civilization.

    The large numbers of extremist Turks in the ‘Gray Wolf’ organization would be well advised to avoid a clash with the Kurdish Kangal, the giant shepherd dog who prefers peace to war, but will not allow his flock to be mauled by wild beasts. Wolves that are tamed become intelligent and co-operative companions for humans, protecting the pack from attacks and ensuring its survival. Turkish leaders could learn valuable lessons from the animal world.

    One way of justly sharing the resources traditionally owned by the Airyanem Vaejah people in the Aryan Lands from Pakistan to Turkey and from Kurdistan to the countries of the former Soviet Union is the establishment of a Middle Eastern Economic Union. This proposed solution would allow each ethnic or national group such as Turks, Kurds, Persians and others to have their own independent country within an economic union similar to the EU of Europe. Considering the ongoing threats to the integrity of the European Economic Union, the establishment of a Middle Eastern counterpart may well be the solution to the persistent global financial crisis, creating another economic power house to shore up endemic weaknesses.

    A seasoned problem solver with and open mind, as Prime Minister of Turkey Abdullah Öcalan is ably suited to negotiate and lead the discussion and development of such a vision for the future. He promotes the proposal in the interests of peace and stability, but whether the other major regional players such as the US, EU, Israel, and Russia will be prepared to examine its feasibility and inestimable benefits in the face of the present suffering, destruction and hopelessness currently besetting the Middle East is yet to be seen. However emerging economic powers such as India and China might well be inclined to welcome its potential for economic expansion and partnerships.

    Now a potential Prime Minister, Abdullah Öcalan started his political life with a small group determined to fight for justice in Turkey and now he has millions of followers in the region. An enduring organizer and motivator of those willing to work indefinitely for peace and stability, like other modern political trailblazers he has survived war, incarceration, and violent opposition to emerge as one of the Middle East’s foremost champions of human rights, democracy, and the peaceful resolution of the multiple conflicts plaguing the region.

    Note: In an effort to examine the origins of the Kurdish conflict with Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, and the Arab-Persian conflict, we have launched a series of historical novels to develop better understanding between the Aryan and other peoples now living in the Middle East. The first, Vashti, Queen of the Ancient Medes provides insights into the life of this little known and oft maligned Queen, whilst throwing significant light on the true historical place of the subject of the second novel, Esther, Mystery Queen of the Medes, well known for her role in the establishment of the Jewish Purim festival. These ancient tales of personal power ploys, harems, conspiracies and inter-imperial power machinations reveal unique insights into an almost forgotten but rich continuous culture paralleling the most influential of past and present civilizations.

    By Hamma Mirwaisi and Alison Buckley

    Hamma Mirwaisi and Alison Buckley are authors of the historical novels Vashti Queen of the Ancient Medes (Kurds) and Esther Mystery Queen of the Medes (Kurds). They are working to revive the ancient “Airyanem Civilization” record in this series of books, and are calling for the establishment of an “Economic Union” for the Middle East to solve some of the problems among the population of that part of the world.

  • Turkey and the Kurds: the era of mass hypnosis is over

    Turkey and the Kurds: the era of mass hypnosis is over

    There are no taboos left on the Kurdish issue and Recep Tayyip Erdogan knows the geopolitical importance of resolving it

      • guardian.co.uk, 

    Pro-Kurdish demonstrator

    A pro-Kurdish demonstrator gestures during a protest in Istanbul on February 15, 2013 held to mark the 14th anniversary of the capture of Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters

    Since the start of this year, the Justice and Development party (AKP) has emerged from what looked like an impasse over Turkey’s three-decade-long Kurdish conflict. The pace of change has been intense.

    But slow-motion progress in the background has often been overlooked: over the course of 15 years the public debate, backed by small-scale reforms, has evolved from the archaic militarist jargon of “there are no Kurds here, only mountain Turks”. Ankara is now conducting direct negotiations with the jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan – once demonised as a baby killer and chief terrorist by a venomously nationalist “mainstream” media.

    Today, there are no more taboos left on the subject. All gone. The period of official denial is over. So is the mass-hypnosis inflicted on the Turkish people by the old establishment. Even Kemal Ataturk, the once untouchable founder of the republic, is under fire these days for his role in the systematic oppression of Turkey’s Kurds during the 1920s and 30s.

    Yet, as recently as 2012, the Sri Lankan model still held some sway in Ankara: total annihilation of an armed rebellion by military means only. It was abandoned quickly: the spread across borders of Kurdish militants and the army’s failures in counter-insurgency made it an impossible position to maintain even for the toughest hard-liners. It looked as if talks, already initiated in 2009 without success, were the only way. The turmoil in Syria and good relations with Iraqi Kurds has also made it a priority.

    But the give-and-take process is only just beginning. The task of dealing with a problem which has massive cross-border dimensions is huge.

    At home, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan also has to deal with a public split on the issue and a fierce opposition of nationalists and Kemalists. He has to mesh the process with the development of a new, democratic constitution. He has to make careful calculations with regard to all his neighbours that have Kurdish populations – Iraq, Syria and Iran – who are following his moves uneasily.

    In Ankara’s corridors of power, the reasoning goes like this: unless Turkey adopts a new constitution, its social fabric will remain weak, and it won’t be able to proceed further on the path towards EU membership. Unless Turkey deals peacefully with its own Kurdish issue, it won’t be able to control the Kurdish unrest in Syria and Iraq or play the role it aspires to, that of a strong regional player.

    Sworn enemies of the AKP here are certain that Erdogan will use the process to achieve his dream of becoming Turkey’s Putin. They are joined by a more cautious chorus of liberals and moderate Muslims, who voice legitimate concerns that democratisation could be undermined if he pushes the issue of an empowered presidency too far.

    But there is no concrete sign that Erdogan will; neither does he need a new model for executive power. The current one makes already Turkey’s president more powerful than Barack Obama.

    For Ocalan, it is also complicated. The “deal” with Ankara may lead, after disarmament and a mass amnesty synched with the adoption of a new constitution, to his freedom. But, given the sensitivity of the process, it is an issue neither side wants to raise at the moment. The PKK will not vanish with disarmament. The idea instead is to pull it fully into national and local politics, without arms.

    In terms of opposition, there is not much that stands between Erdogan and his goal. The elected opposition, the Kemalist CHP and ultra-nationalist MHP, are led by political midgets whom Erdogan is able to mock daily. The greatest opponent of a “civilian solution” to the Kurdish issue, the army, has been pushed back into the barracks, by coup trials and prison verdicts.

    The economy, which has created a middle class that is now larger than ever, makes conditions ripe for things to move forward. If the only real obstacles domestically are acts of folly or provocations by the “shadow state”, the real unknown is how neighbouring countries will react. Despite some mutual mistrust, Erdogan is counting on on his strong trading partner, Massoud Barzani, the Iraqi Kurdish regional president, to assist in disarmament. It is also in Barzani’s interests to get rid of a insurgency movement based in his own territory.

    If the process succeeds according to the “disarmament-amnesty-reform” framework, both Kurds and Turks who will be winners. Any country in the geopolitical area that wins over the region’s Kurds will have an advantage over the others.

    Erdogan’s dream is to rule over a country freed from the shackles of the Kurdish issue and a outdated constitution.

    And who knows, maybe he also dreams of a Nobel peace prize.

    via Turkey and the Kurds: the era of mass hypnosis is over | Yavuz Baydar | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

  • Merkel’s Visit to Turkey Marks a Positive Change of Mind

    Merkel’s Visit to Turkey Marks a Positive Change of Mind

    As the eurozone crisis shows signs of further deepening with the new uncertainties in the wake of Italian ‘non-elections’, Germany is increasingly under strain to keep the European Union intact.

    Berlin has to deal not only with the brewing anti-austerity and anti-unionism in the Mediterranean strip of the EU (all the way from Cyprus through Portugal, except, perhaps, France), but also with an uneasy Britain and loudly impatient Turkey on the continent’s both flanks.

    In that context, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Turkey must be added as another positive step toward melting the icy relationship between Ankara and the EU.

    It follows two other important recent steps. First, France unblocked a chapter (of five) of Ankara’s negotiations with Brussels, coming during its current peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and secondly, Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly (57.5 percent) voted for the Democratic Rally (DISY) leader, Nicos Anastasiades in the presidential election, a strong signal of a mood change on the island.

    Merkel’s visit was long overdue. It has been well-noted that she has visited Turkey only once in three years, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has visited Germany four times.

    Should it be interpreted as the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) now being in accord with its coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), about the strategic importance, economic performance and crucial democratic transformation of Turkey? Perhaps. Does this mean that the German chancellor comes closer to CDU heavyweights who have been vocally pro-Turkish membership, such as Ruprecht Polenz, Chariman of the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, and gets ready to be challenged by others within?

    Could be. Deep down she knows that she has the backing of those CDU strong figures, on central and local level, although a few, about remaining committed to coalition protocol on Turkey’s accession and support for it to continue. But a slight challenge nevertheless.

    No matter what,one can hope that the visit and the positive sound of her messages indicate a long-lasting change of mind.

    Cynics in Turkey and Germany think they have seen “no progress” between Erdoğan and Merkel on Turkey’s EU accession process. Populist Bild Zeitung, in another outburst of sensationalist Turkophobia, totally insensitive to Turkey’s internationally important democratization process as ever, declared that ‘Turkey would never be a full member of the EU’ — despite its powerful economy. (This view reveals more about some parts of the Europe than Turkey itself).

    Bild is joined in Turkey by voices that have been anti-reform, anti-AKP and anti-Europe.

    The truth, and the good news, is, Merkel not only endorsed France’s unblocking move, but also signaled that other chapters may follow, with perhaps a second one even before the end of the Irish term presidency in the EU. One understands that she needs to balance very carefully in an election year for Germany on a subject which can shake and stir the votes.

    There are many aspects to why Germany should be more active, frank and clear about its relations with Turkey and its policy on the EU negotiations. Pro-EU arguments based on today’s Turkish economy speak for themselves, as outlined by Kemal Derviş, the vice president of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a former minister of economic affairs of Turkey, for the daily Handelsblatt on Feb. 25, 2013 in an article titled “Die Politik ist am Zug” (“The policy is on track”).

    Apart from fine figures on inflation, growth, reduced deficit, employment, strong currency and reserves, German politicians do look with admiration at “hardworking” Turks (a virtue they value highly), when they compare them with the Mediterranean citizens of the EU.

    Turkey with such an economy is now too big for Germany to ignore, and far too important to be seen only as a simple trading partner, no doubt. Therefore, the tough visa regulations and the particularly rigid implementation of it attributed to German general councils in Turkey must be eased — liberalized in the sense that, once having passed a security check, Turkish citizens must be given five-year, multiple-entry Schengen visas.

    Nor should there be any doubt that increasing defense cooperation through NATO on Syria creates a new momentum for Berlin to realize more deeply Turkey’s significance on the southeastern flank of the continent, as it shoulders increasing burdens. Stability in Turkey, in that sense, can be said to be serving the stability of Germany, and of Europe as a whole.

    Merkel did not say much on Turkey’s Kurdish peace process, but given the presence of large, politicized Turkish communities; Alevi and Kurdish diasporas in her own country — take it for granted that solutions on all social rifts here will ease tensions there. Interests overlap.

    And in that case, it is demanded that Germany more thoroughly consider indirect, discreet assistance to endorse Turkey in its struggle against historical demons. The EU membership process, kept alive and well, is the best help.

    What Bild Zeitung and other populist tabloids do miss is that, what still matters most for Turkey’s reformist camp is the perspective of, and not necessarily, membership.

    Given the current turmoil and identity crisis the EU is in, it can be said that there will have to be referendums on Turkish membership — in Europe and Turkey – between now and the final decision. The process is still premature: It needs a decade or more. So, no need for myopia.

    Merkel is certainly right in her arguments about Cyprus (that Turkey opens its sea and airports to its flights and vessels), even if it is an issue that still needs time, given the stalemate. Before that, both sides on the island must show a concrete, willful progress on reaching a settlement.

    It has become also clear that Erdoğan is willing to resolve the issue in a broader context.

    He expects a complementary signal from Anastasiades, and has in mind a “package solution” that should involve Cypriots as well as Greece, energy, security and economic cooperation in Eastern Mediterranean, with the backing of Britain and the U.S.

    Germany can play a crucial role, in both EU and NATO context, if Erdoğan’s ideas make any sense.