Tag: PJAK

Turkey Looks to Iran for Support in Crackdown on Kurdish Rebels

Dorian Jones | Istanbul

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, right, and his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi leave after a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, October 21, 2011.

Photo: AP

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, right, and his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi leave after a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, October 21, 2011.

Iran’s foreign minister visited Turkey Friday as Turkish armed forces continue their military incursion against the Kurdish rebel group, the PKK, in northern Iraq, after the rebels killed 24 Turkish soldiers Wednesday. Ankara is looking for support from its neighbors, but regional tensions are complicating Turkey’s battle against the Kurdish militants.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi’s visit to Ankara comes as Turkish armed forces continue their offensive against the PKK in neighboring northern Iraq. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in a press conference with his Iranian counterpart, said the two countries have agreed to collaborate in fighting the PKK and its Iranian wing, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, or PJAK.

He says Turkey and Iran declared their joint determination to combat the two groups. Davutoglu says from now on, the two countries will work together in a joint action plan until this terrorist threat is totally eliminated.

Iran also has a large Kurdish minority among whom are members of the PJAK. Despite both Turkey and Iran sharing a common threat, the Iranian foreign minister’s visit to Ankara is more about finding out what the Turkish government’s intentions are in its ongoing military incursion into northern Iraq.

According to Murat Bilhan, a former Turkish diplomat in Iran. “It shows that the Iranians are anxious about what exactly goes on there. And they would not like to be left in the cold, so they would like [to] see what they can do together with the Turks, or they cannot do,” said Bilhan.

Iran and Turkey are increasingly competing for influence in Iraq, a competition that is intensifying with the imminent withdrawal of U.S. forces. Bilateral tensions are already on the rise following Ankara’s decision to allow NATO anti-missile radar systems to be placed on Turkish territory, aimed primarily at Iran. But it is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s robust support of the opposition in Syria – a key ally of Iran – that Tehran is most concerned about, according to political scientist Nuray Mert of Istanbul University.

“Turkey supports some sort of regime change. Iran takes it directly against itself. If there is going to be a regime change in Syria, the whole power balance will change. Because if Iran loses Syria, they will lose an important base of power in the Middle East. So it will be a major defeat for Iran,” he said.

Arab Spring and Turkish foreign policy

The Arab Spring has seen a major change in Turkish foreign policy, with Ankara dropping what it called its “zero problems with neighbors” strategy, to embracing the struggle for democracy. Iran was one of the main beneficiaries of the “zero problems” policy, developing close political and economic ties with Ankara despite Turkey’s Western allies, who are pushing for Tehran’s isolation over its controversial nuclear program. Sinan Ulgen, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, says difficulties now lie ahead for Turkish-Iranian relations.

“I think we can talk about a new phase,” said Ulgen. “So indeed we are entering a period of more realistic assessment. So obviously there are now increasing risks of heightened tension between Ankara and Tehran. There is inherent tension in the relationship of Turkey and Iran. It’s inherent because of the historical legacy because of the influence that these countries are trying to have in the region, which pits one against the other.”

But Turkey is one of the few countries prepared to ignore European Union and U.S. sanctions against Iran in connection with its nuclear program. Increasing trade and financial relations mean Ankara will continue to have powerful leverage over Tehran, according to Iran expert Jamsid Assadi of France’s Burgundy Business School.

“Iran is isolated, Iran needs much more Turkey than they need Iran, and Iranian press are going to criticize Turkey,” said Assadi. “However, they are going [to] accept whatever Turkey says. They don’t have any option.”

With Ankara increasingly flexing its diplomatic muscle across the volatile region, that leverage over Tehran, observers say, may prove crucial in any competition between these two regional powers.

via Turkey Looks to Iran for Support in Crackdown on Kurdish Rebels | Europe | English.

October 22, 2011
IN TURKEY, ATTACKS SHOW PKK STILL A REGIONAL FORCE

STRATFOR
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October 19, 2011

IN TURKEY, ATTACKS SHOW PKK STILL A REGIONAL FORCE

Summary
On Oct. 19, the Kurdish militant group Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) conducted eight attacks against Turkish security forces simultaneously, marking the deadliest attack the group has ever conducted as well as a significant shift in its tactics. Many regional actors, including Iran, Iraq and Turkey, are devising new security arrangements for when the United States withdraws its forces from Iraq. The PKK attacks show that the militant group is a force with which these actors must contend.

Analysis
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group in Turkey, attacked eight different police and military installations Oct. 19 in Cukurca and Yuksekova, two districts in Hakkari province, Turkey, between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. An attack on Keklikkaya border post alone killed 21 Turkish soldiers. Initial reports suggest that between 100-200 militants crossed into Turkey from their hideouts in northern Iraq’s Qandil Mountains, and their attempts to return to Iraq are currently ongoing. According to Turkish sources, the attack left 24 Turkish troops dead and at least 18 injured, while the Turkish army’s counteroffensive allegedly has left some 23 PKK militants dead so far. The attack comes one day after a PKK attack against security forces in the southeastern city of Bitlis left five police officers and a child dead.

The events of Oct. 19 are the most lethal Turkey has seen since the PKK began its armed struggle against the country in 1984. The group clearly still has the ability to inflict heavy damage to the Turkish military despite the recent increase in airstrikes along the Turkey-Iraq border, dispelling rumors among the Turkish media and government that the group is dissolving under Ankara’s new strategy against it. Regional circumstances, specifically the planned U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the subsequent security arrangement among Turkey, Iran and Iraq, likely precipitated the attacks, prompting the PKK to deviate from its normal tactics by conducting a larger and multifaceted attack.

Indeed, the tactics used in the attack mark a significant shift in the PKK’s militant activity; rather than target a single military base, militants attacked several targets simultaneously. Turkish media report that the other border posts were attacked at the same time to prevent reinforcements from coming to Keklikkaya. Staging simultaneous attacks allowed the PKK to cut off security forces’ lines of support between targets and also served to create confusion, making rapid response to a single area under attack much more difficult. The Turkish military eventually responded by deploying commandos, helicopters and fighter jets over Iraqi soil as PKK militants returned there. Special operations personnel reportedly have taken positions at various points 7-8 kilometers (4.3-5 miles) into Iraqi territory to trap militants as they return to their hideouts, and an additional 500 soldiers have been deployed to assist in their efforts.

The Oct. 19 attacks come at a time when conditions in the region are changing. As the official deadline of U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq approaches, it remains unclear how many — if any — U.S. troops will remain in Iraq. Meanwhile, all regional actors are watching for signs of increasing instability in northern Iraq. After several weeks of heavy Iranian bombardment against the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), the PKK’s Iranian arm, along the Iraq-Iran border — primarily a message from Iran to the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) about the risks of hosting U.S. troops after the withdrawal — the KRG reportedly reached a deal with Iran about PJAK’s status. According to this deal, PJAK will empty its bases near the Iranian border and KRG peshmerga will maintain security on the Iraqi side of the border. Though this is not an ideal situation for the PKK and PJAK, the militant groups seem to have agreed to the deal, possibly with the intent of driving a wedge between a potential Turkish-Iranian front against them. From the Kurdish perspective, this front formed when the two countries simultaneously attacked the PKK’s hideouts in August.

Wary of the KRG’s plans to increase its military presence in the north, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has introduced the idea of sending Iraqi troops to the northern region essentially to prevent the PKK from launching attacks on Turkey. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu welcomed the idea during Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari’s visit on Oct. 12, saying Turkey “would not need to conduct operations in northern Iraq if there is no threat emanating from there.” The PKK did not respond well to this apparent understanding between Ankara and Baghdad, which it saw as a counterbalance the deal between Tehran and the KRG. The Oct. 19 attack is part of the PKK’s response, one intended to claim the group is still a force to reckon with in the region.

Whether the PKK will conduct similar attacks in the near future remains to be seen. It has so far not been able to maintain militant activity on this scale for extended periods of time. The Turkish government, on the other hand, has not indicated that it will conduct a large scale land-based military incursion in northern Iraq, which would further increase the number of troop casualties. (Small-scale cross-border operations take place frequently, as do airstrikes.)

The Turkish government and the PKK and other Kurdish political forces want to test the limits of the other side and gain the upper hand in the lead up to redrafting sessions of the new Turkish constitution. It is no coincidence that such a major attack took place on the same day of the first meeting of the parliamentary committee tasked with negotiations to that end.

Copyright 2011 STRATFOR.

October 20, 2011
Turkey and Syria: One problem with a neighbour

Turkey’s tough talk on Syria is unlikely to be matched by action

Aug 20th 2011

Erdogan and Assad in happier days

IN A small café outside Istanbul’s Fatih mosque, a slight bearded man lifts his shirt to reveal two deep bullet wounds. “Assad’s soldiers did this to me,” says Motee Albatee, who served as an imam at a Sunni mosque in the besieged Syrian town of Deraa until he fled the country several weeks ago. Mr Albatee is among a growing number of Syrian dissidents who have found sanctuary in Turkey, many of them in refugee camps near the border. Some are angry over the reluctance of Turkey’s government to get tougher with Bashar Assad, Syria’s president. “Turkey must set up a buffer zone [inside Syria]” to protect more refugees from the fighting, insists Yayha Bedir, a member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Like many seated around the table, he believes only drastic action will force the Syrian army to defect en masse, bringing down Mr Assad’s brutal regime.

Such talk is particularly loud online, where Syrian tweeters have voiced disdain for Turkey’s attempts to get Mr Assad to end the bloodshed. Their fury grew earlier this month when Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, flew to Damascus to deliver what Turkish officials tautologically called a final ultimatum. “We are at the end of our tether,” roared Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister.

Mr Assad’s response was to intensify his assaults against unarmed civilians, notably in the Mediterranean port of Latakia (see article). This prompted Mr Davutoglu to issue yet another warning: Turkey would not, he said, “remain indifferent” to continuing massacres. Yet he also ruled out intervening to create a buffer zone. So what leverage does Turkey actually have over its erstwhile Ottoman dominion?

None whatsoever, say critics of Mr Davutoglu’s much-vaunted “zero problems with the neighbours” policy. That is unfair. But as Soli Ozel, a political scientist, puts it, the Syrian crisis has revealed that “Turkey isn’t as influential as it thought.”

The last time Turkey got tough with its southern neighbour was in 1998, when it threatened to invade unless Syria booted out Abdullah Ocalan, leader of Turkey’s outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Syrians caved in, and relations between the two countries have flourished since. Trade has more than tripled in the eight years of Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) government, visas have been abolished and ministerial meetings have been held amid much fanfare. (Mr Davutoglu says he has made over 60 visits to Syria.) Crucially, Syria has ended its patronage of the PKK.

Rapprochement with Syria has also allowed Turkey to play a bigger regional role. The government came close to brokering a peace deal between Syria and Israel before the plan was scuppered by Israel’s attack on Gaza. Some Turks hoped that engagement with Syria would eventually yank Mr Assad out of the orbit of Iran, his biggest patron, and set him on a path towards reform. (His alleged involvement in the 2005 car-bomb assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese president, was quietly ignored.) All the more reason for Turkey’s feelings of betrayal.

Turkey’s Western allies are not about to mount an invasion of Syria. But they are turning the diplomatic screws, and are eager for AK to sever political and trade links with Mr Assad. But a bigger prize would be to drive a wedge between Turkey and Iran. Turkey’s mollycoddling of the mullahs has angered America, most recently when Mr Erdogan’s government voted against imposing further sanctions on Iran at the United Nations last year. Turkey has since sought to make amends. It has agreed to NATO plans for a nuclear-defence missile shield that is clearly aimed at Iran. And after some dithering, it is co-operating with the alliance’s military operations in Libya.

Yet Turkey is understandably wary of openly confronting Iran, one of its main sources of natural gas and the primary transit route for Turkish exports to Central Asia. Iran has also helped Turkey in its battle against the PKK—though it continues to flirt with hardliners who oppose any deal with the Turkish government. Lately the PKK has been stepping up the fight—some 30 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the past month. On August 17th, in a bid to quell mounting public anger, Mr Erdogan authorised the bombing of hundreds of PKK targets inside Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. But such actions have failed in the past and the last thing Turkey needs is a hostile Iran.

Besides, many of AK’s pious constituents see the unrest in Syria as yet another America-backed Zionist plot to pit Turkey against Iran. The ultimate goal, their thinking goes, is to cut Turkey down to size. Disappointingly, the same line is parroted by the main opposition Republican People’s Party, for all its claims of change under its new leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

So what are Turkey’s options? It can withdraw its ambassador from Damascus, continue to intercept the flow of weapons to Syria and impose economic sanctions. Other than that, as Mr Ozel suggests, it should desist from promising any more than it can deliver.

www.economist.com, Aug 20th 2011

August 20, 2011
Başbakan Erdoğan’dan BDP’ye sert mesajlar

AK Parti’nin 10. kuruluş yıldönümünde isim vermeden BDP‘ye ve PKK‘ya sert mesajlar gönderen Başbakan Erdoğan, “Bıçak kemiğe dayandı, bedeli ağır olacak” dedi.

AK Parti Genel Başkanı ve Başbakan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “‘Şu mübarek ramazan ayında maalesef yavrularımız şehit ediliyor ve yavrularımızı şehit eden bu bölücü terör örgütüne karşı, bizler şu anda bu mübarek ay vesilesiyle sabırla devam ediyoruz. Ama unutmayın bizim medeniyetimizin geçmişinde, o cehalet döneminde bile kimse kimseye kurşun atmaz, kan dökmezdi. İşte bu bölücü terör örgütü ve onların siyasi uzantıları bakınız neler yapıyorlar. Daha dün 3 tane yavrumuzu şehit ettiler. Bakınız, unutmayın artık yine açık söylüyorum, bıçak kemiğe dayanmıştır diyorum ve bu ülkede bölücü terör örgütüyle arasına mesafe koymayanlar da bu suça iştirak ediyorlar, bunu da buradan açıklamak istiyorum ve onlar da bunun bedelini ödemeye mahkum olacaklardır” dedi.

Bıçak kemiğe dayandı

Başbakan Erdoğan, partisinin onuncu kuruluş yıl dönümü dolayısıyla Ankara İl Başkanlığınca Sincan’daki Harikalar Diyarı’nda düzenlenen iftarın ardından yaptığı konuşmada, şunları kaydetti:

“Ne aldatan olacağız, ne aldanan olacağız. Toplumun hakkı ve vicdanı olmaya devam edeceğiz. Demokrasinin hak ve adaletin özgürlüklerin çıtasını daha çok yükselteceğiz. Kimsenin hukukunu çiğnememeye azami özen göstereceğiz, kimseyi bizim gibi düşünmeye, bizim gibi inanmaya zorlamayacağız. Her vatandaşımızın hukukunu en az kendi hukukumuz kadar koruyacağız, savunacağız. Yeni bir anayasa ile milletimizin, ülkemizin yolunu açmak durumundayız. Bunun için en geniş mutabakatı oluşturmaya öncelik edeceğiz ama sizlerden bir şey rica ediyorum, nereden nereye geldiğimizi unutmayalım ki geleceğe emniyet içinde gidelim.

Kardeşlerim şu mübarek ramazan ayında maalesef yavrularımız şehit ediliyor ve yavrularımızı şehit eden bu bölücü terör örgütüne karşı, bizler şu anda bu mübarek ay vesilesiyle sabırla devam ediyoruz. Ama unutmayın bizim medeniyetimizin geçmişinde, o cehalet döneminde bile kimse kimseye kurşun atmaz, kan dökmezdi. İşte bu bölücü terör örgütü ve onların siyasi uzantıları bakınız neler yapıyorlar. Daha dün 3 tane yavrumuzu şehit ettiler. Bakınız, unutmayın artık yine açık söylüyorum, bıçak kemiğe dayanmıştır diyorum ve bu ülkede bölücü terör örgütüyle arasına mesafe koymayanlar da bu suça iştirak ediyorlar, bunu da buradan açıklamak istiyorum ve onlar da bunun bedelini ödemeye mahkum olacaklardır.

Zira bu ülkede barışa gölge düşürenler, kan dökerek özgürlükten bahsedenler kaymakamımızı, askerlerimizi, sağlık memurumuzu kaçıranlar, bunları kaçırmak suretiyle eğer bu ülkede bizlerin teslim olacağını, eyvallah edeceğimizi zannediyorlarsa bunu bizden beklemesinler. Ama açık söylüyorum, bıçak kemiğe dayanmıştır. Ne derlerse desinler, neyi söylerlerse söylesinler, bunun faturası ağır olacaktır.”

Başbakan Erdoğan, “Ramazana hürmeten, biz şu anda sabrediyoruz ama Ramazanın bitiminden sonra bilesiniz ki bu ülkede barışın miladı, bu barış ayıyla beraber, bu dayanışma ayıyla birlikte çok daha farklı olacak” diye konuştu.

www.cnnturk.com, 15.08.2011

August 15, 2011
Step by Step, Gulf Between Turkey and Kurds Narrows

Kurds in Diyarbakir, Turkey. President Abdullah Gul has visited the country’s Kurdish region three times since taking office.

By SEBNEM ARSU
Published: N Y Times January 10, 2011

ISTANBUL — For years, Kurds in Turkey knew better than to air demands for more rights in public. In a country that has often valued loyalty to the state above free speech, discussion of placing any distance between the Kurds and the state was tantamount to a prison sentence.

Now, the Web site of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party has published a manifesto that includes a demand for “democratic autonomy.”

No one has been arrested. And although the president traveled to the country’s Kurdish region to try to rein in further talk of autonomy, analysts said that the fact he went at all was the latest sign that the government was continuing its outreach to its most restive minority despite pushback from the nation’s powerful nationalists.

The trip was President Abdullah Gul’s third to the region since taking office in 2007, a drastic shift from the past, when the country’s leaders rarely visited.

The changes, analysts say, are partly the result of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s longstanding policy of trying to reconcile with the Kurds. But it might also be good politics: with a general election just months away and a population increasingly weary of armed conflict, many Turks are ready to make at least some concessions to the Kurds. Reconciliation could also help the country’s continuing efforts to jump-start troubled talks on entry into the European Union.

“The government has the chance of winning Kurdish hearts by quitting the traditional state rhetoric,” said Umit Firat, a Kurdish intellectual. “And in any new formula, both Kurds and Turks are now aware that the outdated principle of ‘everyone is a Turk’ needs to be changed.”

Kurdish militants, meanwhile, have been staging their own public relations offensive. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the P.K.K., has extended a unilateral cease-fire after the group’s violent struggle that lasted more than a quarter-century and cost 40,000 lives, and one of the group’s top leaders, Murat Karayilan, has been arranging interviews with journalists to talk of peace from his redoubt in the mountains of northern Iraq. Many in Turkey are likely to question Mr.
Karayilan’s sincerity, but his pronouncements of the need for a political solution follow important moves by the government to quell Kurdish discontent.

A round of reforms in recent years allowed such liberties as the use of the Kurdish language in public, on public television and during prison visits, all of which had been previously banned. Those reforms, motivated mainly by aspirations to join the European Union, were part of gradually improving relations over the past decade.

More recently, the ruling Justice and Development Party has been promising to introduce a new constitution, replacing one that was imposed after a military coup in 1980 and is considered by many to be oppressive. Although the government has not said how the new constitution would affect the Kurds specifically, Mr. Erdogan has promised that changes would be made in consultation with community leaders and nongovernmental organizations.

It is highly unlikely that Mr. Erdogan would consider autonomy for the Kurds, but analysts expect him to at least entertain notions like restructuring election laws to allow minority parties to have greater access to Parliament and allowing wider use of ethnic languages like Kurdish.

Extending the rights of Kurds could help the government in its quest to make further inroads with the country’s 14 million Kurds, including supporters of the Peace and Democracy Party, and allow Mr. Erdogan to work around the party, which the government considers a political wing of the P.K.K.

It is unclear if the changes being considered by the government will meet Kurdish expectations, but with even the P.K.K. talking about peace, the chances for real breakthroughs are greatly improved.

Publicly, the ruling party refuses to negotiate with the P.K.K., which is listed as a terror organization by the European Union and the United States. But behind the scenes, it has been reaching out to Kurdish activists to find common ground on which to build a viable solution.

The government will also have to be careful not to inflame nationalist sentiments, since Kurdish rights remain a politically explosive issue.

There have been setbacks before in relations with the Kurds.

A small group of P.K.K. members were invited by the government to return to Turkey as a political gesture in 2009, which was greeted with such hostility by nationalist groups that the program was abruptly halted.

Later that year, hundreds of Kurdish political activists were arrested on terror charges in an effort to appease the nationalists, and the government has since taken a more cautious tone in addressing the conflict. As recently as last week, the government sounded the same
tone: “A single country, a single nation, a single state and the only official language, Turkish — this is the basis of our politics,” Cemil Cicek, a government official, said after a cabinet meeting.

And more violence, following a suicide bombing in Istanbul in October that injured more than 30 people, could chill relations again.
Although the P.K.K. said it was not responsible, the Kurdistan Liberation Hawks, a group known to carry out urban attacks on behalf of the P.K.K., later took responsibility.

Still it is clear that the public mood is shifting, as people have been getting used to the relative calm since the P.K.K. declared its cease-fire.

Recently, thousands of Turks staged an unusual gathering in central Istanbul to demand peace with banners that read, “End the operations, establish peace,” and “Embrace your brother, let the peace be.”

“Democracy, for us, is indispensable, and the resolution should definitely be a political one,” Cesim Soylu, a member of the pro-Kurdish party, said, and he warned against violence in case politics failed. “If the deadlock deepens, it is inevitable that forces other than our political party would resort to other methods, which surely also worries us.”

January 12, 2011
Resimlerle Telafer: the massacre of Turkmens

The destruction of the Iraqi Turkmen city of AMIRLI

Telafer: Massacre of Turkmens

Telafer Northern Iraq – US soldiers killed the parents of these children

December 6, 2010