ISTANBUL – Conflict in the Middle East threatens not only the security of many of its states, but also their continued existence. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and others, now gripped by sectarian fighting, risk fragmenting into ethnic sub-states, transforming a region whose political geography was drawn nearly a century ago.
Illustration by Margaret Scott
CommentsSurveying the regional scene, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has conceived of an audacious plan to enhance Turkey’s regional standing and extend his own political dominance at home. Facing the end of a self-imposed three-term limit as prime minister, he is intent on changing the Turkish constitution to introduce a presidential system – with himself on top as the first incumbent to wield much-enlarged power.
CommentsErdoğan’s plan, however, depends on ending Turkey’s 30-year conflict with its own Kurdish population. As a result, the Erdoğan government has decided on negotiations with Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), the armed Kurdish resistance movement.
via Erdoğan’s Kurdish Gambit by Sinan Ulgen – Project Syndicate.
more : http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/turkey-s-plan-for-peace-and-hydrocarbons-by-sinan-ulgen
ISTANBUL: US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday hailed the commitment of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to a ceasefire under a renewed push by the Turkish government to end three decades of hostilities.
“We welcome the PKK’s commitment to lay down its arms,” Kerry told a news conference in Istanbul with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
“We discussed our work to combat terrorism in all its forms … including the violence that has plagued Turkey for three long decades,” he said.
“No peace process is easy. It always takes courage and determination.”
Both countries are members of Nato, and the United States has for several years supported Ankara in its fight against the PKK on Iraqi soil.
The PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States.
Jailed Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan last month called for a ceasefire in a move that raised expectations for an end to a conflict that has cost some 45,000 lives, mostly Kurdish.
(Reuters) – Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish political party denied on Thursday media reports that jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan had told his fighters to leave the country without their weapons under a peace plan.
A weapons-free withdrawal by Ocalan’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), as sought by the government, would be seen as a significant step towards ending a conflict which has dragged on for three decades and killed more than 40,000 people.
Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), gestures during a rally to celebrate the spring festival of Newroz in Istanbul March 17, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Murad Sezer
The Yeni Safak daily, which is close to the government, said Ocalan had given the withdrawal message on Wednesday to a delegation from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) which visited him in his island prison, south of Istanbul.
BDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtas, who was one of the delegates, said Ocalan had prepared a letter on the subject but had not delivered any message on Wednesday.
“First of all I want to state clearly that Mr. Ocalan did not pass on a clear message regarding the withdrawal during our visit yesterday, nor did he give us a letter,” Demirtas told Kurdish television channel Nuce TV in a telephone interview.
“However, he told us he had written a letter on this subject and that it would reach us in one or two days. We expect to receive this letter today or tomorrow. He said the details were in this letter,” Demirtas said.
It was not clear whether the letter would be addressed to the PKK or others, but Demirtas said a reply was expected to be sent to Imrali within a week. He said developments on the withdrawal were expected to become clear next week.
Only Ocalan and a few Turkish officials have direct knowledge of the peace process and details until now have only filtered out through media close to the government.
The PKK declared a ceasefire with Turkey last month in response to an order from Ocalan after months of talks with Ankara to halt a conflict that began in 1984.
The group has demanded legal protection to prevent military attacks on its fighters during their planned departure to northern Iraq, a condition rejected by the government.
Hundreds of PKK militants are estimated to have been killed in clashes with security forces during a previous withdrawal in 1999 after Ocalan’s capture and conviction for treason.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said he guarantees there will be no repeat of such fighting. But he opposes legislation, saying the rebels should disarm before heading for Iraq to remove the risk of firefights with Turkish forces.
NO BLOODSHED
Ocalan’s supporters have gathered to celebrate his April 4 birthday in southeast Sanliurfa province, where he was born. In a message read out there on Wednesday evening, he appealed for their support for the process, saying he had fulfilled his role.
“I am calling on everyone who says ‘I am honorable’, whether rich, poor, male, female, young or old, to conform with and develop this (peace) process,” he said in a message read out to the crowd in the district of Halfeti.
His supporters set off fireworks and chanted “Long live the leader Apo (Ocalan)” as the message was read out, the Kurdish Firat news agency reported.
“I hope that not a drop of blood will be shed as this process develops. Nobody should harm another. Everyone should participate in this process with love,” he said.
Later on Thursday, Erdogan will meet the members of a new 63-strong “wise people commission”, made up of academics, journalists and performing artists, established by the government to promote the process nationwide.
A deputy from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party presented on Wednesday a proposal to form a parliamentary commission to assess the peace process. The withdrawal will be monitored by Turkish intelligence and the Kurdistan regional government.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, launched its insurgency with the aim of carving out an independent state in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey, but later moderated its goal to autonomy.
Pro-Kurdish politicians are focused on expanding minority rights and stronger local government for the Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of Turkey’s population of 75 million people.
(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Jonathon Burch in Ankara; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Alistair Lyon)
via Kurdish party denies Ocalan asked PKK rebels to leave unarmed | Reuters.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, has had a very good week. On March 21, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced a ceasefire; the next day, Israel apologized for an attack on a Turkish-led peace flotilla in 2010. The possibility of a solution to its Kurdish insurgency holds out the possibility of real benefits for Turkey through increased trade with Iraq, improved security and political calm. There is a less immediate payoff from the Israeli apology but it is a favorable signal, nonetheless, from a region where there has been little good news of late.
Should Ankara negotiate a durable solution to the PKK insurgency, the country’s overall risk premium would decline considerably, improving the business environment. For the last three decades Turkey’s eastern and south-eastern regions have struggled to attract investment because of the annual violence and terror attacks on oil and gas pipeline infrastructure that also disrupted the country’s energy supplies. A sustained ceasefire would do much to assuage investor concerns.
By removing a sticking point in relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the ceasefire with the PKK would also allow for even tighter economic cooperation between Ankara and Irbil. Turkey already has substantial trading ties with Kurdish Iraq but Turkish businesses have not yet tapped into the region’s significant oil and gas opportunities. Turkey already imports a small, though symbolically important, amount of oil by truck from northern Iraq, and the two sides are allegedly in talks to establish greater energy links while sidestepping Baghdad’s involvement. Although Ankara is unlikely to approve the construction of oil and gas pipelines connecting Kurdish Iraq directly to Turkey in the near term, hydrocarbons trading may increase in the future.
In the meantime, closer ties with the KRG, much to the chagrin of the authorities in Baghdad, reduce opportunities for Turkish businesses in the remainder of Iraq. Turkey’s exports to Iraq increased around 1,200 per cent in the last decade and the country is set to become Turkey’s number one export destination in 2014. Nearly 80 per cent of Ankara’s exports, however, end up in the area controlled by the KRG, where Turkish companies are already very active in infrastructure and construction projects. Ankara’s deteriorating relations with Baghdad are disconcerting for Turkish exporters and contractors who will find it increasingly difficult to expand their operations into southern Iraq where there are many unexploited business opportunities.
The ceasefire also reduces the risk of spill-over from northern Syria as well as security threats from Iran. This is good news for investors looking at the region. Ankara has long been concerned about terror attacks originating from northern Syria, which is currently dominated by PKK-affiliated groups. Deteriorating relations with Iran have also worried Ankara because Iranian authorities have done little to crack down on PKK activity. Both risks are now reduced.
The Israeli apology has fewer business implications if only because, despite heightened political tension between the two countries, trade actually increased over the past three years. So an immediate jump in trade volume is unlikely. It also remains to be seen whether the US-brokered apology actually leads to a full normalization of relations.
It will be tough to reset the relationship completely. Erdogan is unlikely to change his anti-Israeli rhetoric overnight, given that it helps him domestically. The language he uses during a planned trip to Gaza in April will signal both the speed and extent of the rapprochement. The apology does, however, open up the option of exporting Israeli natural gas through an underwater pipeline to Turkey, though this remains a distant likelihood. Even though such an export route makes the most economic sense, Israeli authorities are likely loathe to rely so much on Turkey in coming years.
Editor’s note: Fadi Hakura is associate fellow on the Europe Program at Chatham House. The views expressed are the author’s own.
Kurds are celebrating the arrival of spring amid hopes of a breakthrough between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish government. Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s imprisoned leader, announced last week that he has negotiated with high-ranking intelligence officials a ceasefire and a vague promise of withdrawal of PKK militants to northern Iraq.
But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has cautiously welcomed the move, must be careful not to raise expectations too high.
He has, for a start, so far shown no willingness to countenance PKK demands for separate Kurdish schooling, devolution of substantive powers to local administrations and reform of the constitutional definition of citizenship. He has also steadfastly refused to contemplate a general amnesty to the PKK – unsurprising given the hostility of Turkish popular opinion to these demands.
Since 1984, the PKK has fought a bloody campaign for an independent Kurdistan in the impoverished south-eastern part of Turkey, which has claimed the lives of more than 45,000 people and cost the Turkish exchequer hundreds of billions in defense expenditure and lost investments.
Erdogan’s previously muscular and robust posture towards Kurdish nationalism now appears to be easing. Yet this could be linked to attempts to garner the support of pro-Kurdish parliamentarians to introduce a powerful executive presidency, an office he hopes to occupy in 2014.
More from CNN: How will Turkey will respond?
History is littered with peace efforts that failed when expectation was not met with reality. Twenty years ago, the handshake between then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn generated optimism and excitement that now seems a bitter sweet memory.
The optimism that greeted the latest announcement could prove to be similarly misplaced unless the Turkish government takes some critical, and difficult, steps.
First, it should prepare the Turkish public for the necessary concessions that are inevitable if the Kurdish question is to be resolved. Up to now, there has been a perceptible reluctance on the part of officials to spell out the price of peace clearly and consistently.
Second, the government should not attach artificial deadlines to a process that could drag on for years. Patient diplomacy, confidence-building measures and hard bargaining will be crucial for the success of these negotiations. The positive outcome of the Northern Ireland peace process over 14 years is testament to the importance of diplomatic patience and long-term thinking.
Third, the political opposition must be included in the process to widen the domestic base for the talks with the PKK. In the case of Northern Ireland, there was consistent cross-party support for a negotiated settlement in Westminster. In comparison, Turkey’s confrontational winner-takes-all politics could poison the atmosphere and complicate the talks.
Finally, Turkey cannot sustain the momentum toward peace without engaging Tehran, Erbil and Baghdad. They should be aware that tensions between the U.S. and Iran have encouraged division among various Palestinian factions that has fatally undermined the negotiating stance of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with Israel. Turkey could find itself facing similar challenges, particularly if Iran and other regional players influence the PKK in the wrong direction.
These steps, though significant, will not be sufficient to buttress a peace process over the long-term. What is needed most of all is a democratic and human rights’ revolution in Turkey that lays the foundation for accommodating the aspirations of Turks and Kurds alike. Turks will then see the fruits of liberalization as not exclusive to the Kurds. In other words, Turkey would avoid the appearance of granting “group rights” to the Kurds and privileging them over other segments of the population. On that score, Turkey has a long way to go. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2011 Democracy Index ranks Turkey’s democracy 88th out of 167 countries, and Freedom House classifies Turkey as only “partly free.”
The ceasefire represents a rare opportunity to bring the costly war with the PKK to a close if the Turkish government handles the process delicately and heeds the lessons of the past. The rewards of success would be truly immense. But failure would represent a damaging blow to Kurdish aspirations and would likely spark a renewed period of intense violence.
Post by:
CNN’s Jason Miks
via How Turkey should respond to PKK overtures – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.
Turkey’s government is planning to establish a consultative body to oversee the ongoing peace negotiations with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the prime minister said on Tuesday.
“If we decide on forming a group of wise people… it will be our consultative committee,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his lawmakers in a parliamentary meeting.
“We might need a group of wise people. We wish to see every segment of (society) being represented there,” he added.
The composition and functions of such a grouping were not immediately clear but Erdogan said Saturday that it might comprise academics, businessmen, NGOs and journalists.
The government initiative follows a ceasefire call from jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan last week for PKK fighters to put down their arms and withdraw from Turkish territory.
The renewed push for peace is seeking to end the PKK’s 29-year armed campaign for self-rule that has killed some 45,000 people, mostly Kurds.
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via Turkey mulls ‘wise people’ group for Kurd peace process.
