Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is making the largest gamble of his profession to avoid wasting his political pores and skin, simply as fashionable opinion — even in traditionalist, conservative strongholds — swings sharply towards him.
His aim? To convey the massive Kurdish minority onto his aspect by ending Turkey’s most intractable political and navy battle that has killed some 40,000 individuals over 4 a long time and has brutally scarred nationwide life.
His transfer? To offer a spot in Turkish politics to Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed chief of the outlawed Kurdistan Employees’ Celebration or PKK, a corporation lengthy proscribed as terrorists by Ankara, the U.S. and EU.
It’s a signal of Erdoğan’s plummeting fortunes that he’s even considering such a radical step to maintain his grip over the NATO heavyweight of 85 million individuals. However the Islamist populist is aware of that is his second to attempt to consolidate his place as president — doubtlessly for all times — or danger being wiped off the political scene.
Since struggling crushing defeats at the hands of the secular opposition within the municipal elections of 2024 — most importantly in conservative bastions — Erdoğan has made an more and more determined lurch towards full authoritarianism. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu has been thrown in jail and the safety companies have launched a nationwide crackdown to arrest opposition mayors. The allies who supported Erdoğan on his rise to energy have largely abandoned him.
Whereas the necessity for a brand new help base helps clarify Erdoğan’s Kurdish gambit, it’s a high-risk transfer with no assure of success. Mainstream Turkish opinion may be very cautious of the PKK, and the Kurds themselves are extraordinarily nervous about trusting the Turkish authorities. This deal is way from a straightforward promote.
Some preliminary progress is anticipated on Friday with a primary batch of PKK weapons to be handed over in northern Iraq, most likely within the predominantly Kurdish province of Sulaymaniyah.
Whereas publicly proclaiming the significance of his “terror-free Turkey” venture for reconciliation with the Kurds, Erdoğan can also be displaying he’s awake to the dangers. He has conceded his venture faces “sabotage” from inside Turkey, and from inside the ranks of the PKK.
Sensing among the potential hostility to his PKK deal, in an handle to parliament on Wednesday, the president was cautious to pre-empt any assaults from political adversaries that an accord may dishonor veterans or different casualties of the battle.
“Nowhere within the efforts for a terror-free Turkey is there, nor can there be, a step that may tarnish the reminiscence of our martyrs or injure their spirits,” he said. “Guided by the values for which our martyrs made their sacrifices, God prepared, we’re saving Turkey from a half-century-long calamity and fully eradicating this bloody shackle that has been positioned upon our nation.”
The jailed Öcalan, talking in his first video since 1999, stated on Wednesday that the PKK motion and its earlier quest for a separate Kurdish nation-state had been now at an finish, as its core demand — the popularity of Kurdish existence — has been met.
“Existence has been acknowledged and subsequently the first goal has been achieved. On this sense, it’s outdated … It is a voluntary transition from the part of armed battle to the part of democratic politics and regulation. This isn’t a loss, however needs to be seen as a historic achievement,” he stated in his video.
Island jail
No difficulty in Turkish politics is extra bitter than the Kurdish battle. Some Kurds describe themselves as probably the most quite a few stateless individuals on the planet — there are hundreds of thousands in neighboring Iraq, Iran and Syria, and in Turkey they account for about 15 to twenty p.c of the inhabitants.
Many Kurds say they’ve been denied their rights for the reason that formation of the Turkish republic simply over a century in the past and have lengthy been oppressed.
In flip, many Turks see the PKK, which lengthy waged warfare towards the Turkish state, as a terrorist group — and its chief Öcalan, who has been confined to a jail island all this century, as a assassin.
Given the explosive vary of emotions about Öcalan, it’s exceptional that such a persona will show so central to securing Erdoğan’s deal.
Often known as “Apo,” he’s serving a life sentence for treason and separatism on the island of
İmralı within the Sea of Marmara. Infamous partially as a result of film “Midnight Specific,”
İmralı is known as “Turkey’s Alcatraz” and has held Öcalan, for a number of years as its sole inmate, since 1999.
He’s not alone. In the course of the peace course of between 2013 and 2015, a lot of PKK prisoners had been transferred to İmralı to function a part of Öcalan’s unofficial secretariat.
Whereas the Kurdish coverage of Erdoğan and his AK Celebration has oscillated between crackdowns and conciliation throughout their 22 years in energy, Turkey’s hard-line nationalists have lengthy denounced the PKK as a menace and had little time for Kurdish rights.
Maybe probably the most outspoken enemy of Öcalan has been a veteran politician referred to as Devlet Bahçeli, an ultranationalist chief, who’s now Erdoğan’s primary ally, serving to him pad out his parliamentary majority.
In 2007, Bahçeli had even referred to as for Öcalan to be executed. Ten years in the past he lashed out at Erdoğan over one in every of his sporadic makes an attempt to barter with the PKK.
However final October, in one of many sudden shake-ups that intermittently convulse politics in Turkey, Bahçeli prompt Öcalan may handle parliament — so long as he dissolved the PKK.
The importance of the volte-face can hardly be overstated — it was virtually as if Benjamin Netanyahu had prolonged an invite to Hamas — and behind all of it was Erdoğan.
The impact was dramatic. On Feb. 27, Öcalan despatched a public message from his jail, calling for the PKK to surrender its arms and terminate itself.
Öcalan credited each Bahçeli’s name, and Erdoğan’s willpower, for serving to “create an atmosphere” for the group to disarm. “I tackle the historic duty of this name,” he added. “Convene your congress and decide: All teams should lay down their arms and the PKK should dissolve itself,” he added.
The PKK Congress duly declared the top of the armed battle on Might 12, including the group had “fulfilled its historic mission” and that, as Öcalan had instructed, “all actions performed underneath the PKK title have subsequently been concluded.”
The assertion was welcomed in Ankara, however thus far, the gambit by Bahçeli and Erdoğan has but to totally repay. There’s clearly extra work to do. And positive sufficient, after the watershed assertion from Öcalan in February, the prisoner gained extra employees on İmralı. In keeping with politicians from the pro-Kurdish DEM Celebration who spoke to POLITICO, three extra prisoners had been despatched to broaden the workforce out there for placing a grand discount.
Little belief
Nurcan Baysal, a Kurdish human rights campaigner and writer of the e book “We Exist: Being Kurdish In Turkey,” stated many Kurds remained cautious of the federal government.
“The federal government is presenting this as a ‘terror-free Turkey’ course of and is making an attempt to restrict it to only the PKK laying down its weapons and dissolving itself. This isn’t peace!” she informed POLITICO.
Baysal stated Öcalan’s declaration in February to dissolve the PKK was additionally met with disappointment amongst Kurds as a result of he didn’t say something in regards to the Kurds’ cultural, linguistic, administrative rights and freedoms.
“That is felt in all Kurdish cities. There’s not the slightest enthusiasm in regards to the course of. A critical purpose for that is that the Kurds don’t belief [Erdoğan’s] AK Celebration authorities,” she continued.
This mutual distrust is partially the legacy of the failed initiatives of the previous, and the truth that Erdoğan’s deal comes amid a significant clampdown on the opposition.
İpek Özbey, a political commentator for the secularist channel Sözcü TV, reckoned the Turkish authorities’s obvious strikes towards a Kurdish rapprochement had been neither honest nor promising.
“We can not speak about democracy in an atmosphere the place elected officers are in jail … and the independence of the judiciary is a lot underneath dialogue,” she stated. “If there isn’t a democracy, how will we democratize?”
In the course of the reporting of this text, a number of government-allied figures additionally made clear their unease with Erdoğan’s Kurdish initiative, describing the difficulty as explosive or signaling their very own lack of perception within the course of, however declined to speak on the report.
Solely Erdoğan
From the federal government camp, Harun Armağan, the AK Celebration’s vice chair of overseas affairs, conceded that Turkish public opinion remained cautious in regards to the PKK deal, however solid Erdoğan as the one man who may pull it off.
He informed POLITICO that the PKK reached the stage of laying down arms 10 years in the past however “resulting from altering dynamics in Syria [where allied Kurdish fighters were on the rise], they thought investing in warfare reasonably than peace would put them in a extra advantageous place.
“Ten years later, they’ve realized how gravely mistaken that was,” Armağan continued. “Whether or not the PKK will actually disarm and dismantle itself is one thing we are going to all see collectively … Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the one chief in Türkiye who may provoke such a course of.”
“The one promise made by the federal government is to fully rid Türkiye of terrorism and to construct a future during which all 85 million residents can stay in peace, prosperity, and freedom to the fullest,” he added.
Erdoğan is certainly extensively seen because the engineer of the Kurdish rapprochement when his regional diplomacy can also be having fun with success.
He has been hailed by U.S. President Donald Trump as the principle winner from the autumn of Bashar Assad in Syria, the place the brand new authorities has sturdy ties to Ankara. Erdoğan is making an attempt to benefit from his clout by severing ties between Syrian Kurdish teams and the PKK.
Baysal, the Kurdish human rights campaigner, reckoned the change of occasions in Syria is the principle purpose why the Turkish authorities initiated its Kurdish outreach.
However Armağan, the AK Celebration official, insisted the 2 processes had been distinct. “This [Syrian] course of is solely completely different from our personal strategy of eliminating terrorism,” he stated.
“The Syrian authorities has already referred to as on all armed teams to affix a central military, and the SDF [a prominent Syrian Kurdish group] has signed an settlement to this impact. These are promising developments,” he stated.
President for all times
Some observers suppose Erdoğan, a formidable political operator, is utilizing the Kurdish course of inside and out of doors the nation to increase his keep in energy, making an attempt to recruit Kurdish parliamentarians into his camp.
That’s definitely the view of DEM Celebration Group Deputy Chair Sezai Temelli.
However he’s cautious about whether or not it would work, given broader democratic backsliding. He argued the arrest of Istanbul Mayor İmamoğlu, Erdoğan’s rival, was hurting this fragile course of and that the “Kurdish democratic answer and the Turkish democratization course of have a symbiotic relationship.”
He added he wouldn’t be stunned to see Erdoğan in search of to capitalize on the method to remain in energy, however famous that the CHP, Turkey’s primary opposition celebration, had additionally pledged to resolve the Kurdish difficulty if it wins the following election.
“‘Who will not be utilizing it? Some use it [the Kurdish issue] to return to energy, some use it to remain in energy,” Temelli stated. “However we are saying this might solely be solved independently of election and energy calculations.”
Erdoğan has already served three phrases as president. To stay in workplace he might have to alter the structure.
Regardless of the help of Bahçeli, the president’s coalition doesn’t have a enough majority for constitutional change so Erdoğan could also be relying on the help of Kurdish members of parliament.
He has already began talking brazenly a few new structure to interchange Turkey’s 1980 constitution, which was drawn up by a navy regime after a bloody coup.
“Türkiye for the primary time in its historical past, has an actual alternative to draft its first civilian structure. It is a vital alternative for all of us to construct a extra affluent, simply, and safe nation,” Armağan stated.
Not all people agrees. Some look again at previous constitutional adjustments underneath Erdoğan and say the principle function of additional revision to the constitution can be, as prior to now, to additional the president’s political ambitions.
Soner Çağaptay of the Washington Institute for Close to East Coverage, stated Erdoğan was performing like a “parallel laptop,” executing opposing political methods — cracking down on the principle opposition, whereas reaching out to the Kurds whose help he wants to remain in workplace — with out the 2 competing insurance policies tripping over one another.
“He’ll do something to get yet another time period as president after which mainly set up himself as president for all times,” Çağaptay informed POLITICO.
However Baysal noticed not all the pieces relied on Erdoğan’s ambitions.
“Erdoğan is a politician who has the potential to make use of each difficulty for his personal profit, and he won’t hesitate to instrumentalize the Kurdish difficulty. He will certainly wish to use this to increase his presidency,” she stated.
However it’s not simply the president who will determine, she stated. In the end, whether or not Turkey’s tragic Kurdish battle is consigned to historical past — and whether or not Erdoğan reaps the profit — will rely largely on the Kurds themselves.
“I believe the true difficulty right here will not be whether or not he desires it,” stated Baysal, referring to Erdoğan, “however whether or not the Kurds need it.”
