"Kurdish Opening" Closed Shut

Why Turkey's misguided, if well-meaning, attempt to make peace with its Kurdish population is bound to fail.

BY SONER CAGAPTAY | OCTOBER 28, 2009

On Oct. 24, Kurdish migrant farm workers started a fight in the town of Ipsala, in the northwest region of Turkey. After the Kurdish workers apparently harassed local girls, some of the town's youth attacked the workers in retaliation. The conflict escalated, and the Kurdish workers were forced to take refuge in the town's mosque to avoid a growing anti-Kurdish mob. Across the country, veiled mothers, the precise constituency one would imagine to be supportive of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, protested the government's "Kurdish opening," which promises overtures toward the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a terrorist organization that has waged a 25-year struggle against Turkey.

Social violence between Kurds and non-Kurds, an unusual phenomenon in Turkey, has been spurred by the recent "Kurdish opening." How the AKP deals with the Kurdish problem will not only determine the party's political future, but also has the potential to make or break Turkey's ambitions as a regional power. It will take an individualistic, European approach to resolve the Kurdish issue to the benefit of both the AKP and Turkey as a whole.

The "Kurdish opening" envisaged bringing members of the PKK back to Turkey from the organization's bases in Iraq and cells in Europe through an unofficial amnesty. This approach, however, backfired when 34 PKK members, whom the Turkish government had allowed into the country from Iraq, delivered fiery speeches in support of the terrorist group. On October 19, speaking to a rally in Diyarbakir, the party members said they had returned to Turkey not to take advantage of the AKP's amnesty, but rather to represent the PKK. The group added that they had no remorse for their past actions, including violence, and made political demands on the Turkish government.

These demonstrations, and images of individuals involved in terror attacks walking freely in Turkey, have touched a raw nerve. The government has since backed down, calling off its plan to bring more PKK members back to Turkey, and the "Kurdish opening" has flopped. Yet Turkey can still resolve this impasse. The AKP has, thus far, dealt with the issue by giving collective, ethnicity-based group rights to the Kurds. This approach has led to social backlash in Turkey for being perceived as too conciliatory to the PKK, and for challenging the notion of "Turkishness." But Turkey can break the Kurdish impasse by increasing the rights of all Turkish citizens, regardless of ethnicity and religion.

Solving the Kurdish problem in Turkey requires an understanding of the very notion of what it means to be a Turk -- someone defined by historic Turkish identity rather than ethnicity. Turkey is an amalgam of various Muslim ethnic groups, including Kurds as well as Bosniacs, Crimean Tatars, Albanians, Circassians, Abkhazes, Georgians, Arabs, Macedonian-, Serbian-, Bulgarian- and Greek-speaking Muslims, and ethnic Turks, among others.

The Turkish amalgam is a non-ethnic, historic entity that is a product of the country's Ottoman past. For 500 years, the Ottoman Empire treated its entire Muslim population as members of the same political grouping, the Muslim "millet," imprinting its Muslim population with an indelible collective political identity. In the twentieth century, the members of the former Muslim millet in Turkey came to see themselves as Turks, regardless of their ethnic background.

JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK/AFP/Getty Images

 SUBJECTS: CULTURE, MIDDLE EAST
 

Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

JACOB BLUES

10:05 PM ET

October 29, 2009

This isn't the only comment on Turkey published by the Author

Mr. Cagaptay also published the following in the US journal Foreign Affairs today:

Is Turkey Leaving the West?

An Islamist Foreign Policy Puts Ankara at Odds With Its Former Allies

Soner Cagaptay

Summary -- Under the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey's foreign policy is becoming more Islamist. Can the country's history of cooperation with the West survive?

SONER CAGAPTAY is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is the author of Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk?

Here is the link to the full article:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65634/soner-cagaptay/is-turkey-leaving-the-west

 

PUSHDAREE

1:55 PM ET

October 31, 2009

"Kurdish Opening"

The author attributes the rise in violence against Kurds in Turkey to the so called "Kurdish Opening" policy embarked on by the Turkish government. The fact is violence against Kurds who refused to be forced assimilated can be traced to the date when Ataturk embarked on the policy of forced assimilation of the Kurdish population. For over eighty years, the Turks have been prosecuting, oppressing and subjugating the Kurds. Turks used poisonous gas bombs against Kurdish uprisings during the 20's and 30’s of last century, massacred many thousands of Kurdish freedom fighters, denied Kurdish identify and through their academia, rewrote the history of the Kurds. Kurds cannot freely speak Kurdish in a public forum, Kurds cannot name their children Kurdish names, the constitution of the state does not mention Kurds nor does it protect the human rights of Kurds.

Obviously the author is of Turkish background so it is expected to have biased views when it comes to the Kurdish issue in turkey. Look at his opening sentence, “On Oct. 24, Kurdish migrant farm workers started a fight in the town of Ipsala “yet it was the Turks who attacked a Kurdish migrant worker in the first place. I wonder when Turks will realize that they cannot assimilate Kurds regardless of what they try. For simple reason, Kurds have been living on the land before the migration of turks from central Asia. The solution rest in self-determination. Most of the Kurds will want to be free of Turkish subjugation. The only way for Turkey to survive is to commit another genocide, this time against the Kurds.