Uludere Probe Continues

PHOTO from Milliyet

Parliament's commission for human rights is expected to issue a report in the coming days as to what exactly happened in Uludere on the night of Dec. 28 when 35 Kurdish smugglers were killed in strikes carried out by unmanned drones. The government and security officials soon announced that the strikes were a tragic mistake, but so far evidence has been far from forthcoming.

The report follows a visit by parliamentarians to the site of the tragedy, as well as interviews they conducted with local officials, including local military commanders, and villagers. Some parliamentarians, in particular CHP deputy Levent Gok, have already spoken to the media about their findings. According to Gok, the strikes were conducted without the knowledge of local commanders on the ground or the local mayor, meaning the strikes were carried out by Ankara.

According to one local gendarme commander with whom parliamentarians spoke, forces were ordered to pull back one day before the incident, though apparently the band of smugglers was sighted at a military outpost from which one local gendarme officer reported that, if asked, he could have told officials higher up in the command chain not to strike.

Yesterday the military provided parliamentarians access to footage from the Heron drones responsible for the strikes that Gok and others report show the smugglers were clearly not PKK militants since there were more mules than people and they did not try to escape once attacked.

Fitna

PHOTO from Cumhuriyet

Sadrettin Sarikaya, the specially-authorized prosecutor at the center of the recent probe into MIT, has been removed from the MIT case after he boldly proceeded to issue arrest warrants on Friday for four top intelligence officials.

Chief Prosecutor Turan Colakkadi said Sarikaya had withheld information from from his superiors and violated the secrecy of the investigation he was conducting. The allegations stem from a leak to the media last week that Colakkadi was planning to interrogate MIT head Hakan Fidan, his predecessor, Emre Taner, and two other top officials regarding alleged participation of the intelligence organization in PKK terrorism (see posts from earlier this week).

Meanwhile, speculation continues to boil as to what forces are behind the apparent conflict within the state. According to Cumhuriyet, the current conflict is between Erdogan and forces loyal to Fethullah Gulen and the large Islamic community. Though the two groups have experienced serious tension in the past year, this is the first time in which the two groups appear to be openly challenging each other.

Based in Pennsylvania, Gulen leads "the Cemaat," which exists of perhaps up to 6 million supporters and even more sympathizers. The Gulen movement, or Hizmet movement as its followers refer to it, is critical to the electoral support the AKP has enjoyed over the years, though the organization avows to eschew political affairs. Yet an easy review of its website speaks to the contrary.

Two recent developments might explain this recent bout of in-fighting:

First, Prime Minister Erdogan, who in many ways shares a view quite different from Gulen, has recently cleared his way to accede as president in 2014 (see past posts). With Erdogan as president and many top AKP lawmakers unable to serve again in parliament due to the AKP's three term limit, there will be a major shuffle within the party in which the Gulen movement -- as a major component of the AKP coalition -- will play a part. Between 2014 and 2015, Turkey will experience presidential, parliamentary, and municipal elections, and so opportunity for major transformation within the party, the dominant force in Turkey, will have profound implications for the future. Asserting its power now could well be a way of firing the first shot, perhaps a warning signal to the prime minister and other elements in the party of the movement's prowess.

Second, the prime minister may well be preparing to re-open negotiations with the PKK, a move that is opposed by the Gulen movement. Gulen and his followers take a harder-line stance on making peace with the PKK, adopting the view that Turks and Kurds might come together based on a Sunni Islamic supra-identity. My interviews in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast attest to Kurdish nationalists, including those who are PKK-affiliated, being more afraid of the Gulenists than traditional Turkish nationalists.

For years, the Gulen movement has accused the PKK and the Turkish state of working in cahoots with one another (see the litany of Zaman articles from the past five years), and the Ergenekon investigations, led by Gulen-friendly prosecutors, have routinely featured accusations that the Turkish deep state and the PKK worked frequently in tandem with each other. These accusations, in addition to the largely successful co-optation of many disempowered Kurds thanks to Gulen/AKP-led charities and social services, have put serious pressure on Kurdish nationalists while earning their furor.

Yet in 2009-2010, the prime minister seemed to take a different tack. Instead of aiming to defeat Kurdish nationalism through Islamist bananas alone, Erdogan began to rely increasingly on the MIT and direct negotiations with the PKK. As Avni Ozgurel discusses in an interview with Nese Duzel in Taraf, the MIT underwent a major transformation under the leadership of its former director Emre Taner. Under his leadership, a groundbreaking analysis was issued that articulated the Kurdish issue as the major obstacle to Turkish democratization and the latter as the means to solve the former. In this context, MIT officials began to call for political solutions for the conflict, including a re-working of Kurdish citizenship (see former deputy director Cevat Ones's statements as early as 2007), Kurdish language and other minority rights, and in some instances, even an amnesty for the PKK and direct negotiations.

The former director is now subject to an arrest warrant issued by Sarikaya, and Hakan Fidan, now at the center of the current imboglio, was his deputy director. Fidan, close to Erdogan, no doubt brought the prime minister closer to the MIT paradigm, and the AKP government's strategy began to shift. In 2009, when the government released its so-called "democratic opening," many of the steps taken were in line with what was MIT policy at the time. Yet the opening went awry soon after it started when the likely MIT-negotiated return of PKK rebels at the Habur border gate between Turkey and Iraq resulted in what appeared to be PKK victory celebrations. The spectacle largely angered the public, cost the AKP and its proposed initiative a great deal of political capital, and left Erdogan feeling seriously betrayed.

Though talks with the PKK continued and despite an upsurge in terrorist violence throughout the next year (the worst since PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan's capture), Erdogan halted negotiations soon after last June's elections and talks have not picked up since. Yet news did break of prior negotiations when audio recordings of negotiations between MIT agents and PKK representatives in Oslo were leaked to the press last September. Erdogan, who had previously denied that negotiations were taking place, came forward and defended the MIT, including Fidan, whose voice was presumed to be a leading one in the tapes. At the time, Erdogan made a distinction between "the state" and "the government," arguing the former was able to negotiate with whomever it pleased if the ultimate aim was peace.

It must be said that the democratic opening was also supported at the beginning by forces friendly to Gulen, and the Police Academy, which is chalk full of Gulenists, played a leading role at the beginning of the public initiative. All the same, at some point, and likely after Habur, attitudes changed and a conflict that is not at all public could well have emerged between those supporting the negotiations and those who did not. The source of the leaked audio tapes, which might also be interpreted as targeting the prime minister, is still not known.

According to Ozgurel, there is yet another dimension to the possible Gulen-Erdogan conflict -- the tension between the MIT, which has remained largely free from Gulen influence, and the police, over which Gulen is widely seen to assert a considerable degree of influence. The police have felt largely left out of the government's dealing with the PKK whereby the MIT has taken the lead. In this way, the conflict might be seen as one between institutions, though both institutions can also be interpreted as proxies for different groups/paradigms competing for power.


UPDATE I (2/14) --  Thickening the plot a bit, PKK political spokesman Zubeyir Aydar has said that police officials are responsible for the leaks of the audio tapes. The PKK might also have had reasons to leak the tapes and embarrass the prime minister, but the accusation certainly makes the recent row a bit more interesting.

And Things Just Get Weirder . . .

Specially-authorized prosecutor Sadrettin Sarikaya has apparently issued immediate detention orders for former MIT head Emre Taner and current MIT undersecretary Afet Gunes, as well as two other MIT officials. The detention orders were issued just days after news broke that Sarikaya was conducting a probe into the possible involvement of MIT in perpetrating PKK terrorism. The ultimate target of the investigation could well be Prime Minister Erdogan (for background, see yesterday's post).

The detention order is a bold move and the first of its kind. Apparently police also searched the homes of the agents. Erdogan is standing by MIT, insisting yesterday and before the detention orders that Sarikaya did not have the authority to question Taner, Gunes, or current MIT head Hakan Fidan without first seeking his approval.

Instead of reporting to the prosecutor's office in Istanbul, Fidan paid a visit to President Gul's office in Ankara while the prime minister's office spearheaded efforts to craft legislation to further shield MIT agents from prosecution. Legislation is said to include provisions that could make it outright illegal to prosecute intelligence officials, a move that has sparked some to criticize the government as hypocritical (it had no problem with prior specially-authorized prosecutions) and anti-democratic. Sarikaya's persistence flies in the face of these efforts, and might be read as a direct challenge to Erdogan's authority.

The investigation has prompted a firestorm of speculation as to what forces and motivations might be behind Sarikaya's investigation. So far, the rumors have included conjectures that elements within the state opposed to the dovish stance the MIT has taken toward the PKK are behind the investigation (see Yeni Safak's Abdulkadir Selvi), as well as notions that Sarikaya is being directed by the Gulen movement, which is largely thought to have deeply penetrated critical positions in the police and judiciary (see .

Tensions within AKP ranks have made themselves increasingly manifest in recent months (see past post), and Gulen is thought also to oppose moves the Erdogan government has made to negotiate with the PKK. Additionally, rivalry between the MIT and the police has been considered to be high for sometime, and according to some observers, might have increased in recent months as MIT agents who had infiltrated KCK were (and this is speculation) detained in the operations against the illegal organization.

Could the same forces behind the audio tapes leaked in September also be responsible for Sarikaya? And is it a matter of doves versus hawks, Erdogan versus Gulen, or some other power struggle/conspiracy that has yet to be revealed?

One has to be careful with conspiracy theories, but there is obviously something fishy going on.

Crisis in the State

PHOTO from Radikal

All hell began to break out within Turkey's corridors for power on Tuesday night when it was leaked to the media that the country's top intelligence officials were being summoned by a prosecutor to answer for their possible role in PKK terrorist activities.

The three officials, MIT director Hakan Fidan, his predecessor Emre Taner, and MIT undersecretary Afet Gunes, are being called to account for what some media reports claim is their possible role in helping transmitting instructions to carry out PKK terror attacks or standing by while such transmissions took place. One accusation is that the MIT, under Taner's leadership and then Fidan's, wielded control of the KCK, the PKK's so-called urban wing. As far-fetched as these accounts are (and most everyone is still struggling to make sense of them), their target could well be Prime Minister Erdogan.

In September, audio tapes were released detailing negotiations between MIT officials and PKK leaders who have since been confirmed to have been conducting peace talks in Oslo. At the time, Erdogan vowed to stand by Fidan, who is a close confidant and on whom the prime minister has heavily relied to broker a solution to the Kurdish conflict.  Taner, Fidan's predecessor, was the architect of the talks, which by all knowledge Erdogan approved and encouraged up until last June's elections when negotiations collapsed.

MIT, for its part, is insisting that the intelligence officials cannot be questioned without the approval of the prime minister according to MIT law. The specially-authorized prosecutor behind the investigation, Sadrettin Sarikaya, is the same prosecutor responsible for the KCK operations that have landed over 3,500 in individuals in detention.

Ordinarily, prosecutors would have to attain administrative permission to question intelligence officials, but Hurriyet reports this is not the case for specially-authorized prosecutors conducting terror probes. Interestingly, Istanbul chief prosecutor Fikret Secen denied the reports that Fidan, Taner, and Gunes were being called for questioning on Tuesday night, evidence that perhaps Secen did not know of Sarikaya's intention. Government officials have seemed equally surprised.

To add another twist, two high-ranking official's in Istanbul's Directorate for Security have been re-assigned. Yurt Atayun, head of the department for anti-terrorism, and Erol Demirhan, head of the department for intelligence, have both been removed from their posts. The two officials have been key to the KCK operations, and their removal is most likely linked to the investigation into MIT.

So far Erdogan has stood by Fidan, and just what the coming days will hold as to just what the government will do, what forces are behind the investigation into MIT, and what their motives are remains largely anyone's guess.

Accommodating "Real Existing" Kurdish Nationalism

I have recently published an article in this January's issue of the Journal of Democracy on Kurds in Turkey. The article argues that while progress has been made in recent years to recognize Kurdish ethnicity as a reality and advance cultural rights and economic development, the Turkish state has yet to come to terms with the national dimension of the problem. The article also includes a critical discussion of the positions taken by Kurdish nationalists and the government, as well as the role liberalism will play in any resolution of the conflict if it is to be settled within current boundaries.

Unfortunately one needs a subscription to Project MUSE in order to access the article, but here is the abstract.

Turkish state policy toward the Kurds, the Republic of Turkey's largest ethnic minority, has evolved from denial and mandatory assimilation to cultural recognition to acknowledgement of the Kurds' contested status as a political problem demanding political solutions. The election of 36 Kurdish-nationalist lawmakers, most of whom now sit in parliament as representatives of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), bolsters the salience of Kurdish nationalism and the need to accommodate it through normal politics rather than attempt to suppress it through violence. How state authorities and politicians handle the Kurdish question will continue to say much about both the success of Turkey's efforts at democratic consolidation and, more generally, the potential for democracy to manage problems involving self-conscious and mobilized national minorities dwelling within the borders of strong and highly centralized nation-states.

Many thanks to Umit Firat whose insights helped inform this article, and whose work to find solutions to transform the conflict I greatly admire. And many thanks to executive editor Phil Costopolous for his incisive editing and to managing editor Brent Kallmer for providing the abstract.

I would also like to point your attention to the three other articles in the larger cluster of articles of which mine is but a part, including Meltem Muftuler-Bac and E. Fuat Keyman's overview of AKP rule in an era of "dominant party politics," Ersel Aydinli's commentary on the current state of civil-military relations, and Berna Turam's incisive essay on civil liberties in an era in which religious and secular Turks are learning to live together. The overarching theme of Turam's article and my own is the need to settle democracy and difference, a topic I touch upon often in this blog and elsewhere.

Pinning the Blame

Before the closing of the last Kurdish opening, the AKP-led government used a mix of carrots and sticks to tackle the burgeoning problem of Kurdish nationalism and the PKK violence with which it is associated.

As is now well-established, in 2005 the government entered indirect negotiations with the PKK command at Kandil in northern Iraq and with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan at Imrali. Three years later, those negotiations eventually became direct talks held in Oslo during which the government also began to pay more attention to Kurdish cultural rights within a unified Turkey. A Kurdish-language television channel, albeit government-run and largely apolitical, was introduced in the lead up to local elections in 2009, and later that summer the government announced grand plans for comprehensive reform (its “Kurdish opening,” which was later to be referred to as a “ democratic opening” ). Thus began an intense debate of what politicians, opinion leaders, and even the military began to approach as the “Kurdish problem”—not simply a problem with the PKK, but a more fundamental dilemma in demand of political solutions.

Yet, at the same time the government was pursuing its “Kurdish opening,” operations against Kurdish politicians and civil society leaders associated with the PKK began—and, much to the harm of AKP’s reception in the region, after the party had suffered fairly devastating losses in election. Local elections in March 2009 marked the first time the AKP had lost ground to Turkish nationalists since coming to power. Accusations of political revenge soon followed, as well as a claims on the part of Kurdish nationalists that the AKP’s aim was to eliminate the “bad Kurds (i.e., nationalist Kurds),” in order to force eventual assimilation. [A side note, but tragically ironic, if it was the government’s intent to eliminate nationalist Kurds from what some government officials called the “real Kurds,” it has been the PKK’s effort over the years to marginalize the more integrated Kurds—the PKK would use the term “assimilated”—from the nationalist Kurds, whom the PKK, in turn, considers the “ real Kurds.” The reality, of course, is that there is more than one reality, and that Kurds, qua individuals, get caught in the middle.] The PKK, as well as the BDP, have perpetuated, if not ramped up, this rhetoric of elimination since June’s election, making compromise all the more difficult. How can one negotiate with another party intent to eliminate you?

For the government’s part, there is increasingly less recognition of those Kurds who are nationalists as legitimate players with the right to participate in politics—of course, a fact not helped by the PKK’s intransigence when it comes to ending its violent campaign against Turkish state forces, many of which are conscripts or civilian police officers (or, in the most egregious cases, state-employed school teachers or family members and/or bystanders of PKK terrorism). Though the government has announced plans for yet another Kurdish opening, its new coordinated, rapid response military campaign against the PKK, which has unusually carried on throughout the winter months, seems armed with more sticks than carrots—and, again, the effect of that is a ratcheting up of the PKK/BDP’s rhetoric of elimination.

PHOTO from Rudaw

In an interview last week with Rudaw, the PKK’s leader in Kandil, Murat Karayilan, laid the blame of increased violence squarely at the feet of Prime Minister Erdogan. For Radikal columnist Cuneyt Ozdemir's take on the interview, click here. In Karayilan's mind, Erdogan has now taken control of the state: whereas before the prime minister could claim he could not control various elements of the state opposed to his agenda, in particular the Turkish Armed Forces and judiciary, according to Karayilan, the prime minister can no longer make that claim. Karayilan confirms negotiations with the government, and claims that the government would always explain the continued military and judicial operations against the PKK as out of its control, which again, according to Karayilan, they are not. Implying that negotiations were halted because the PKK realized the government’s lack of honesty as to its ability to halt operations against it, Karayilan naturally attempts to take the high ground while at the same time condemning the government’s plans for a second opening as insincere and, of course, ultimately aimed at destroying the Kurdish national movement and assimilating all Kurds.

Of course, the reality is that the government always used a mixture of carrots and sticks, and yes, the self-righteous attitude of Karayilan is to be expected. Yet, at the same time, the AKP’s situation is different than it was when it began talks with the PKK five years ago. The AKP now not only has control of the prime ministry, but has largely civilianized the Turkish Armed Forces and tightened its control over the judiciary, which less than four years ago almost brought about its closure. The AKP is, to a large extent, in control of the state.

Semih Idiz depicts the AKP as Janus-faced, looking at once to the future while caught up in the past. More optimistically than other critics, Idiz argues that while the party has made significant progress on the democracy and human rights front, including on the Kurdish question, it has too easily been caught in the traps of the past—thus, the result is often two steps forward, one step back. I do not contradict Idiz here, but do think the party, and Turkey, risks more than a slower march toward progress. The bold moves the AKP made in efforts to transform the Kurdish question, most significantly its efforts to accommodate a Kurdish cultural reality and its opening negotiations with the PKK, could easily result in a serious setback should the party continue its high-intensity security struggle (a look back to the past) without ensuring that the carrots the government is now offering are more than mere gestures—that the party is serious about granting constitutional recognition to Kurds as citizens of Turkey, and is intent to negotiate with the nationalists as to other demands related to federalism and autonomy, and do so, of course, with respect to all Kurds—not just the nationalists. The nationalists do not represent all Kurds, but neither can they be ignored.

Yet Karayilan is not correct here either. If Prime Minister Erdogan does wield control of the state, this still does not mean that the prime minister is necessarily in the position to make concessions, especially given divides within his own party on the Kurdish question and serious misgivings on the part of the Turkish public, which has had to deal with terrorist violence for more than twenty years. That Karayilan does not even begin to endeavor recognition of Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc's statement that group rights for Kurds will be enshrined in the constitution, including much demanded rights to Kurdish language education, gives reason to doubt the role of the PKK as a peacemaker -- or, at least the role of Kandil. When talks of a possible ceasefire occurred this past July in conjunction with Ocalan's call for a "peace council," it was Karayilan who resisted and what followed was a violent attack on Turkish conscripts that seriously set back any hope for an emerging peace process.

It is difficult to blame Ankara for being fed up, and even more impossible not to recognize some glimmer of hope in the deputy prime minister's recent statements, even amidst continued operations against alleged members of the KCK, such as respected academic Busra Ersanli. What is sure is that ramped up rhetoric, paranoia, and lack of trust on both sides is sure to keep the conflict alive, especially as long as violence remains part of the equation. The AKP may be intent to so weaken the PKK by this summer that it will be forced to lay down arms (an unlikely result), but given the PKK's recent posturing, it will be difficult to realize the give-and-take between the two sides that would mollify the PKK's conviction the government is out to eliminate it and pave the way for future talks. The burden is not just on the AKP, but also Kandil.

KCK Operations Continue As Negotiations Remain Halted

PHOTO from Radikal

Continued operations against the Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), the political/civil society wing of the KCK established between 2005 and 2006, have resulted in the detention of 37 Kurdish nationalist activists, many from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

The raids took place on Friday, and involved searches of 123 locations, including the BDP-controlled municipal building in Diyarbakir, BDP headquarters in Istanbul, and the Diyarbakir offices of the Confederation of Trade Unions and Public Employees (KESK), as well as the Kurdish language-cultural organization Kurdi-Der, the Education and Science Workers' Union (Egitem-Sen), the Human Righs Association (IHD), as well as various other non-governmental organizations accused of being linked to the KCK. Provincial and district offices of the BDP across several provinces were also raided, in addition to, most controversially, parliamentarian Leyla Zana's Ankara home (for more on Zana, click here). For an account of the raids in English from Bianet, click here.

The BDP maintains a largely subservient relationship with the PKK, and in the past year, many of its members, with cresendoing fervor, have expressed support for the terrorist organization, including crediting the armed struggle for the progress that has been made in recent years on the minority/cultural rights front. Yet the party remains the only viable legal representative of the Kurdish nationalist movement. The KCK's establishment and activity since its founding has greatly blurred the boundaries between the BDP and the PKK, further confounding its relationship to the PKK and the independence of its members.

For their part, BDP politicians argue the government is determined to push them out of politics, and that the KCK operations are the principal means for doing this. Kurdish members of the AKP are somewhat divided on the issue of the operations. For example, AKP parliamentarian Galip Ensarioglu told Rudaw that while the operations against the KCK are sometimes inaccurate, members of the KCK should understand that "they will have to pay the consequences." Other Kurdish AKP parliamentarians -- for example, Zafer Ozdemir from Batman -- offer stronger support.

Ensarioglu, like other Kurdish parliamentarians from the AKP who tread a thin line, attempt to create distance between the ongoing operations and the government, arguing that the KCK operations are carried out by sometimes overzealous prosecutors and not the AKP. That said, it is highly unlikely that the operations would continue without the AKP-led government's consent, and indeed, government officials have openly spoken out on their status. Soon after Friday's operations, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said the operations will continue.

. . . .

PKK head Murat Karayilan confirmed from Kandil that he was in negotiations with the Turkish government for five years, and that for two to three years, the negotiations were direct. Karayilan has gone onto elaborate that the return of refugees from Makhmour and Kandil were the result of negotiations between Prime Minister Erdogan and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, and came at the proposal of Ocalan.

On Oct. 18, 2009, two groups consisting of eight guerrillas and 26 refugees returned through the Habur border crossing between Turkey and Iraq to be met by Kurdish nationalist politicians and waves of cheering nationalist Kurds shouting pro-PKK slogans. The appetite of the Turkish public for the Kurdish opening the government had announced the previous summer was soon lost amidst displays of what looked to be victory celebrations that were broadcast for days across Turkish television.

Negotiations soon after ceased, and reports indicate that they have not picked up sense. Tapes leaked of negotiations in Oslo were released this past August, and were not denied by the AKP government. Despite the revelations that both sides of the conflict were at one point holding negotiations, there is no indication from the various centers of power within the PKK nor the AKP government that they will pick up again anytime soon.

For another PKK account of the negotiations, click here for Muzaffer Ayata's interview with Rudaw. When negotiations stopped, PKK violence escalated, and in the past year, has included violence perpetrated against civilians, including bombings in civilian areas and the abduction of school teachers sent to serve in the southeast.

Will Roj TV Survive?

Roj TV is the PKK-affiliated Kurdish-language satellite network that has been broadcasting from Denmark since 2004 after similar networks were closed in the United Kingdom and Belgium. A Danish court this week has ruled that the network and the PKK are in close communication, and that on occasion, the channel has spread propaganda on behalf of the organization.

If one watches the channel, this is nothing new, and is exactly why the channel's presence in Denmark for the past seven years has been to the serious ire of Turks, including the state, which has since 2004 worked on a number of diplomatic levels to have Denmark revoke Roj-Tv's broadcast license. That did not happen yesterday, though the network was fined ~7,000€ and the case could clear the way for the Danish Ministry of Justice to close the channel for good.

One of the Wikileaks on Turkey reveals that part of the deal to overcoming Turkish objections to the appointment of former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's to serve as NATO secretary-general was that Denmark would, in turn, take steps to shutdown the station. The case ruled on this week is the result of an indictment filed in August by Denmark's attorney general.

Foreign Minster Ahmet Davutoglu said the case was the first step to assuring Roj be closed down.

More Trouble with Leyla Zana

BDP parliamentarian and nationalist hardliner Leyla Zana has once more incited a firestorm of criticism. In a speech delivered in Frankfurt, Zana said arms were the Kurds' "insurance policy," and that the progress the Kurds have accomplished thus far is due to the PKK's armed struggle.

This could not be further from the truth. Reform passed in recent years on the Kurdish question has occurred when PKK violence has been at a low, the result of a commitment to liberalism and political rights that has allowed Kurdish activists and politicians to more freely participate in politics, albeit with continued serious restrictions. Any progress on the Kurdish front owes itself to liberalism and the EU accession process more than to violence, which has only stalled reform and led to the old political deadlock. The state is now attempting to assert itself against a Kurdish nationalist politics that thanks to the KCK has become inextricably entangled with violence. For my past post on Zana, click here.

Prime Minister Erdogan responded today by telling Zana that she should "go to the mountain," meaning she should give up parliamentary politics and join the PKK. While this was indubitably not the most productive thing to say, it is more evidence that the prime minister is "fed up," and that it is all the less likely to engage the BDP now than before.

Erdogan also responded to comments made by BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas in response to remarks made by Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel in an interview with Milliyet in which Ozel said he has qualms with labeling PKK members "terrorists." Demirtas had responded that Ozel did not carry as much importance as a "colonel" and that he did not care what the military chief had to say. Erdogan declared that the PKK Demirtas serves would not allow the BDP leader to shepherd 100 sheep.

PHOTO from Habertürk

The prime minister also drew attention to BDP politicians who had placed PKK regalia on the coffins of some of the 35 people who were killed in the air strikes at Uludere, accusing them of politicizing the tragedy. A parliamentary sub-commission has been established to investigate the strike at Uludere while the government still has yet to issue an official apology or admit mistakes made by MIT or the Turkish Armed Forces. Habertürk reports that the Interior Ministry has stripped a local gendarme deputy commander of his post. The Sirnak governor's office is carrying out its own investigation in conjunction with the Interior Ministry.

In other news related to Uludere, Habertürk columnist Ece Temelkuran, a prominent and controversial Turkish journalist, has been fired for apparently taking too critical a line on the tragedy. In recent columns, Temelkuran had referred to the air strikes as a "massacre." The Wall Street Journal's Ayla  Albayrak gives Temelkuran's firing attention in the international press.

Ozel Regrets "Terrorist" Label

PHOTO from Milliyet

Milliyet's Fikret Bila has run an interview with Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel in which the head of the Turkish Armed Forces says he would not like to call PKK fighters "terrorists" since they, too, are citizens of Turkey.

According to Ozel, many PKK fighters have been deceived, a fact which the top general laments at the same time he gives casualty figures of how many terrorists have been killed in the past six months. Turkish forces in Turkey's near 18-year conflict with the PKK. That number is at 165, according to Ozel, while 112 have surrendered and another 50 have been captured.

Ozel's intimation that PKK fighters should not be labeled as "terrorists" has infuriated many Turks, and nationalist-minded bloggers are clamoring to criticize Ozel as ineffective, and many not simply vis-á-vis the Kurdish question, but in regard to the treatment of army generals who have been arrested in the ongoing Ergenekon investigations.

In the interview, Ozel also dismissed reports that the PKK has adopted a truce, arguing that the opposite is in fact true and that PKK operations have continued throughout the winter. He also said unequivocally that the Turkish Armed Forces were in no way involved in the negotiations between MIT and the PKK that seem to have ended at the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010. Ozel further states that he is against recognizing Kurdish as an official language or integrating it into school education and using it to administer public services.

The general goes on to state that the United States has provided assistance from northern Iraq, though the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has done little to assist with the situation. Iraqi officials have told Ankara that there is little they can do (see an account of TRT's interview, in Turkish, with Iraq Vice President Tariq Hashimi on Oct. 30). Meanwhile Iraqi President Jalal al-Talabani and KRG president Massoud Barzani, much to the likely frustration of Turkish officials, continue to dialogue with the BDP, urging the party, albeit without much visible success, toward peace.

Puppets of the PKK!, Says Erdogan

PHOTO from Hurriyet

Prime Minister Erdogan addressed AKP's parliamentary group meeting yesterday, telling BDP parliamentarians that "they could not even use the restroom without being attached to their master's strings." Erdogan was likely incensed by charges that BDP deputy Hasip Kaplan incited the beating of Naif Yavuz and strong statements in recent days by BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas.

Though AKP officials have long charged that the BDP is closely affiliated to the PKK, Erdogan's strong language evinces the intense animosity between not only the BDP and his party, but also the Turkish public. There are news reports that the KCK operations have revealed links that speeches of BDP parliamentarians are drafted by or with the input of PKK leadership, and that BDP addresses are often coordinated with terrorist attacks. Though the government is short on hard evidence, accusations of the BDP taking its orders from Kandil are likely to heighten tensions with the BDP in the coming weeks. Demirtas, for his part, compared the nationalist resistance movement to that of the Palestinians and told supporters in Diyarbakir that Kurds would "fight like Palestinians."

Erdogan's demonstrable anger is no doubt related to his utter frustration with the BDP. The AKP has been trying to broker a peace agreement since 2005. The biggest blow to these efforts came in October 2009 when a return of PKK militants returned at the Habur border crossing to be greeted by Lurdish nationalist politicians and Kurdish nationalist crowds flashing victory signs. The AKP had designed the affair to be a solemn proceeding to mark the inception of a larger peace process, but was instead met with Kurdish nationalist fanfare and an enraged Turkish public irate over what it perceived as victory celebrations for terrorists. Soon after, the AKP's "democratic opening" rapidly began to crumble and the party distanced itself from Kurdish nationalist politicians.

The failed attempt also seemed to disrupt ongoing secret negotiations the AKP and MIT, Turkey's intelligency agency, had been holding with Ocalan and PKK representatives from Europe and Kandil. Tape recordings of negotiations held in Norway between unidentified representatives of MIT and the PKK were released this past August, and in a landmark moment and to Erdogan's credit, the prime minister defender MIT and its director Hakan Fidan, as well as the potential value of the talks at the time. Yet the prime minister has said that talks have since stopped, and there is no evidence otherwise to contradict that whatever negotiations were occuring between 2005 and 2009 have begun anew.

Further, relations with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, jailed in isolation on a small island called Imrali just outside of Istanbul, have also soured. Ocalan had sounded a calming note in early July, calling BDP politicians to end their boycott of parliament and calling a peace council to be formed. Yet, after these declarations in early July, the PKK launched a major attack in Diyarbakir that killed 13 soldiers. The attack coincided with the Democratic Society Congress (DTK)'s declaration of autonomy, though DTK leaders denied any connection. Erdogan quickly seemed to lose confidence in Ocalan -- either because he could not control the PKK, which in fact has multiple command centers often at odds with each other, the most important of which is Murat Karayilan's command over the organization from Kandil, or because the exiled leader betrayed him. The fact that the attack occurred right before the Ocalan's call to extend a July 15 ceasefire, and that public statements of and intelligence on PKK leadership in Kandil seemed to reveal the PKK had a different intention, lends evidence to the former. At the end of July, Erdogan declared Ocalan powerless, and shortly after cut off the exiled PKK leader's access to his attorneys, through whom the PKK leader would issue announcements to Kandil, the BDP, and the hardline Kurdish nationalist masses who support him. Talks with the BDP to re-enter parliament also collapsed.

The situation only intensified in the months ahead, though the BDP did decide to end its boycott of parliament just days before it reconvened at the beginning of October. Yet, again, soon after this decision the PKK killed 24 soldiers in Cukurca (Hakkari), the fourth most deadly attack in the history of Turkey's conflict with the PKK. The October 19 attack sparked public outcry throughout the country. In response, Erdogan increased pressure on Iraq to drive the PKK from Kandil and operations against the KCK intensified. On October 30, police detained 48 alleged KCK operatives, including controversial publisher Ragip Zarakolu and Busra Ersanli, an academic at Marmara University who was a member of the commission established to work on the constitution. KCK operations continued throughout November and December, and on December 20, over 50 individuals, mostly journalists, were detained in what police said was an operation targeting the press wing of the KCK.


With Habur, the DTK declaration, and Hakkari hardly water under the bridge, the increasing militancy of the BDP's rhetoric has curried the party little favor and driven Erdogan and members of his party to nationalist excesses of their own. Erdogan and other officials' impatience and outright anger toward the BDP, which were fully manifest in yesterday's parliamentary group meeting, have led to conjecture that the party could be closed. Yet doing so would come at tremendous political cost for the AKP. The closure of the BDP's predecessor, DTP, in December 2009, led to a wave of international criticism and significantly hampered the political process.

Whether the AKP likes it or not, the BDP is the only legal representative of Kurdish nationalism and Kurdish nationalists' only conduit into the Turkish political system. If the BDP were to be shut down, the alienation of Kurdish nationalists from the political process alredy exacerbated by the KCK operations would be near complete. Therefore, though many opinion leaders are pointing to the example of Batasuna's closure in Spain, which shared a comparable relationship to ETA before its closure in 2002, it should also be noted that Batasuna enjoyed much less political support and that the Basque nationalist political landscape was and is far more plural than the Kurdish nationalist scene in Turkey.

For these reasons, it is unlikely that the BDP will be closed; however, at the same time, it is also highly likely that the AKP will be conciliatory, especially when the militant rhetoric is escalating in intensity. The best indicator for this is the government's continued dedication to its coordinated, rapid response security measures, despite the incident in Uludere, and that Erdogan, though expressing great regret in the days following the strike, has since continued to defend the Turkish Armed Forces and intelligence agencies. It seems the state is intent to express its authority over elements of the Kurdish nationalist movement after months during which the movement used a combination of politics and terrorism in its own efforts to assert power.

. . . .

Erdogan also had strong words for Taraf, which has run stories in the past few days alleging that last week's air strike in Uludere that killed 35 innocent civilians resulted from intelligence collected by the MIT, as well as the CHP and its leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who has called for a parliamentary investigation of what happened.


UPDATE I (1/5) --  President Gul and Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel met yesterday about what occurred at Uludere. Interestingly, Hakan Fidan, head of MIT, also attended the meeting. MIT is at the center of the schedule as allegations emerge that the attack resulted from faulty intelligence provided by the organization.

Fallout

PHOTO from Taraf

Local governor Naif Yavuz was assaulted when visiting the village of Gulyazi from where many of the victims of the air strike in Uludere haled. There are reports that BDP deputy Hasip Kaplan stoked the mob, and that he gave reports to Yavuz not to visit the area because residents were armed and angry. Meanwhile most Turkish newspapers continue to demand an apology for the strikes, and CHP leader Kemal Kilicdarglu has promised to take the matter to parliament.

Despite the mass outrage, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc has said that it is premature for the government to apologize, though it deeply regrets the incident, and the government seems to be reluctant to admit full responsibility. Arinc said today that the trek on which the smugglers were traveling was a well-known PKK treading ground, and that they would have easily looked like PKK fighters. Meanwhile Taraf is reporting that the Turkish Armed Forces acted on information provided by Turkish intelligence (MIT), and carried reports earlier that the attack might have been carried out following intelligence received from a PKK informant.

Prime Minister Erdogan and Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel met yesterday to discuss the initial findings of the Turkish Armed Forces' investigation.

Tragedy in Sirnak

PHOTO from Radikal

A Turkish air strike in the Turkey-Iraq border district of Uludere in Sirnak province early in the morning on Dec. 29 has resulted in the deaths of 35 people who were smuggling diesel from Iraq to Turkey. All are Turkish Kurds, and they do not appear to in any way be affiliated with the PKK or PKK activity. The strike is a great embarrassment to the government, military, and intelligence services, which in recent months have worked to facilitate a coordinated, rapid attack strategy. The 35 killed were targeted by unarmed Heron drones (not U.S. Predator drones based at Incirlik). Those killed were hauling diesel with mules, and according to initial statement by government and military officials, appeared to be PKK forces crossing into Turkey from Iraq.

Deputy AKP vice chair Huseyin Celik has characterized the strikes as an "operational accident," and Erdogan and other government officials have expressed deep regret for the incident, vowing a full investigation into the incident. In a statement made over the weekend, Erdogan said that innocent civilians might have been intentionally attacked from the air before (a reference to Dersim), but that this does not happen today and that the government will not stand for it. Turkish Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel is conducting an investigation into the incident, and is expected to report to the government in the next few days.

Turkish newspapers resound that the state must apologize for the mistake, and sentiment is nearly universal that all efforts should be made to investigate the tragedy and avoid similar incidents in the future. That said, it is yet to be seen whether the results of the investigation will be shared with the public and those responsible policies and officials held to account. Now that the government has firmer control of the military and is at the head of efforts to coordinate efforts between it and Turkish intelligence, headed by MIT head Hakan Fidan, the investigation and policies to follow will be a critical test of AKP leadership.

Reform, Not Militancy

At a rally in Yuksekova (Hakkari), BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas again declared that Kurds want autonomy, and again, voiced implied support for violent struggle. According to Demirtas, Kurds will continue to wage resistance and fight against government pressure. The comments were made in response to government preparation's to reform laws that have increasingly been used to target nationalist Kurds who express opinions contrary to that of the government.

The government announced earlier this week that it has prepared a package of laws aimed to address the Kurdish question, including limited rights to freedom of expression and protest, as well as the possibility of an amnesty for "repentant terrorists." Though the reforms are far from a wholesale solution to current problems and come at a time when the government continues to target Kurdish nationalist politicians and journalists, as well as some Turks and Kurds whose ideas on the Kurdish question run contrary to that of the government, they are a step, however small,  in the right direction. The AKP has proposed provisions to a current law restricting speech that "incites hatred," as well as an amendment to a law that allows individuals charged with making symbols of terrorism to be sentenced to 10 years in prison and a stop to prosecutions of Kurdish nationalist activists who use "Sayin" (a term of respect) to address PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

On Dec. 22, just one week before the reform plan was announced, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc declared that denying the identity of the Kurdish people was tantamount to denying their existence to people. He promised constitutional and other legal reforms that would protect Kurdish identity, and it seems the AKP may be intent on delivering.

Arinc's statement and the AKP's reform plans comes on the back of the detentions of 51 assumed Kurdish nationalist activists, mostly journalists, who are alleged PKK associates. The detentions seek to repress journalists offering support (or, what is conceived by the government to be support) of ideas shared by the PKK. The journalists are accused of working in cahoots or being members of the press arm of the KCK, the political organization setup by the PKK to penetrate Kurdish civil society and political life. Yet, as with other KCK sweeps, in many cases the evidence against the alleged PKK associates is slipshod and/or condemns journalists for writing reports that might be considered to support the organization. The problems with this approach are numerous, and reflect flaws in the government's larger approach to prosecute and imprison (for very long periods of time) political actors who have not actually engaged in terrorist offenses.

That said, Demirtas' remarks echo the militancy of BDP rhetoric in recent months and will contribute little to a solution. Turkish politicians and civil society are already in the midst of a serious debate as to whether "poems, songs, and art" can be considered terrorist acts as put forward by Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin (see Ahmet Hakan in Hurriyet). Arinc offers a potentially alternative take, and though it is still unclear in what direction the AKP will go, the BDP is making no progress on the issue by adopting a rhetoric of militancy rather than reform.

Rather than following a hardline in doubt shaped by Kandil and perhaps Imrali, Demirtas would be better to follow in the steps of fellow BDP member Serafettin Elci, who welcomed Arinc's remarks as a step forward and asked the government to produce concrete measures. The government did, showing that Elci and moderates within the BDP could be more powerful than the hardliners if given a chance.

The Trouble with Leyla Zana

I stopped posting on this blog just over six months ago to focus on other projects with a post-election consideration of the BDP in the aftermath of last June's elections. Much to the chagrin of some of its followers and fellow Turkey observers, this post featured a photograph of Leyla Zana, a leading Kurdish activist representing the hardline segment of the "legal Kurdish nationalist movement" who had just been elected to parliament. It seems in some ways appropriate to pick up where I left off then, and this after six months of stirring political developments in the Turkish government's relationship with the BDP, the PKK, and the KCK, the political organization founded by the terrorist PKK between 2005 and 2006 and that has increasingly complicated the Kurdish political landscape, further blurring the boundaries between the BDP and the PKK.

In a recent interview with the Danish website Rudaw, which is supported by forces friendly to KRG president Massound Barzani, Zana declared that Kurds were no longer demanding simple autonomy, but rights to self-determination (for coverage in Hurriyet, click here). The troubles with Zana's claim are many, and not least is that "autonomy" is an instrument to actualizing rights a nation possesses to self-determination. In the interview, Zana says that a referendum ought to be held to let Kurds decide whether they want a federal system, an autonomy, or secession from Turkey. While many Kurds do understand themselves as belonging to a distinct nation, understood here as a unit exerting a demand to determine its own political future based on a common sense of belonging to a group, Zana is quite wrong to declare that somehow a territorially-based autonomy agreement or something else of the sort somehow falls short of recognizing Turkish Kurds' right to self-determination, which might be accommodated through any variety of scenarios.

First, I would like to say that there is nothing in my mind wrong with Kurdish nationalist politicians and activists articulating a right to self-determination and putting forward various political agendas to that affect. Though the Turkish state is far from ready to seriously discuss any such scenario and the AKP-led government unlikely to recognize a Kurdish right to self-determination and embrace a normal politics through which that right might be accommodate through minority rights-based policy solutions, Kurdish nationalism is a reality that will eventually have to be addressed. At the same time, Zana's understanding of how a right to self-determination might be asserted and thereby accommodated reveals a larger immaturity on the part of the Kurdish nationalist movement, and when accompanied by a significant number of Kurdish nationalists' unwillingness/inability to denounce violence, is greatly problematic and likely to lead simply to more violence. Here, it is also important to note that likely more than half of the Kurds in Turkey do not necessarily share such nationalist aspirations, and of those, far fewer, likely far less than 10 percent, support secession from Turkey. Kurdish Turks are more likely to look to Turkish cities in the West, in which about half of Turkey's Kurdish population now lives, than to cities in the north of Iraq. Kurds are tied to Turkey through politics, economy, culture, and family relations.

Further, the trouble with Leyla Zana is her dismissal of individual rights-based solutions to solve the conflict. While she acknowledges the government is attempting to solve the Kurdish question through providing for individual rights for Kurds (honestly, something that is still quite lacking), she dismisses these efforts as hopeless, declaring that Kurds "are not individuals but a nation." Just as assertive varieties of Turkish nationalism threaten individual rights and liberties, so does the predominant understanding of Kurdish nationalism that exists in most Kurdish nationalist circles. Ironically, Turks (including Turkish Kurds) have moved to embrace liberalism, as revealed by the rapid face of liberal reforms passed since Turkey began its EU accession process in 1999. Though the struggle for individual liberties is ongoing in Turkey and has suffered serious setbacks in recent years, from Zana's comments, one might conclude that liberalism (and with it, liberal nationalism) has a lot further to go in the predominantly Kurdish southeast than it does in the rest of Turkey.

In the past six months, the BDP's rhetoric has become increasingly militant and separatist, and to such a degree that it is difficult to recognize the party in comparison to the Democratic Society Party (DTP) that preceded it, and which was shut down in December 2009. The DTP, though far from liberal nationalist, was more reform-driven, more open to compromise, and in many ways, up against much greater odds than the current DTP. When the DTP was in power, the opposition CHP was dominated by assertive Turkish nationalists, and the AKP, though in some ways more accommodating than it is now after two summers of violent terrorist attacks and a failed liberalization initiative, much less able to fully tackle the problem. Now that the government has made significant headway in achieving civilian dominance over the army, a reasonable, responsible Kurdish nationalist party could in many ways accomplish a great deal, albeit with considerable resistance and back-peddling. Though the AKP government might in many ways be blamed for Kurdish nationalists' drift toward militarism and alienation, this in no way alleviates the BDP from responsibility, nor can the Turkish government be blamed for being reluctant to fairly deal with a political party that continues to endorse the utility of violence and align (perhaps even coordinate) itself with terrorist activity that has in recent months targeted civilians.

A solution to Turkey's Kurdish question is possible, but not without liberalism.

Rough Waters Ahead?

PHOTO from Radikal

Sunday's elections created what is perhaps the most representative parliament in the history of the Turkish Republic. Of the 87% of eligible Turkish voters who showed up to cast ballots, only 4.4% voted for parties were not ultimately elected to parliament. This is down from 13% in 2007 and 32% in 2002. This representation problem has been a function of small political parties being unable to meet the country's high 10% threshold required to enter parliament. (The Kurdish BDP is an exception to this rule since it has not run as a political party, but rather chosen to run candidates as independents. A difficult feat to pull off, the BDP won 36 MPs this parliamentary election cycle.)

However, though there are now few political parties in parliament, this does not mean Turkey is necessarily any less divided. In fact, each of the four political parties now represented have unique constituencies and platforms that do not necessarily square with each other or facilitate compromise. As the AKP vows to seek compromise and civil society input as it moves forward with re-drafting the country's 1982 constitution, which was drafted in the shadow of a dramatic coup in 1980, it is unclear just how successful it can and will be.

Assessing the BDP

Cengiz Candar argues in today's Radikal that what a " BDP opening" is needed, meaning that the AKP must accommodate the voices and politics of the Kurdish nationalist party. At the same time, Candar, who is joined by other liberal public intellectuals who support Kurdish political, civil, and cultural rights, argues that the BDP has not shown itself to be a positive player when it comes to adopting the conciliatory politics required to reach a solution to the age-old Kurdish problem.

As Henri Barkey elucidated at an event at the Carnegie Endowment today (podcast here), the BDP's victory is impressive in that it resulted not only from the support it receives in the southeast (and in Kurdish areas throughout the country), but also from its tremendous capacity to organize. Successfully unning independent candidates for parliament is no easy task, and basically required the party to apportion its support for specific candidates running at the provincial level and then organize voters to elect these candidates. For example, in Diyarbakir, where support for the BDP was high, BDP supporters were divided between the number of candidates the BDP thought it could successfully run. Such a strategy requires the BDP to perform a complicated electoral math in determining just how many candidates it can elect in the context of a complicated electoral system and successfully rally the vote behind these independent candidates.

Though the BDP's success should not be underestimated, it should also not be overplayed. As Candar explains, though the BDP has gotten better at electoral engineering, political support for the party has not necessarily increased. Further, it should not be forgotten that a significant number of Kurds voted for the AKP despite its heavy nationalist rhetoric (Candar estimates 42%). Had the AKP not run a nationalist campaign in an effort to run the MHP into the ground, the result might have been different. Candar also points attention to the factions the BDP has managed to bring together (for example, bringing leftists together with staunch Kurdish nationalists and pro-Kurdish conservatives like Altan Tan and Sereafettin Elci). According to Candar, though this coalition-building is taking place at the elite level, the BDP has not succeeded in doing so among voters.

Trouble Brewing

In the days after the election, the BDP used this mammoth victory to call for the release of PKK terrorist leader Abdullah Ocalan and direct negotiations with the PKK, actions sure to infuriate the vast majority of Turkish votes. In doing, the BDP is alienating itself from the larger electorate and adopting a divisive politics sure to further fuel the conflict.

At the same time, the AKP has paid little attention to the Kurdish problem, the existence of which the party denied during the campaign, and is instead focusing on moving onward with business as usual. The two positions combined create the conditions for a political crisis, which could come soon given that six of BDP's deputies are currently in jail and their eligibility to hold seats in parliament still up in the air.

Chief among these is Hatip Dicle, who was convicted in 2009 for disseminating PKK propaganda and whose candidacy was at the heart of the riots that enfolded at the end of April when the High Election Board (YSK) invalidated the candidacies of 11 BDP candidates (see April 21 post). On June 9, just three days before the elections, the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld Dicle's conviction. Though it was too late to remove his name from the ballot, the High Elections Board will decide whether he is able to serve in parliament.

The six BDP candidates currently jailed as part of the KCK operations (and who are awaiting trial) include Gulseren Yildirm, Ibrahim Ayhan, Selma Irmak, Faysal Sarayildiz, Kemal Aktas, and Dicle. Dicle's case is special since he is not only jailed and awaiting trial for alleged membership in the PKK (KCK), but has been convicted previously and been unable to attain the necessary paperwork required to allow him to enter parliament. The Constitution bars convicted persons from holding parliamentary office. (In addition to the six jailed BDP candidates, two CHP candidates and one MHP candidate, both recently elected, are also currently detained (for their role in Ergenekon).)

Meeting in Diyarbakir yesterday, the BDP called for the release of all six elected members and demanded the release of Ocalan. If the release of the six was not controversial enough, combining such a move with Ocalan's release is not politically savvy nor helpful for the peace process. Reaction in the Turkish press, nationalist and otherwise, has been harsh, and will likely only increase in intensity should a crisis with Dicle come to a head.

Will the AKP Seek Compromise?

Speculation is still high as to whether Prime Minister Erdogan will seek a presidential term in either 2012 or 2014 given the party's successful election result. While some observers argues the party's loss of seats and new need for compromise when it comes to amending the country's constitution renders null the possibility of a powerful Erdogan presidency, others conjecture the AKP will still be able to find the support it needs to change the constitution and empower Erdogan.

The prime minister has announced that he will not run for parliament again, and the AKP's current by-laws prevent him from being appointed to another term as prime minister. CSIS' Bulent Aliriza writes

The new constitution seems certain to usher in a presidential system, and it is clear that Erdogan intends to run for the presidency, either in 2012 or more likely in 2014. If he were to choose the latter date, he would then be in a position to implement his “Target 2023” election manifesto through the centennial of the Turkish Republic as president. However, the inability of the JDP to obtain 330 seats, which would have enabled Erdogan to get public approval for a new constitution in a referendum, presents an obstacle that needs to be overcome.

Apart from the question of Erdogan continuance as the leading force in Turkish politics, the more immediate question is whether and just how the AKP will seek compromise and consensus on the constitution, especially given the likelihood of conflict over the jailed opposition candidates who have just been elected from parliament.

Again, a key question here is whether and how the party will attempt to repair the bridges it has burnt with the large number of Kurdish voters to whom the party turned its back. Though the AKP failed to push the ultra-nationalist MHP beneath the 10% threshold, according to Barkey, any increase in the AKP's number of voters (above the 50% of the country who supported it in this election) will come from nationalist voters.

Getting these votes is dependent on how the party treats the Kurdish issue, and should it be intent to continue its nationalist rhetoric, the BDP opening for which Candar hopes is simply not going to come to fruition. At the same time, the AKP has expressed intent to negotiate with the CHP and the MHP, and there are those in the party who realize the necessity of dealing with the BDP, however unsavory and threatening its politics. At the party's parliamentary group meeting today, Erdogan re-affirmed his intent to move forward with the constitution and said he would personally supervise negotiations with the opposition and engagement with civil society.

Just how all of this will happen is yet to be seen, especially given that the next few weeks could prove difficult if the courts and the YSK prevent the release and entry of those elected candidates currently jailed. And, while Turkey might have a more representative parliament, a less divided country it is not.

What Will Happen Tomorrow (And After)?

Reuters Photo from VOA Kurdish

I gave a radio interview this morning to Voice of America's Kurdish service in which I was asked what would be the impact of tomorrow's elections on the AKP-led government's plans to introduce a new constitution.  Though the interview mostly focused on the Kurdish issue, of particular interest was just how successful the AKP could be in bringing forward plans to introduce a new constitution.

If the AKP wins at least 330 seats in the parliament (it now has 336), it will be able to introduce constitutional amendments without the need for much consensus before taking them to referendum -- an approach the AKP took last year and with great success. If the party manages to surpass 367 votes, it will have a 2/3 super majority that will allow it to unilaterally overhaul the constitution without the need for referendum. While the latter is unlikely and the former in doubt, the larger issue is just how sincere the party is in its reiterations that it will seek consensus as it moves forward. At the moment, all four parties with a chance of entering parliament have pledged to adopt a new constitution.

Last year, the party showed little concern as it pushed amendments rapidly forward. Neither civil society nor opposition political parties were given much voice in the process and the result was a referendum that basically polarized the Turkish public. The Kurdish nationalist BDP boycotted the referendum while the CHP and the MHP campaigned hard against the amendments. Though the official result was 58%, the actual number of Turkish citizens who approved the changes was lower given that a large number of Kurds who did boycott.

If the referendum is taken as a measure of the support for the AKP, it can be said that roughly over one-half of Turkish citizens approve of the party and the direction in which it is taking the country. This matches more or less with what a recent Pew poll found. According to the poll, 48 percent of Turkish citizens are satisfied with the direction the country is taking; however, 49 percent responded they are dissatisfied. The satisfied voters, more or less, can be assumed to be likely to vote for the AKP, but of more interest are those who are not. How many of these voters are simply typical Turkish cynics and how many are disenchanted with the party? The rising number of potentially disenchanted is cause for concern (and that is more than an understatement).

One of the most pressing problems in Turkish politics today is the amount of polarization in Turkish political society. Some of this can be explained by the increasing illiberal attitudes and policies of the AKP (see Tuesday's post), which, of course, is made all the more problematic by the AKP's seeming lack of willingness to engage opposition parties and craft serious political compromises when it comes to making government policy. Without an entrenched rights-based liberal democracy, the lack of compromise becomes all the more disturbing. A unilaterally-drawn up constitution will only serve to further polarize the Turkish public while continuing to fail at any real resolution of the classic dilemma posed by democracy and difference.

However, should the AKP fall short of 330 seats tomorrow, the party will be more inclined to compromise. Just exactly what this process of compromise would look like and what parties it would include remains to be seen, but perhaps for the first time in a long time the AKP will be forced to work with other parties to carve out a political agenda.

At stake are Erdogan's ambitions to institute a presidential system that would facilitate his ascendancy to the presidency. If Erdogan wins comfortably tomorrow, he will be more confident in these efforts. Even should the AKP fall short of gaining 3/5 of the seats in parliament, an increase in the popular vote for the AKP will embolden the already emboldened leader to move forward in his quest.

Meanwhile, just as interestingly, the CHP, which has drastically changed its leadership and party platform, will discover whether its new position in Turkish politics will be rewarded. The CHP is expected to pick up seats and increase its vote either way, but will likely have a difficult time gaining the 30% of the vote for which the party is striving. The CHP, which has billed itself as "the new CHP,"  has taken enormous risks this election cycle, presenting itself as pro-Europe, pro-liberal, pro-peace, and importantly, anti-nationalist and anti-coup. With Kilicdaroglu's victory over the party stalwart and former party secretary-general Onder Sav last year, the party has turned 180-degrees in many of its policies, especially in regard to the Kurds and its former pro-military/pro-coup attitude. Defeating Sav, Kilicdaroglu remarked, "The empire of fear is over in the CHP. Now it is time to end the empire of fear in Turkey."

The MHP will also face a serious test tomorrow. A little less than a month ago, there was serious question as to whether the ultra-nationalist party would be able to surpass the 10% threshold required to enter parliament. However, polls conducted at the end of June put the party safely over the threshold. That said, just how well the party does tomorrow will have an impact on the number of seats allocated to the AKP and CHP. The AKP has been competing for its nationalist voter base while the CHP's recent positions, especially in regard to the Kurds, might have alienated some in its former nationalist base to vote for the MHP.

And, finally, not without its own test will be the Kurdish nationalist BDP. The BDP currently has 20 seats in parliament, just enough to form a parliamentary group and be represented. However, there is little doubt that the BDP will surpass this number and could pick up well over 30 seats. Though the BDP candidates are running as independents since there in no chance they could meet the 10 percent threshold, the rising force of the party in the southeast and in Western cities populated by a large number of Kurdish migrants will indubitably be one of the most important stories of this election cycle. As its main challenger, the AKP's increased nationalist rhetoric is likely to work in favor of the party.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Getting the Nationalist Vote . . .

EPA Photo from Al-Jazeera English

As the part of the AKP's continuing efforts to cater its election rhetoric to nationalist voters, Prime Minister Erdogan has declared that he would have executed jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan had he been prime minister at the time. Erdogan accused the MHP of giving its support to a 2002 that abolished the death penalty, implying that problems with Ocalan would have been solved if the government at the time had properly sent him to the gallows.

The remarks came in response to unfounded allegations from the MHP that the AKP-led government was in negotiations with the PKK to arrange for Ocalan's release. At the moment, the AKP and the ultra-nationalist MHP are both competing to win nationalist votes. For more on this dynamic, click here.

While the AKP might succeed in luring votes away from MHP by taking a hardline position on the Kurdish issue, it does so at the cost of further alienating Kurdish voters in Turkey's mostly Kurdish southeast. Recently, the party has been behaving as if these voters simply do not matter and the result will indubitably be a historic increase in the number of votes the Kurdish nationalist party receives on Sunday.

More troubling is that the AKP's election rhetoric will seriously hamper its chances of repairing its relationship with nationalist Kurds with whom it will likely have to work with to some degree if it is going to pass a constitution that takes all views into account, as Erdogan has expressed is his intention. Given the party's nationalist turn, it will be very difficult to win Kurdish nationalist voters, even those who are not necessarily supportive of the PKK-affiliated BDP.

Meanwhile, an even bigger danger lurks that could further compounds AKP's Kurdish problem. Ocalan, through his lawyers, is threatening a drastic increase in PKK violence should the government not move to negotiate with the PKK by June 15. The specter of renewed PKK violence of the kind last summer will only serve to distract from the government's efforts to pass a constitution and further polarize Turks and Kurds.

Even MHP Recognizes the Kurdish Problem

PHOTO from Radikal

Even the ultra-nationalist MHP seems to recognize the Kurdish problem. In the party's first campaign rally in the mostly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir yesterday, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli went a step ahead of Erdogan in recognizing the persistence of the Kurdish problem (for story, in Turkish, click here).

In Diyarbakir last Wednesday, Prime Minister Erdogan declared the Kurdish problem "solved," seemingly closing the peace initiative his government announced in July 2009. In contrast, Bahceli said, "I know you have a problem, but the solution is not street protests." Bahceli, like Erdogan, called for more economic development in the region while arguing that amending the constitution to end prohibitions on education in mother tongue, a long-time and principal demand of many Kurds, will not "fill your stomach."

In the past, the MHP has taken the most hawkish position on the Kurdish issue. An ultra-nationalist Turkey party with historical roots to gangs that target leftists and nationalist Kurds, the party has little hope of being competitive in the region. At the same time, it is significant that even it felt the need to hold a campaign rally in Diyarbakir.

In his speech, Bahceli said Kurds are regarded as equal to Turks, stressing that they too are members of the Turkish "nation," a claim many more nationalist Kurds adamantly reject. While many Kurds are fine being Turkish citizens, the claim that they are Turks due to their bonds of citizenship with the Turkish state (a claim stipulated in Article 66 of the Turkish constitution) raises the ire of more than a small number.

The CHP has proposed amending the constitution to eliminate the controversial article so that Turkish citizenship will not longer beat an ethnic definition, a move which has been denounced by both the AKP and the MHP. It was the first mainline Turkish party in the history of the Turkish republic to do so.

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back (Maybe More)

PHOTO from Radikal

It seems the AKP took two big steps forward when it announced what was initially billed as a "Kurdish opening" in July 2009 (the initiative later went through many name changes), froze in place (following the nationalist uproar in October 2009 after the Habur affair), and then three steps back in recent months as the party campaigns for the June 12 elections. Though Prime Minister Erdogan had a chance to re-set his approach to the Kurdish conflict during an AKP campaign rally in Diyarbakir yesterday, the prime minister instead sounded the same notes he did in Van two weeks ago when he denied the existence of the Kurdish problem and then proceeded to blame the CHP for its creation.

In addition, as Hurriyet columnist Sedat Ergin points out, the prime minister burned all bridges with the pro-Kurdish, PKK-affiliated BDP, making it near impossible for him to work with the party in the future. Accusing the BDP of basically behaving like a terrorist organization, he said the strength of the BDP came from the PKK and then proceeded to link the CHP with the PKK. Instead of denouncing violence and pushing forward a democracy agenda as CHP leader Kemal Kilicdarolgu did when he spoke in Diyarbakir the day before, Erdogan relied on attacking opposition parties. The CHP and BDP are fascists, according to Erdogan, bent on stoking separatism and tearing the nation apart. As in Van, he wrongly pinned the existence of the Kurdish problem on the CHP's association with the Dersim rebellion in 1937-38, going so far back as to attack former Ismet Inonu, who was not even in charge at the time.

Perhaps most disturbingly, the prime minister relied on the religious card, accusing the BDP of promoting Zoroastrianism in the region (still, I want to know where this comes from) and waging a campaign against imams (see past post). For Erdogan, it seems the Kurdish problem is solved. Nowhere in his address was there even a mention of carrying on the Kurdish initiative, which did little in actualizing all the hopes it initially engendered. Instead, the focus was on economic development (more "Islamist bananas," as Milliyet columnist Ece Temelkuran articulated in 2007), an old theme the AKP sounded in 2008 and that most observers thought it had transcended during the Kurdish initiative (for a history of Erdogan's addresses in Diyarbakir and the prime minister's recent nationalist turn, see this past post).

As Milliyet columnist and leading Kurdish expert Fikret Bila (in Turkish) postulates, for Erdogan, the Kurdish problem is in the past. The demands for constitutional reform put forward by the BDP are irrelevant, and are only used by the "bad Kurds"  to stir up trouble. Never mind that the CHP has also put forward serious constitutional changes, including mother tongue education and removing the ethnic chauvinism that currently defines Turkey's constitutional understanding of citizenship.

"How can Muslims ever follow the BDP?" asks Erdogan. In the prime minister's world, at least at the moment and in the midst of competing for the nationalist vote with the ultra-nationalist MHP, the days of denial and assimilation are over. It is too bad that there are plenty of Kurds who do not feel this way, and too bad that until their demands are met by the state, Turkey's Kurdish conflict will rage on.

For a good play-by-play (or, step-back, step-back) accounting of the speech, see Hurriyet columnist Ahmet Hakan's column (in Turkish). For an English-language news account, click here for coverage from Hurriyet Daily News.