Oct 31, Galatasaray, Saturday Mothers gather in call for justice for the Kurdish disappeared in Turkey's attempt to root out the PKK in the 90's. Demotix/ Sahan Nuholglu. All rights reserved.November 1 snap elections in Turkey, to
everybody’s surprise, produced a very different political landscape from that
emerging in the June 7 elections. The leading AK Party, which lost its
parliamentary majority in June 7 elections, received 49% of the votes and 317
seats in the Parliament. The party had managed to persuade a cross section of
voters ranging from a nationalist core to the conservative Kurds that it was
the only party able to provide stability and security.
The biggest agent of change in the June
elections, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), this time barely
managed to cross the 10% threshhold, its votes dropping from 13% to 10.8%.
According to preliminary estimates, around half of the more conservative,
middle class Kurdish voters, who turned their backs on the AK Party in June and
voted for HDP, now switched back to the AKP.
AKP’s return to single party rule has
immediately raised the question of the future of the halted peace process. Many
assume that the results provide the next AK Party government with a golden
chance to restart the process; however, with so many dynamics at play, the
potential resurfacing of a proposed change to a presidential system, and
related political bargains, it is very hard to foresee under what conditions
the peace process could restart and evolve.
As Turkey swept into a two-front battle,
fighting PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) at home and in Northern Iraq, and ISIS
in Syria, violence and terror attacks have escalated across the country. A wave
of ISIS-linked bomb attacks on Kurdish targets (in Diyarbakir, Suruc and
Ankara) inside Turkey risked turning the country into a new battle field
between ISIS and the PYD. At a time when the country is in the grip of multiple
crises, the costs of prevailing Turkey-PKK clashes are very high. Turkey could
continue its air campaign against PKK camps in Northern Iraq; but this will not
be the only war front.
Increasing military assistance to the People’s
Democracy Party (PYD-an affiliate of PKK in Syria) in Syria is likely to offset
any losses PKK endures stemming from Turkey’s air strikes on Northern Iraq.
Also, PKK’s new strategy to draw clashes into city centres is challenging
Turkish security forces to come up with an appropriate response. PKK can continue
clashing with the Turkish army; but as the election results have shown, this
escalation in violence has not worked out well for the HDP, and if maintained, it
will continue to weaken the Kurdish movement politically, blocking its attempt
to open up to the wider society and pushing it back into a small geography in
the Kurdish region, where it has traditionally enjoyed most support.
Under these circumstances, it is in the best
interest of both Turkey and the Kurds to return to the ceasefire and find a
political solution to the Kurdish issue. With so many international actors
actively engaged in the regional Kurdish dynamics, the prevalence of the
current armed conflict will only make the resolution increasingly complicated.
And there are signs from AKP officials that
negotiations could be resumed at some point. AKP Deputy Head Omer Celik stated
on November 2 that the stalled Kurdish peace process could be relaunched if
public order was guaranteed. With the return of some Kurdish votes to the AKP, strong
expectations have been created that the next AKP government will sooner or
later reinitiate the process.
However, what is needed this time is a new
strategic vision that aims to develop a more realistic and integrated approach
towards regional Kurdish affairs. Current levels of mistrust between the
Turkish government and Kurds must be addressed as a first step. Unfortunately,
the peace process has not produced trust regarding the longterm intentions of
each side; on the contrary it has generated actions and attitudes that have
contributed to greater distrust.
The mutual distrust is especially centered upon
both parties’ different approaches towards the Syrian Kurds, led by People’s
Democracy Party, PYD, an affiliate of the PKK in Syria. While Turkey believes
the PKK is using the war in Syria as a pretext to legitimize its armed
activism, the Kurdish political movement perceives Turkey’s actions as another
tactic to oppress Kurdish aspirations.
The destiny of the Syrian Kurds will continue in
this way to hang over Turkey’s relations with its own Kurds. At the moment, it
is too early to envisage a change in Turkey’s approach towards the Syrian
Kurds; Turkey is still dismayed by the PYD’s growing role in the fight against
ISIS and trenchantly opposed to the PYD’s attempts to unify the three cantons
in northern Syria. There is no reason to think that the next AKP government
will change this position for the sake of the peace process.
Elections have already strengthened the AKP
position vis-a-vis the PKK, whose declarations of self-governance in several southeastern
towns did not resonate well with middle class and conservative Kurds, driving them
back to the AK Party. HDP’s loss of one million votes to AKP from the June
elections clearly shows this. On the other hand, the AKP is aware that the
harsh rhetoric it used against the Syrian Kurds only helped the unification of
Kurds around their Kurdish identity in the run up to the June elections.
So rather than a complete change in Turkey’s
policy towards the Syrian Kurds, one would expect the next government to tone
down its rhetoric towards the PYD. It follows that any potential for change in
Turkey’s approach towards the PYD is more likely to result from developments on
the ground in Syria and the related US position.
Turkey’s own political agenda has also
increased tensions between the AKP and the Kurdish movement. The HDP’s campaign
of opposition to President Erdogan before the June elections frustrated
Erdogan’s plan to launch a presidential system in Turkey and deepened the
mutual distrust between the AKP and HDP. Although the AKP managed to claw back
some of the votes it lost to HDP in the last elections, resentment towards the HDP
and its leader Selahattin Demirtas still goes deep.
This
is clearly seen in the statements and reports of some government officials and
pro-government media outlets. AKP officials have accused the HDP for betraying
the process by directly targeting President Erdogan. Deputy Prime Minister
Yalcin Akdogan even said on November 3 that the PKK had buried its jailed
leader alive thanks to these recent wrongdoings. These statements have raised expectations
that the next government will turn to imprisoned leader of PKK Abdullah Ocalan
to manage the process, and downplay the role of HDP in talks. But how it would
be possible to further exclude the HDP from the process is yet to be seen; any
absence of the HDP from the talks can only damage the political leg of the
process.
Turkey is walking a tightrope. Society is
overly polarized, the country is more vulnerable to regional instabilities, and
the economy is in a bad shape. On top of all these problems, the Kurdish issue
remains unresolved and has turned violent again. The AKP’s strong comeback to
power by a considerable majority is a good opportunity for the new government
to address Turkey’s Kurdish issue through political means, especially at a time
when the conflict between Turkey and Kurds has already crossed Turkey’s borders
and when Turkey is less able to keep its domestic issue under wraps, due to
developments in Syria.
But how and when the process is to start is yet
to be seen. In the meantime, continuing clashes in southeastern Turkey days
after the elections, and the government’s indifference to the unilateral
ceasefire that PKK declared in mid-November signal that Ankara will first seek
to further weaken the PKK before it sits down to the negotiation table.