By Abbas Djavadi
(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
Turkish media
reports indicate that political representatives of the Turkish government and
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, may be willing to return to negotiations
on "the solution process," -- the term commonly used in Turkey to
find a negotiated settlement to the "Kurdish issue."
Will the armed hostilities of the
last seven months come to an end, or at least a generally observed
ceasefire, as was the case until last September?
Let’s hope it will happen. But it
is hard to believe.
Very recently, the military
commander of the PKK guerrillas, Murat Karayilan, called on his fighters and
sympathizers in Turkey to use this "last chance" to take the fight to
their enemies.
"It is spring and our
[Kurdish] youths should get out of their homes" to fight, he said. This
"fight," widely in the form of attacks on military and civilian
targets, has resulted in hundreds of casualties in Turkey. Some of the victims
have been security and military casualties, but most have been civilians,
including passersby in Istanbul and Ankara. The PKK is considered to be a
terrorist organization by Turkey and most Western countries.
So, spring has
come to Turkey and it is the season for attacks and suicide bombings.
One of the main reasons why the PKK
broke the truce in September 2015 and has intensified its attacks since then
was the strengthened position of the Syrian Kurdish guerrillas of the PYD
Party, a close ally, if not a branch, of the PKK.
The Syrian Kurds have used the
power vacuum caused by their civil-war-ravaged country to occupy and seize
territories in Syria along the Turkish border.
This has made the PKK more
confident of "victory" on both sides of the Syrian-Turkish border and
elevated Turkish fears of a united Kurdish state that would incorporate big
swaths of land from Turkish territory.
On top of this, copying the Syrian
model, PKK has intensively tried to establish "local authority"
bodies in Turkey's southeastern regions since September. These efforts by
"lawless and separatist" Kurdish movements have been brutally
suppressed by the Turkish Army and security forces, leading to heavy
Kurdish casualties.
Early, in the fall of 2015, the
government announced that " the PKK will be finished within a few
months." This never materialized. But the PKK's offensive since then has
strengthened popular support in Turkey for the army and the government of
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It seems more and more Turks across
political borders have to believe that -- at least in the case of terrorism and
Turkey’s territorial integrity -- the government needs strong support and
national unity.
Erdogan has again proved smart
enough to use this opportunity to enlarge his shattered power base.
Maybe, for this reason, the Turkish
government’s spokesman, Numan Kurtulus, recently announced that "nobody
should expect us to resume talks in any form with the terrorist organization
[PKK] while we are waging such a fight for survival."
It seems Turkish
society's current dilemma is how to make peace without the other party, the
PKK, which is considered to be a terrorist grouping whose charismatic leader,
Abdullah Ocalan, is still sitting in prison on the Turkish island of Imrali.
Yes, both sides hope for victory,
or some semblance of it, but they are still leaving the door open for an eventual return
to talks. Kurtulus has noted that "the venue to solve all our problems, if
we want to solve them, is the parliament" and Selahattin Demirtas, the
co-leader of the Party of Peoples' Unity (HDP) known to be the "political
arm of the PKK," said "the parliament should be involved" if
the failed "solution process" is resumed.
It seems, however, that it will
still take a lot more blood and destruction before any resumption of peace
talks.
Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.