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Erdoğan and Öcalan Begin Talks. a Paradigm Shift in Turkey's Kurdish

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Introduction Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik ments German Institute for International and Security Affairs m Co Erdoğan and Öcalan Begin Talks WP A Paradigm Shift in Turkey’s Kurdish Policy and a New Strategy of the PKK Kevin Matthees and Günter Seufert S The ceasefire between the Turkish government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is more than just a new attempt by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s administra- tion to bring an end to the asymmetric war that has been waged for nearly 30 years in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish south-east. For the first time, the Turkish government has demonstrated its willingness to recognise PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999, as the chief negotiator for the Kurdish side. Although the negotiations are being held as unofficial talks under the aegis of the Turkish intel- ligence services (MİT), the prime minister himself and members of his cabinet have directly commented on their progress. Of no less significance are the changes on the part of the Kurdish movement. Under Öcalan’s influence, representatives of the pro- Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have backed away from seeking to establish a Kurdish national state. Öcalan himself has even been voicing doubts about the whole idea of the nation state as such. Thus, the outlines of a new vision for Turkey and for the country’s future role in the Middle East, shared by the Turkish government and the militant Kurdish opposition, are beginning to emerge. After month-long negotiations with the would not take advantage of a truce to carry Turkish intelligence services, the leader out attacks against PKK fighters withdraw- of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), ing from Turkish territory to northern Iraq Abdullah Öcalan, marked the start of the and Syria. This practically amounts to an ac- Kurdish New Year on 21 March 2013 with ceptance of the PKK’s long-standing demand a call for an end to the armed insurrection. for a mutual ceasefire. On the very same day, Murat Karayılan, A series of confidence-building measures commander of the armed wing of the par- had preceded this change in policy. On ty, ordered an indefinite ceasefire. In ex- 13 March 2013, armed PKK militants in the change, the Turkish air force has since sus- Kurdish region of northern Iraq near the pended its strikes on PKK positions in the Turkish border had released eight Turkish Qandil mountains in northern Iraq. Prime civil servants, some of whom had been held Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had stated captive for more than one and a half years. several times that the Turkish military It seems that the Turkish intelligence ser- Kevin Matthees is an intern at SWP’s EU External Relations Division SWP Comments 13 Dr. Günter Seufert is a Senior Associate in SWP’s EU External Relations Division April 2013 1 vice had been engaged in secret talks with completed their withdrawal by early Öcalan on behalf of the government since November, Turkey is supposed to change as early as November 2012. With Ankara’s laws that exclude Kurds from politics and blessing, two parliament members from criminalise Kurdish political positions. This the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party should include, for instance, lowering the (BDP) had visited Öcalan in early January 10-percent threshold for parliamentary rep- 2013 at the high-security prison on the resentation to a level that is more in line island of İmralı, where he is being held. A with the standard European practice, for- second BDP delegation that had met with mulating a clearer – and more restricted – Öcalan on 23 February delivered letters definition of terrorism in both the counter- from him to top officials of the BDP, to terrorism law and the penal code, as well as the current PKK military leadership in the releasing political prisoners. Local authori- Qandil mountains of northern Iraq, as ties should receive more powers and in well as to the PKK’s inner circle of leaders regions with significant Kurdish popula- in Europe. In these dispatches, Öcalan tions, native language instruction should explained his decision to halt the armed be provided and Kurdish declared the campaign, specified the reforms he ex- second official language. These reforms pected from the Turkish state and outlined should find their symbolic expression in the steps to be taken in the withdrawal of the removal of references to “Turkishness” PKK militants from Turkey. After receiving and thus ethnic criteria from the Constitu- responses from the BDP as well as from PKK tion’s definition of citizenship. Once the leaders in northern Iraq and Europe, on unchecked pursuit of Kurdish political 21 March Öcalan called for an end to the interests, including those of former PKK fighting. members, is possible within the civil-politi- The peace process did suffer a setback, cal process, the PKK will, according to Öca- however, in early April. Erdoğan pressed for lan’s roadmap, lay down its arms for good. the PKK fighters to lay down their weapons One of the government’s first reactions and leave Turkey whilst at the same time to the plan was to admonish the PKK mili- refusing to seek parliamentary approval for tants to complete their withdrawal by late his policy, as demanded by the Kurdish June or, at the very latest, early November side. The government wants to prevent the when budget deliberations begin. PKK from gaining legitimacy as a result of This peace plan of the PKK leader basi- the negotiations. Yet it will not be possible cally represents a slightly watered-down to keep this from happening. In an effort to version of the measures that he already build public support for the initiative, the proposed in 2009. So why is the Turkish government has established a “council of government now embracing a course of the wise” consisting of 63 prominent public action that it rejected in the past? figures, which is set to begin its work in the coming days. The peace plan proposed by Öcalan re- Domestic policy: an about-face on quires armed militants to withdraw from central convictions and positions Turkey to bases in northern Iraq and Syria. Many observers have answered this ques- The pull-back is to be overseen by parlia- tion by saying that Prime Minister Erdoğan ment and monitored by civil society orga- seeks to move Turkey to a presidential sys- nisations. At the same time, Turkey is sup- tem of government and is therefore alter- posed to initiate confidence-building ing the constitution for just this purpose, measures like setting up a truth-finding with the ultimate aim of becoming the commission to address past human rights country’s first president with expanded violations and political murders in the powers in August 2014. They have pointed Kurdish region. Once PKK militants have out that as his party lacks the qualified SWP Comments 13 April 2013 2 majority needed to make changes to the ernment is aware of the limited reach of charter on its own, Erdoğan needs the sup- its former military and political strategy of port of the pro-Kurdish BDP and is promis- marginalising the PKK. The present decision ing to give the Kurds greater local auton- to change course can only be understood omy in return. against this backdrop, which compels Tur- Yet as accurate as this description of key to fundamentally revise its previous Erdoğan’s personal motivations may be, it positions on the Kurdish conflict as well as alone cannot explain the current strategic its very conception of itself. shift. Too great is the risk that Erdoğan This explains why Ankara is allowing runs if his initiative fails; too deeply in- the legal pro-Kurdish BDP to take part in grained are the taboos that this new policy the current talks the government is con- challenges. ducting with Öcalan and the PKK, thus Through the present negotiations with recognising the BDP as the official political the PKK, the government has implicitly arm of the PKK. It was precisely the refusal turned against its previously held notion to make this concession that led to eight that a 30-year armed guerilla movement pro-Kurdish parties being either outlawed could be permanently defeated and the or forced to dissolve over the last 21 years. Kurdish problem solved by military means The second taboo that has been broken alone. The PKK consisted of only around concerns Öcalan himself. In the past 30 150 recruits when it began to mount years he was cast as the arch enemy of the attacks in 1984. It is assumed that 1,500 to Turkish people and nation. To negotiate 2,000 militants are active in Turkey today. with him means crossing a psychological Öcalan also claims that the PKK has 10,000 barrier – probably the most emphatically militants in northern Iraq, 40,000 in Iran drawn red line of the former Kurdish and another 50,000 in Syria. After three policy. Yet today the government is com- decades of hostilities and some 40,000 lost mitted to having Öcalan, previously vilified lives, Ankara has come to the conclusion as the head terrorist, serve as the main link that the PKK would still be a force to be between the BDP and PKK, thus recognising reckoned with even if it succeeded in re- him as representative of the Kurdish na- ducing the movement to its original size. tional movement. What is more, by enter- The resumption of negotiations also ing into negotiations with Öcalan and the testifies to the dwindling confidence of the PKK, the government implicitly accepts the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) idea that the sovereign state of Turkey is in its ability to maintain strong support made up of two peoples – the Turks and from broad segments of the Kurdish elec- the Kurds.
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