TURKEY: ENDING THE PKK INSURGENCY Europe Report N°213 – 20 September 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................. i I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1 II. THE CURRENT CRISIS .................................................................................................. 3 A. THE HOT SUMMER OF 2011 ......................................................................................................... 3 B. TRYING ALL THE WRONG ROADS FIRST ...................................................................................... 4 III. THE DEMOCRATIC OPENING .................................................................................... 5 A. BACKING INTO A BIG STEP FORWARD .......................................................................................... 6 B. BUILDING PUBLIC SUPPORT ......................................................................................................... 7 C. FALLING AT MANY FENCES ......................................................................................................... 8 IV. LANGUAGE, EDUCATION AND MEDIA ................................................................. 11 A. THREAT OR VICTIM? .................................................................................................................. 11 B. A SLOW START .......................................................................................................................... 12 1. Media ......................................................................................................................................... 13 2. Education ................................................................................................................................... 14 3. Official services ......................................................................................................................... 16 C. CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM ........................................................................................................ 16 V. POLITICAL PARTICIPATION ................................................................................... 18 A. TURKISH KURDS IN PARLIAMENT............................................................................................... 19 B. OPENING POLITICAL SPACE ....................................................................................................... 19 1. The election threshold ................................................................................................................ 20 2. The Political Parties Law ........................................................................................................... 21 3. The unbearable vagueness of “democratic autonomy” .............................................................. 22 VI. BREAKING THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE ................................................................ 24 A. BROADENING THE GOVERNMENT’S FOCUS ON HARD SECURITY ................................................ 25 B. ENDING THE KURDISH NATIONALIST ARMED STRUGGLE ........................................................... 26 C. COMMITTING TO LEGALITY ....................................................................................................... 28 VII. FROM PROSECUTION TO ENGAGEMENT .......................................................... 30 A. THE ANTI-TERROR LAW ............................................................................................................ 31 B. AMNESTIES ................................................................................................................................ 32 C. THE ÖCALAN CONUNDRUM ....................................................................................................... 34 VIII. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 36 APPENDICES A. MAP OF TURKEY .............................................................................................................................. 37 B. GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................... 38 C. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP .................................................................................... 39 D. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON EUROPE SINCE 2008 .................................................... 40 E. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES ................................................................................................ 41 Europe Report N°213 20 September 2011 TURKEY: ENDING THE PKK INSURGENCY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS A surge in violence has dashed plans for a negotiated end to 20 per cent Kurdish-speaking population. This report de- the 27-year-old Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karke- tails more than a dozen concrete steps it has involved so rên Kurdistan, PKK) insurgency. Since Turkey’s elections far, including broadening access to Kurdish-language tel- in mid-June, clashes have killed more than 110 people, evision, legislating the right to make political speeches in country-wide ethnic friction has hardened opinion, and Kurdish and overseeing an end to almost all torture in the government has started bombing PKK bases and talk- Turkish jails. Others have led to a new sense of freedom ing about an imminent ground offensive in northern Iraq. in Kurdish cities, high-level talks with Öcalan and a greater The PKK must immediately end its new wave of terrorist readiness by mainstream commentators to discuss previ- and insurgent attacks, and the Turkish authorities must con- ously forbidden ideas, like a change in Öcalan’s jail condi- trol the escalation with the aim to halt all violence. A hot tions after a full peace deal or a federal disposition for the war and militaristic tactics did not solve the Kurdish prob- Kurdish-majority south east. lem in the 1990s and will not now. A solution can only lie in advancing the constitutional, language and legal reforms of The outline of a deal to end the insurgency that was also the past decade that have gone part way to giving Turkish under negotiation – an end to the fighting, major legal re- Kurds equal rights. Given the recent violence, returning forms, an amnesty and Turkish Kurd acceptance to work to a positive dynamic requires a substantial strategic leap within the legal Turkish system – remains the best long- of imagination from both sides. Neither should allow itself term outcome for both sides. But while making these re- to be swept away by armed conflict that has already killed forms, the authorities have arrested hundreds of Turkish more than 30,000 since 1984. Kurd nationalists, including many elected municipal offi- cials and other nationalist party members. More than 3,000 The Turkish Kurd nationalist movement must firmly com- nationalist activists are behind bars, many punished as “ter- mit to a legal, non-violent struggle within Turkey, and its rorists” for the non-violent expression of opinions under elected representatives must take up their seats in parlia- laws for which the AKP is responsible. On the other hand, ment, the only place to shape the country-wide reforms that what should have been the centrepiece of the Democratic can give Turkish Kurds long-denied universal rights. The Opening – a ground-breaking PKK amnesty in October Turkish authorities must implement radical judicial, so- 2009 – foundered when Turkish Kurd nationalists exploited cial and political measures that persuade all Turkish Kurds it for propaganda purposes. they are fully respected citizens. They should reach out to non-violent nationalists and not abandon long-standing AKP’s relatively open-minded approach has won it half the negotiations on disarmament with the PKK, including its Turkish Kurds’ votes, but the government has to go further jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan. Although justified in acting and fully engage the other half and its representatives, who resolutely to block the PKK’s recent attacks, the authorities are the decision-makers in the Kurdish nationalist move- must avoid falling into the trap of tit-for-tat escalation. ment. It should offer educational options that respect Kur- Many big Turkish strikes against PKK bases in northern dish languages and culture and rewrite laws that unfairly Iraq solved nothing in the past. As the more powerful par- jail nationalists as terrorists. It must also ensure its policies ty, the authorities should instead take the lead in creating are fully implemented by all military, judicial and state opportunities to end the fighting. bodies. Otherwise, as developments since the June 2011 elections show, the nationalists will feel unconvinced and For all its gaps, flaws, and unravelling since late 2009, the threatened and be unready to reach a compromise deal. promises of the Democratic Opening developed by the rul- ing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma AKP leaders must also speak out to convince mainstream Partisi, AKP) remain the best way forward. That initiative Turkish public opinion that reform is essential to resolve counts as Turkey’s most credible attempt to heal the open the Kurdish problem; granting universal rights is not a wounds of conflict between the state and its estimated 15- concession; Turkish is not being undermined as the coun- try’s official language; and almost all Turkish Kurds wish Turkey: