Turkey's Kurdish Opening: Long Awaited Achievements and Failed Expectations

Abstract

Turkish state actors have used mainly military means to first suppress the Kurdish rebellions and then to end the PKK violence from 1984 onwards. However, after the AKP came to office in 2002, the government challenged the hardline state policy and initiated a Kurdish opening. This policy has the ultimate goal of disarming the PKK and resolving the Kurdish question. However, the Kurdish opening so far has failed to bring about the desired policy outcomes because the parties to the Kurdish question have been highly divided on the side of both the state and the Kurds in Turkey.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Salih Bıçakcı, Rabia Karakaya Polat, Ödül Celep, Tara McKinney, and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions on this paper. I also would like to thank Deniz Yılmaz for her research assistance.

Funding

This work was supported in part by the EU FP7 Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant [PIRG07-GA-2010–268255].

Notes on Contributor

Özlem Kayhan Pusane is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Işık University, Istanbul. She received her MA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Notre Dame (IN, USA). Her research interests include security studies and civil–military relations. She is currently conducting a research project titled “When Battlefield Success Leads to Effective Counterinsurgency: Searching for a Cross-Regional Theory,” which is funded by an EU FP7 Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant.

Notes

1. In fact, in the 1990s both Turgut Özal and Necmettin Erbakan governments tried to establish communication channels with the PKK and find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question. However, these earlier attempts suffered from serious disagreements among the state institutions regarding the need for a peaceful solution.

2. Barkey and Fuller, Turkey's Kurdish Question, 7.

3. Ibid.

4. Heper, The State and Kurds in Turkey, 122.

5. The only exception during this period was Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan's efforts to pursue a secret dialogue with Öcalan in 1996 with the goal of resolving the Kurdish question through peaceful means.

6. This last change resulted in commuting Abdullah Öcalan's death sentence to life imprisonment.

7. Kalaycıoğlu, “The Turkish-EU Odyssey and Political Regime Change in Turkey,” 272.

8. Tepe, “Turkey's AKP: A Model ‘Muslim-Democratic’ Party?,” 70.

9. Güneş-Ayata, “From Euro-Scepticism to Turkey-Scepticism,” 217.

10. Efegil, “Analysis of the AKP Government's Policy toward the Kurdish Issue,” 31; Dağı, “The Justice and Development Party,” 97.

11. The high level of public support that the AKP received was partly the result of the party's strong stance in the face of the April 27 e-memorandum, which was interpreted as an implicit threat of military intervention.

12. Bahcheli and Noel, “The Justice and Development Party and the Kurdish Question,” 112; Efegil, “Turkey's New Approaches toward the PKK, Iraqi Kurds and the Kurdish Question,” 56.

13. Karakaya Polat, “The Kurdish Issue: Can the AK Party Escape Securitization?,” 81.

14. Kemal Kirişçi, “The Kurdish Issue in Turkey,” 344.

15. Yetkin, “Kürt Sorununda Bir Gelişme Daha”; Esayan, “Why Does the PKK Want a Treaty?”; Özgürel, “PKK'da Yolun Sonu Göründü”.

16. Bila, “PKK ve Kürt Sorununda Yeni Strateji”; Uslu, “With the Pro-talks Stance Collapsing, Will the New Plan Work?”.

17. The Uludere incident raised several questions, such as who provided the intelligence which led to the deaths of 34 civilians, whether the local military units were consulted before the attack, and whether the MİT and the Turkish Police Force are in agreement about the conduct of the Kurdish opening.

18. The KCK, headed by the senior PKK commander Murat Karayılan, is an umbrella organization, which encompasses the PKK. It aims to create a parallel local administrative structure and conducts acts in urban areas in connection with the PKK.

19. Bacik and Coşkun, “The PKK Problem,” 252; Efegil, “Analysis of the AKP Government's Policy,” 34.

20. Keyman, “The CHP and the Democratic Opening,”; Çiçek, “Elimination or Integration of Pro-Kurdish Politics,” 23.

21. Keyman, “The CHP and the Democratic Opening”.

22. Birand, “Erdoğan, MHP'yi Dışlıyor, CHP'yi Kolluyor, DTP'ye Göz Kırpıyor”.

23. Keyman“The CHP and the Democratic Opening”.

24. Celep, “Turkey's Radical Right and the Kurdish Issue”.

25. “MHP Hits Back at Government's ‘Kurdish Opening’” Hürriyet Daily News, July 30, 2009.

26. Birand, “Ahmet Türk Meclisi İlk Defa Düşündürdü”.

27. Celep, “Turkey's Radical Right and the Kurdish Issue”.

28. Karaveli, “Reconciling Statism with Freedom,” 19–20.

29. Çandar, “Seçim Sonrası: Kürt Sorunu ve Suriye”.

30. “Öcalan’ı Asardım” [I would have Hung Öcalan], Milliyet, June 10, 2011.

31. ‘Erdoğan “Hükümet Değil Devlet Görüşür” demişti’ [Erdoğan had said “the State, not the Government” Conducts the Meetings], Milliyet, September 14, 2011.

32. Perera, “Building a Peace Culture After a Vicious Civil War”.

33. Neumann, “Negotiating With Terrorists”.

34. Aydıntaşbaş, “Kandil Görüşmelerinin Perde Arkası”.

35. Çandar, Dağdan İniş—PKK Nasıl Silah Bırakır? Kürt Sorunu'nun Şiddetten Arındırılması, 28.

36. İsmet Berkan, “Eşit Yurttaşlığa Dayalı Demokratik Cumhuriyet” [Democratic Republic Based on Equal Citizensip], Radikal, June 24, 2010; Özgürel, “Demokratikleşme, PKK ve Öcalan”.

37. Çandar, “Dağdan İniş-PKK Nasıl Silah Bırakır?”, 29, 35.

38. Birand, “PKK, AKP'den Korktu, Taktik Değiştirdi”.

39. Cuma Çiçek, “Elimination or Integration of Pro-Kurdish Politics,” 21.

40. Birand, “Ya Meydan Okuyor veya Açılımı İstemiyor”.

41. Bila, “Habur ve Oslo Sonrası”; Aköz, “MİT-PKK Görüşmesi”.

42. Ünver, “Turkey's ‘Kurdish Initiative’,” 5.

43. Haberturk, “Pro-Kurdish Party Leader Confronted PKK Leader”.

44. Çandar, “Dağdan İniş-PKK Nasıl Silah Bırakır?”, 31.

45. Ibid., 32; Aşkın, “Öcalan ‘Ateşkese Devam’ Dedi, Kandil'in Kararı Haftaya”.

46. Aydın-Düzgit, “No Crisis, No Change,” 342.

47. Esayan, “The Kurdish Question and Turkey's Elections”; also see Uslu, “Kontrolsüz PKK Grupları Karadeniz'de Eylem Yapabilir”.

48. Esayan, “Last Stop Before Peace”; Uslu, “13 Çocuk Neden ve Nasıl Öldü?”.

49. Aşkın, “PKK: Öcalan’ı Oyalıyorlar”.

50. Demir, “Bazı Şeyler Öcalan’ı Aşmış”.

51. Durukan, “Taksim Saldırısını TAK Üstlendi”; Esayan, “Despite PKK, Peace Will be Achieved”; “TAK Üstlendi, Tehdit Etti” [TAK Claimed Responsibility and Threatened], Milliyet, September 23, 2011.

52. Stedman, “Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes”.

53. “Oslo'yu Kestik Çünkü Samimiyetsizdi” [We Suspended Oslo Because It was Insincere], Milliyet, September 27, 2012.