Towards a Kurdish solution without the PKK

I think it is time to seriously consider a solution to the Kurdish question without the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). This is because the PKK does not seem interested in facilitating a solution even with the involvement of its leader, Abdullah Öcalan.

A comprehensive solution, of course, requires disarmament of the PKK, which could be negotiated with the PKK leadership. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government, in addition to a political initiative calling for a democratic opening within which the Kurdish demands could be met, also started a round of talks with Öcalan.

Yet, the Kurdish political movement regarded these initiatives as serious challenges to its very existence. While the “democratic opening” was viewed as an attempt of the ruling party to be more advantageous vis-à-vis the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in the competitive political arena, “talks” with Öcalan were seen as a process of dissolving the PKK and selling out its members.

In short, the government's efforts were taken as threats, not as steps to ease the problems of Turkey's Kurdish populace. What naturally followed was not cooperation but obstruction on the part of the Kurdish political movement.

All these could have been tolerable if there had been no such acts of violence committed by the PKK. Within the last month, over 40 members of the Turkish security forces were killed by the PKK. The attacks in Silvan and Hakkari, in particular, sparked a public outcry calling for a response from the government, resulting in a cross-border airstrike by the Turkish military.

In today's political and psychological environment the best the government is expected to do is to carry on with the “democratic opening” while trying to “punish” the PKK with operations on the ground and stop talks with its imprisoned leader.

This means that at the end of this process, even if the “democratic opening” survives, “talks at Imrali [the prison where Öcalan is being held]” will not. That is to say, the PKK and Öcalan are out of the picture in the search for a settlement. This is not only due to the anger accumulated against the PKK following the recent attacks but also due to the emerging picture that there is no single PKK to talk to and that its leader Öcalan is not in control of his organization.

To me, it is clear that the PKK is no longer an organization controlled by a central and hierarchical leadership. The long imprisonment of its leader, Öcalan, has resulted in the emergence of new centers of power within the movement. The PKK is now a network of warlords without a central leadership.

There would be significant implications for such a structure. First, we will have difficulties in defining what the PKK is and who runs it. The PKK seems to have been divided up in various groups and their own perspectives. The recent acts of violence by the PKK in Silvan and Hakkari may be the acts of this or that group within the movement. It will be impossible to claim responsibility on the part of the organization and it has become obvious that we can no longer talk of a singular PKK.

If the organization is not clearly defined and if its leadership is not properly named then it is impossible to “talk” to the PKK. That is to say, even if the Turkish government is engaged in a “negotiation” with the PKK it cannot be certain whether the terms of a possible agreement would be accepted by the whole PKK structure.

I think the recent attacks of the PKK aimed to convey such a message to the Turkish state, implying that the state is talking to the “wrong” person, namely Öcalan.

If it is not to Öcalan himself then whom to talk to in the PKK in order to reach a settlement? This is the puzzle. I think the intended objective is to raise exactly such a question. The logical conclusion of this is to stop talking to Öcalan, who is not in a position to deliver on his promises.

Let's say the state has understood this message. What would be its response? Would it instead talk to several warlords within the PKK? I think no one would take a fragmented leadership seriously. Therefore all these would mean abandoning the talks with anyone associated with the PKK.

As a result, the PKK will be increasingly isolated in the region, in the international community and also among the Kurdish people. It will remain a terrorist organization but will lose its social base and support among the Kurds, which in the long run will result in the dismemberment of the PKK.

There is no need for the PKK that does not contribute to the solution of the Kurdish question.

The AK Party, 10 years later

There is no doubt that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is a success story. It is now celebrating its 10th anniversary and the party has been ruling the country for nine out of those 10 years.

This has been achieved despite the party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan having been sentenced to a prison term when he was removed from his position as mayor of İstanbul and sent to prison just before founding the AK Party. So this party did not emerge from a position of strength but rather from disadvantage, to become the central actor in Turkish politics over the last 10 years.

The AK Party's success lies in the ability of its founding leaders to transform an Islamist movement, Necmettin Erbakan's Milli Görüş (National View), into a center-right mass political party. This took place at a time when conventional center-right parties and leaders like Süleyman Demirel had aligned themselves with the military and secularist forces, which alienated their conservative and anti-militarist social sectors, who were attracted by the AK Party's conservative and anti-militarist discourse.

In this context, the way in which Islamic social, political and economic actors were treated by the secularist establishment, led by the military and the judiciary, played a crucial and educating role for Islamic circles. During the Feb. 28 process, the so-called postmodern coup era, from 1997 to 1999 their political parties were banned, their NGOs were intimidated and closed down, and their businesses were boycotted.

The suppression of Islamic groups by the secularist establishment certainly played a role in speeding up and even facilitating a process of transformation. But there was more of an internal debate on how to survive politically, economically and socially in a strictly secularist and authoritarian environment. It seemed that the old way of confronting secularist opponents directly and on their own was bound to fail. They needed a new strategy, if not to come to power, certainly to secure protection vis-à-vis undemocratic and unlawful pressure by the secularist establishment.

The AK Party is the result of this search for security. But the new political strategy, the language developed and the circumstances in which all these took place were so positive that they came to power in the first general elections.

It would, however, be a mistake to explain the rise of the AK Party by merely looking at the political landscape. The leadership, identity, and policies of the party were also shaped by the emerging conservative middle class and business elites who had started to flourish in the mid-1980s under the liberalizing and export-oriented policies of Turgut Özal. Their expansion had been blocked in the late 1990s by an alliance of the secularist İstanbul based business elites and the military during the so-called Feb. 28 process, in which pro-Islamic Erbakan was forced to resign as prime minister in the summer of 1997. Their companies were blacklisted as “Islamist capital,” their associations were intimidated and some were even tried.

The new conservative business elite came to realize that the rise of Islamism under the banner of the Welfare Party (RP) was detrimental to their business interests and social existence.

Islamist intellectuals, NGO activists, journalists, etc., all experienced similar pressures. To get out of secularist pressures they needed to build alliances with non-religious, secular but democratic social and intellectual circles.

In order to do this first, they had to reform their political language, adopting democracy, human rights, liberties, pluralism and the rule of law as central values of the party. This was certainly a significant departure from a self-referential ambiguous Islamist terminology. This way, former Islamists were able to reach out to new social and political groups beyond religious people. In fact, the AK Party managed to develop a “shared agenda” with non-religious segments of society. Democratization, liberalization, EU membership and economic development were the key factors in these shared objectives. Thus the party assumed the role of an agency bestowed with transforming the authoritarian politics of Turkey and opening it up to the world.

Over the years it has been hard to deny that the AK Party has done pretty well. Winning a third consecutive term is proof that it has satisfied people's needs and demands. It has emerged as the most reformist party in Turkey in terms of democratization, the Kurdish question and civil-military relations.

The question now is whether the AK Party will remain this way, given resisting bureaucratic and judicial forces have been significantly weakened. In other words, will the AK Party be a reformist party on its own when it no longer feels insecure in a new constitutional and institutional environment?