Resolving or managing the Kurdish question?

The Kurdish question has proved to be very difficult to resolve since the actors involved are not prepared to take the risk of finding a solution.

Both the government and Kurdish nationalists are accustomed to “living with the problem” instead of taking the risk of the unknown, a settled Kurdish question.

I have reached this judgment on the basis of the fate of the 2009 opening that was torpedoed by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and abandoned by the government when national and regional conditions were really ripe for a solution.

There is now talk of a new government strategy on the Kurdish problem. Even if there is such a “new strategy,” I do not think it will produce a solution. This is so because the government is not prepared to take political risks to address the Kurdish question. The view of the government is that the Kurdish question is not the making of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and thus no one can blame the party for not finding a solution to it.

Besides, the Kurdish question does not seriously disturb the AK Party's governance of Turkey. The ruling party can live without finding a solution to the Kurdish question. Last year's election showed once more that the continuation of the Kurdish question does not prevent the AK Party from winning elections. Even among Kurds, the AK Party receives as many votes as the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

Will that be the case when the AK Party takes bold steps to solve the Kurdish question? That much is not guaranteed. The ruling party fears that a form of final settlement may alienate the Turks, and especially the nationalists, resulting in the risk of losing its nationalist constituency to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

It is ironic that the political party that came to power 10 years ago with a view to challenge the status quo today sticks to the status quo on the Kurdish question. Indeed it is ironic to defend the status quo on the Kurdish question when it is in a position to challenge and change it, but this is not surprising at all because the status quo is regarded by the AK Party as “manageable” while a solution is “unsettling.”

What is also important to note in the “new strategy” is the emphasis made on the new decision not to talk to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and the PKK. In the near past, we know that the government engaged both Öcalan and the PKK through the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the special representative of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then-Prime Ministry Undersecretary Hakan Fidan. The government will no longer talk to them. Why? The reason for this policy change might be the fact that the former talks produced no results. But it may also be equally true that the recent crisis between the judiciary and MİT could have triggered such a decision on the part of the government. That is to say that the government may be concerned that a perceived “negotiation” with the PKK and Öcalan is not only politically risky but also legally problematic, given the divergence of views between the judiciary and the government. If this is true, then we can infer that the government has given in to the pressure of the judiciary and that it is even more unlikely now that it will go along with a solution model.

The government instead seems willing to talk to the BDP, the “extension of the PKK,” as described by the prime minister himself. So long as the BDP is portrayed as totally dependent on the PKK, it is not realistic to expect it to act independently and hold genuine negotiations with the government.

The bottom line is that the government has come to the end of its “democratic initiatives”; for the last two years or so there has been no attempt at democratizing the Kurdish issue. Instead, the government seems to have adopted a tough perspective of crushing the PKK presence and eliminating its organizational network in cities through operations targeting the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK). In response to this approach, the PKK has not surrendered but challenged the government in cities, as demonstrated during Newroz, in a quest to show its strength.

To sum up, the new strategy is not a strategy but part of “managing the Kurdish question,” limiting its damage and distancing its political risks on the part of the government.

Annexing Cyprus

The fever of Turkish nationalism can be measured by looking at the position taken towards the Cyprus question. Since the 1950s the Cyprus issue has been used to spread and radicalize Turkish nationalism.

I have recently observed that, after a long break starting in the early 2000s, the nationalist fever fueled by the Cyprus question has been on the rise. And the Turkish government, prepared to confront the EU in July 2012, does not mind fanning nationalism over Turkey's “national cause”: Cyprus. The Greek Cyprus' upcoming presidency of the European Council may provide the Turkish government, if it so desires, with a perfect excuse to break with the EU and withdraw its support for a negotiated solution on the island.

Last week Turkish European Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış listed “annexing northern Cyprus to Turkey” among the options Turkey has concerning the future of the island. Claiming later that he was misunderstood, the minister underlined that Turkey's policy remains unchanged: “Our sole objective is for a solution to be reached on the island, acceptable to both Cypriot sides.” He proceeded by saying, “But if no settlement emerges, all options are on the table.”

The problem lies in the meaning of “all options.” In his previous interview, given to a newspaper, Minister Bağış named the “options on the table” as follows: reunification agreed upon by the two communities in the island; if this fails, a two-state solution; or the annexation of Turkish Cyprus to Turkey.

Never, as far as I remember, has a minister of any Turkish government stated that “annexing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus [KKTC]” is a policy option that is on the table. This was uttered by a number of ultranationalist politicians and opinion leaders, but not by a member of the government or a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As has been declared numerous times, Turkey prefers and works for a negotiated settlement in the island. It has also been hinted several times that if negotiations do not progress well, Turkey will not wait forever but will consider pressing for the recognition of the KKTC. But an outright annexation has never been the policy of any Turkish government, nor of the AK Party government.

How then can we explain the minister's statement? Is it a new government policy or a slip of the tongue?

Since the government has remained silent and the minister did not denounce the option, we may assume that annexation is a policy option seriously being considered in Ankara.

But this contradicts Turkey's declared reason for the 1974 intervention on the island. Furthermore, all the defenses of this intervention that followed are de-legitimized by such a policy.

Beyond this, such a policy does a great injustice to the KKTC. Turkey officially recognizes the KKTC as a sovereign state. How can a state recognizing another as sovereign and independent talk of annexing it?

This talk is dangerous and self-defeating for Turkish diplomacy. The talk of annexing may only be an acknowledgment that Turkey keeps the KKTC under its occupation. Is this the case? If the Turkish government says yes, then its minister can talk of annexing it without consulting its government or people.

I suspect it was a movie that was watched by over 4 million people in Turkey these past few weeks, and probably the minister himself -- “Fetih 1453” (The Conquest 1453), that is to blame for this talk of “annexing Cyprus”! If Constantinople, why not Cyprus?

Is Kemalism an alternative to the AK Party?

A weak opposition unable to present itself as an alternative to the ruling party continues to be an important problem in Turkish politics. The lack of a viable alternative to the government boosts the ruling party’s self-righteous confidence and alienates dissident groups who have lost their hope in change through democratic competition resulting from engagement in politics.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is still in a state of internal strife. Its members are busy opposing their own party administration instead of their opponent, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Last week, the CHP held two party congresses at which changing the party’s internal code of conduct was discussed. But everyone knew that it was an occasion to question the leadership of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Though the dissidents of the party lost the battle against the leadership, whose power was consolidated, the damage was also inflicted upon the party itself.

The CHP’s old guard seems concerned that Kılıçdaroğlu might change the party, breaking with the Kemalist tradition and ideological outlook. To me, this is a groundless fear. Even if Kılıçdaroğlu keeps the party under full control, he is unlikely and unwilling to embark on such a transformation.

There is of course pressure for the CHP to become more social democrat and less Kemalist, but the tutelage of the latter on the former within the party is almost impossible to break with. The party grassroots are overwhelmingly Kemalist and nationalist, and they view a social democrat and humanist/universalist political stance as unpatriotic. Moreover, within the party elite is a strong group of old Kemalist cadets who are ready to label proponents of change heretics and revisionists. And most important of all, Kılıçdaroğlu fears that without the support of the Kemalists, the CHP will not even get 26 percent of the vote in elections.

Anyhow, the CHP leadership should answer these questions: Does the CHP really want to win an election and rule the country? The answer is presumably yes. How, then, will this be achieved? Is the vote of the Kemalists enough to win an election? If not, whose votes will the CHP add to its own votes to win in an election?

In the last three elections, the CHP has been stuck around 20 percent of the vote. If it claims to be an alternative to replace the AK Party, it has to at least double its votes. Even if the CHP gets all of the votes of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) it cannot defeat the AK Party, which stands at around 50 percent of popular support. Thus the key to toppling the AK Party is not only for the CHP to double its votes but also to get votes that go to the AK Party. In other words, without attracting AK Party voters and persuading them to vote for the CHP, it is not possible to defeat the AK Party in elections.

This is why I keep saying that unless the CHP abandons Kemalism it cannot open up to new voters. When the CHP won 42 percent of the vote in the 1977 election it was a social democrat, populist and anti-militarist party under Bülent Ecevit. This was also the time when the CHP was the least Kemalist in its entire history. The leadership at the time was talking about change, social justice, and solidarity, not lifestyles, republican values, and secularism. As such, the CHP of the 1970s got closer to the people as departed from Kemalism.

Defeats at the hands of the AK Party led the CHP to go backward and to uphold Kemalism as the identity and ideology of the party as well as its social base. Meanwhile, the CHP also embraced its past, including the legacy of the period of one-party rule between 1925 and 1945 as the “founder of the state.” Yet this “historical legacy” that led to the birth of a particular “image” of the CHP forms barriers for the CHP when it tries to reach out to various social groups. The “victims” of this particular past of Kemalism – among them Kurds, Muslims, non-Muslims, and liberals -- were thus distanced from the CHP, the old and the new.

The CHP’s opponent, the ruling AK Party, was very happy to see the CHP going in this direction. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan constantly identified the current CHP with the historical one that ruled during the single-party period, reminding the country of practices that included the Dersim massacre, the Independence Tribunals, the mistreatment of Muslims and non-Muslims, etc. Erdoğan knew that such a historical memory works to the advantage of the AK Party and unites all victims and opponents of the CHP behind the AK Party.

If the CHP really wishes to compete with the AK Party, it should reach out to the victims of Kemalism -- namely, the Kurds, the conservative Muslims and the liberals who overwhelmingly vote for the AK Party. And this cannot be done without denouncing the past and abandoning Kemalism.