Bloomberg
Aug 26 2005
Turkey’s Erdogan Faces Resistance to Promise of Kurdish Rights
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
pledge to give more rights to the Kurdish minority has reignited the
debate over what the government should do to end insurgent attacks
and appease the European Union.
Erdogan, 51, promised “more democracy” for minorities and became
the first Turkish leader to say the government had made mistakes in
its treatment of the Kurds during an Aug. 12 speech in Diyarbakir,
the biggest city in the largely Kurdish southeast. The Kurdistan
Workers Party, or PKK, which seeks autonomy for the southeast,
responded with a one-month cease-fire.
The gesture by Erdogan may halt the resurgence of a civil war that
has cost 35,000 lives and aid Turkey’s bid to join the EU, which has
criticized limits on Kurdish rights. Erdogan still faces the
challenge of winning support from the army and general public. His
overture may put Turkey on a “very dangerous road,” columnist Melih
Asik wrote Aug. 19 in the Istanbul daily Milliyet.
“Erdogan is probably telling the military that it’s evident the use
of force doesn’t resolve these problems,” said Kemal Kirisci, 50,
co-author of “The Kurdish Question and Turkey,” (Frank Cass
Publishers, 1997). “But while there are people in the Turkish system
who want to go further with reforms, there are also people who are
saying, `Whoa, hold it!”’
Turkey’s constitution makes the military the guardian of the
country’s unity and secular state. While the army’s powers have been
reduced since 2002, it has forced four governments from power since
1960. Officers on the National Security Council this week objected to
Erdogan’s admission that there is a “Kurdish problem,” the
Istanbul-based daily Vatan reported Aug. 24.
Kurdish Language
Kurds are asking the government to permit public schools to teach the
Kurdish language and to lower the percentage of votes political
parties must receive to gain seats in parliament. The current 10
percent threshold has kept Kurdish parties out of the legislature.
Erdogan is asking private television stations to carry Kurdish
programs, Milliyet reported Aug. 17.
Erdogan’s statements mark progress, says Yusuf Akgun, 38, the deputy
mayor of Diyarbakir. In the 1960s and ’70s Turkish governments
wouldn’t admit that the Kurds existed, telling people to refer to
them as “mountain Turks.”
“The Kurds have heard a lot of promises in the past,” Akgun said in
an Aug. 17 interview. “But the prime minister has said things that
make us hope it will be different this time.”
The conflict between the Turkish army and the PKK has threatened to
spread in recent months. The military has finalized plans for strikes
against PKK camps in northern Iraq, where they say about 3,000
fighters are based, Milliyet said Aug. 18, citing a speech by General
Sukru Sariisik.
Northern Iraq
Generals and ministers have said Turkey may launch such attacks if
the U.S., which has about 140,000 troops in Iraq, doesn’t fulfill
promises to crack down on the PKK. The U.S. says Turkey shouldn’t act
without the approval of Iraqi authorities.
In the 1990s, at the height of Turkey’s war with the PKK, the
southeast was under emergency rule and people suspected of links with
the rebels were routinely tortured, according to Turkey’s Human
Rights Association, based in the capital, Ankara.
PKK leader Abdulla Ocalan called a cease-fire in 1999 after he was
captured by Turkish agents in Kenya. He was convicted of treason
later that year and is serving a life sentence in a Turkish jail.
The PKK resumed attacks in June 2004, saying Turkey hadn’t done
enough to meet Kurdish demands. Fighting had escalated in recent
months. The PKK on Aug. 19 said it would cease hostilities for one
month to allow the government to take “practical steps.”
EU Concerns
Erdogan’s government said it wouldn’t respond to a group considered a
terrorist organization by the U.S., the EU and Turkey.
The EU said in its 2004 annual report on Turkey that there were still
“considerable restrictions on the exercise of cultural rights” for
Kurds. It called on Turkey to allow greater use of the Kurdish
language in education and broadcasting.
Turkey is also grappling with the legacy of another ethnic conflict.
Armenians say hundreds of thousands of their people were killed in
1915 in a genocide conducted by the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor
to modern Turkey. The claim is backed by parliamentary votes in
France and Germany. Turkey says the killings occurred amid civil
unrest during World War I and weren’t genocide.
Kurdish activists focus on language rights and poverty. Many Kurds
are illiterate in the language they grew up speaking.
“I can’t read this,” said Sahin Altuntur, a textile trader in
Diyarbakir’s bazaar district, pointing to a Kurdish language text
message on his mobile phone. “I’ll have to find someone more
cultured to do it. With my friends we talk Kurdish, but at school
they only taught us to read and write in Turkish.”
The country’s five poorest provinces are all in Kurdish areas,
according to government statistics for 2001. Unemployment in
Diyarbakir is around 70 percent and tens of thousands leave the city
each summer for seasonal farm work elsewhere, Akgun said.
The conflict with the PKK is the chief cause of underdevelopment,
said Shah Ismail Bedirhanoglu, head of the region’s biggest business
group.
“Money is like a bird, when it hears a bang it flies away,” said
Bedirhanoglu, 45. “Where there’s war, there’s no investment.”