Turkey's Kurdish Troubles: An Intractable Conflict?

With 20 million Kurds in the world they are the largest ethnicity without a home nation and about half of that population resides in Southeastern Turkey. The Turkish government and the Kurdish minority have been at odds since the end of the Turkish War of Independence in 1923. The original Treaty of Sevres signed after World War II, in 1920, allowed for the possibility of a Kurdish state, but this treaty was largely ignored by the Turkish nationalists and annulled during the war (Kubicek, 2). Later on the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923, legitimized what is modern Turkey and ignored the large Kurdish population (Kubicek, 2). In 1925, 1930, and 1936-38, the Kurds launched several revolts that were all suppressed by the Turkish military (Kubicek, 2). These were the largest revolts in the new country and because they were led by Kurds and took place in Kurdish regions, which led to the idea that the Kurdish minority was the biggest threat to the new state.

Over the next few decades the Turkish government has generally ignored the Kurds as a separate people and has been practicing a policy of assimilation by restricting Kurdish cultural practices, language, dress, and even referring to the people as "mountain turks" (Kubicek, 2). In the 1980s emerged the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, led by Apo Ocalan, and they have been waging a guerilla war ever since. The biggest rift and core of the conflict is how each side views the other. The PKK see themselves as a legitimate political party who is being persecuted, tortured, and overall excluded from Turkish government. The Turkish government sees the PKK as a terrorist organization and because they are funded by non-domestic sources they are not legitimate. It is hard to say whether this conflict in intractable or not because there have been periods of time where the PKK has voluntarily laid down their weapons and the Turkish government has begun allowing more participation in politics by the Kurds. However, as soon as things start moving in the right direction a new Turkish leader reverses policy and cracks down or a rouge PKK faction commits an act of violence against a Turkish target. For example, in 1990 Turkish president, Halil Ozal, took a softer stance on the Kurds stating: "ethnic groups demand to retain their own ethnic identity and culture should not be rejected" he went on to say "they have their own history, language, and folklore [and] if they wish to develop them, let them do so" (Kubicek, 4). Later that year in a newspaper interview, PKK leader Apo Ocalan, toned down his separatist rhetoric and called for a cease fire so that the two sides might sit at the negotiating table an come to a "political agreement" without the goal of independence but rather "free political expression" (Kubicek, 4). Despite this the Turkish military, which operates fairly independently, kept cracking down on PKK fighters and also had trouble distinguishing between the PKK and innocent Kurdish civilians. In 1992 they began forced evictions of Kurdish villages and Ocalan dismissed the promises of President Ozal and Prime Minister Demirel as "isufficient" and "words alone" (Kubicek, 4).

The promises of the Turkish government, such as lifting language restrictions and economically developing the region never came to fruition and the PKK viewed the minimal efforts as only benefiting wealthy Kurdish tribal leaders who had already sided with the Turkish government. On the other side of the coin the Kurds were not completely innocent. The PKK continued attacks and members of the Kurdish dominated People's Labor Party, or HEP, wore PKK colors and made Kurdish slogans while taking their oath in office (Kubicek, 5). HEP party members continued to speak Kurdish in parliamentary meetings and refused to denounce the actions of the PKK. This behavior made many hardliner Turks nervous and General GÐ"јrep reflected their sentiment when he said "there is no need to look for bandits [PKK] in the mountains, unfortunately some of them are under the roof of parliament" (Kubicek, 5).

The two groups came closer to reaching an accord in 1993 when PKK leader Ocalan announced a "unilateral" cease fire as a "gesture of goodwill" (Kubicek, 5). The idea behind the move was to make it known to the Turkish public that the PKK was not committed to terrorism and was willing to meet at the negotiation table to discuss a peace agreement. Ocalan wanted the PKK to become a "legitimate political party" and that this cease fire would be the beginning of a "historic brotherhood between Turks and Kurds" (Kubicek, 5). The cease fire was supposed to last twenty-five days but Ocalan indicated it would last longer if the Turkish military did not close in on PKK positions (Kubicek, 5). The public reacted positively, seeing this as an opportunity for peace; one newspaper editorial stated: "this is an important opportunity for restoring peace and stability to not only the southeast region of the country, but to the whole of Turkey." (Kubicek, 5). However, all the hope and excitement for a peace deal died with President Ozal, who claimed some Kurdish ancestry, on April 17th 1993 (Cowell, 12). His successor was SÐ"јleyman Demirel, who often clashed with Ozal's politics, especially over Kurdish policy (Cowell, 14). A few months later Tansu Ciller, of the True Path Party (SHP), assumed the role of Prime Minister and vowed to end Turkey's "state of emergency" and consider a "Basque model" for the Kurds in the southeast. Again none of these proposals came to fruition and the military campaign actually increased (Kubicek, 6). The HEP was closed by a constitutional court, anti-Kurdish death squads began to gun down pro-Kurdish politicians in daylight, and the leaders of the newly formed Democratic Party (DEP), which came out of the HEP, were put on trial under anti-terrorism laws and accused of being traitors (Kubicek, 6).

One of the biggest problems in this conflict seems to be Turkey's idea of what it means to be a "state." The government, led by Turks, wants to be one nation, one identity, and not recognize the ethnic minority Kurds because they see plurality as a weakness. On the other hand the Kurds view themselves as Kurdish people and feel that they should have the right to be, at the least, active in Turkish politics and have some sort of regional autonomy. When DEP members were being arrested and put on trial one of the accusations leveled against them was that when they were asked what foreign languages they spoke they replied "Turkish" (Kubicek, 6). Despite the Turkish governments' poor treatment of the Kurds and their well documented human right abuses, the