Turkey offers reforms for Kurdish minority

[Harold Schiffman]

Turkey offers reforms for Kurdish minority

Long-simmering tensions with Kurdish militant separatists led to a
week-long incursion into northern Iraq in February to target bases.
By Julien Spencer
from the March 13, 2008 edition



The Turkish government has announced a significant aid package for the
country's Kurdish population just weeks after it ended a military
incursion into northern Iraq. That fight had been aimed at rooting out
militants fighting for an independent Kurdish state. The government
appears to be appealing for greater support among Turkey's Kurdish
population and preventing a domestic backlash over the recent attack.
Turkey has long struggled to accept its Kurdish minority seeing them
as a separatist threat. Approximately 12 million Kurds live in Turkey,
equaling about a fifth of its population. Since the US invasion of
Iraq, Turkey's political and military establishments have grown more
wary of Kurdish separatism following the establishment of a strong
Kurdish entity in northern Iraq. From there, Turkish officials claimed
the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has launched military raids on
Turkey. The PKK is outlawed in Turkey and has been labeled a terrorist
group by the United States and the European Union.

Turkey's fight against PKK militants has put the US in a somewhat
uncomfortable position, as its strongest allies in the Iraq war are
the Army's Kurdish contingents, reported The Christian Science
Monitor. But following numerous clashes in the fall of 2007, US
officials agreed to allow a "very limited," week-long invasion of
northern Iraq by the Turkish Army in February, the BBC reported. The
aim [was] to isolate the organisation and prevent it using northern
Iraq as a launch pad for attacks on Turkish soil. Turkey's recent
announcement about the planned economic and cultural aid package will
be formally presented April 6 when Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan visits southeast Turkey, one former adviser told the Turkish
newspaper Hurriyet.

"Mr. Prime Minister will make very important statements in Diyarbakir.
He will deliver important initiatives to promote Kurdish culture and
language as well as a comprehensive package for the region. He will
say Turkey has entered the solution process. We are working on that."
The New York Times interviewed Mr. Erdogan about Turkey's relationship
with the Kurds. Turkey's government is planning a broad series of
investments worth as much as $12 billion in the country's largely
Kurdish southeast, in a new economic effort intended to create jobs
and draw young men away from militancy. The projects will include a
Kurdish language state television channel, a measure that Kurds in
Turkey have sought for years as they have battled with restrictions on
the use of the Kurdish language. The New York Times also reports the
government will make significant investments in local infrastructure.

Mr. Erdogan is still identifying funds for the economic effort, which
was started years ago by a previous administration but languished. The
state will invest between $11 billion and $12 billion over five years
to build two large dams and a system of water canals, complete paved
roads and remove land mines from the fields along the Syrian border.
Critics have been quick to blame Turkish policies toward the Kurds as
the cause of resentment and separatist desires, arguing that a policy
of greater democratic freedom and Kurdish rights rather than military
actions is needed. In a recent opinion piece in the International
Herald Tribune, Aliza Marcus and Andrew Apostolou, two Kurdish
experts, criticized Turkey's military response.

The core of Turkey's "Kurdish problem" is not the PKK. It is Turkey's
denial of basic political and cultural rights to its Kurds, who are
about one-fifth of the population. An editorial in the news blogging
site PoliGazette also affirmed Turkey's struggle with its Kurdish
minority. It's undeniable for anyone that Turkey has made a lot of
mistakes when it comes to its Kurdish population. For a long time,
Turkey tried to 'assimilate' the Kurds, basically forcing them to
break with their own culture and language. This approach hasn't
exactly been successful, to put it mildly, and has, instead, only
angered many Kurds. With the announced aid package, the government is
now hoping to appease the Kurdish population, reports The New York
Times. The program is intended to drain support for the militant
Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, by improving the lives of
Turkey's impoverished Kurdish minority, Mr. Erdogan said.

A former aide to the prime minister confirmed the analysis, reports
United Press International: If civilian and cultural openings follow
the military operations and unemployment problem of the people in
region is solved, the DTP [the Kurdish Democratic Society Party] will
get a very heavy defeat and lose its claim. Unless the [ruling Justice
and Development Party] AKP takes such a step, things will get harder
for AKP in the region. The announcement of the new plans follow the
visit of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to Turkey in response to the
recent military incursion. During his trip he condemned the PKK but
also called on Turkey to recognize the Kurdish element, reports the
Eurasia Daily Monitor. "During his recent two-day recent visit to
Ankara, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd, pleased his
hosts by condemning the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and inviting
Turkish businesses to bid for Iraqi infrastructure projects. But he
also defied Turkey's reluctance to acknowledge the Kurdish political
reality in northern Iraq by referring to the region as "Kurdistan."

The new investment deal was signed during Mr. Talabani's visit and,
the Associated Press reports, affirmed the strong links between Turkey
and northern Iraq. Turkey is already an active economic player in
Iraq. Despite the political tensions, Iraq's autonomous northern
Kurdish region has relied heavily on Turkish food imports as well as
Turkish investment in construction works and Turkish electricity.
Having sought to land a knock-out blow on the PKK's military capacity,
Turkey it seems is now engaged in an attempt to woo both its own
Kurdish population, as well as those in neighboring Iraq, through the
establishment of more solid economic ties.


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