Buoyed by the recent success of their Iraqi brethren, the Kurds in Turkey look hopefully to the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a new peace deal...
IN YALAZA, a remote mountain village near the town of Lice, the seeds of a “free Kurdistan” are being sown. A “popular council” vetted by rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) will soon launch Turkey’s first school offering education in the Kurdish language. Last summer Yalaza’s fields were carpeted with cannabis. They are now filled with tobacco and other legal crops after the PKK outlawed the booming drug trade. “Yalaza will be a model commune for all of Kurdistan, the state cannot set foot here,” says Serdar Celik, a PKK man who seems to be in charge.
On the main road from Lice to Diyarbakir, the PKK’s star-emblazoned crimson flag is hoisted less than a kilometre away from a Turkish army checkpoint. It marks the entrance to several makeshift camps housing Kurdish activists, mostly women. Fehime Ete, who has a husband and two sons in jail on charges of separatism and three other sons fighting for the PKK, is typical. All are bent on preventing the construction of two army bases, which they say demonstrate that the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party is not sincere in its latest peace talks with the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
The Kurds’ protests took a bloody turn last month after Turkish soldiers tried to force them back, killing two protesters. Thousands of Kurds took to the streets across Turkey. Mr Ocalan’s 14-month-old ceasefire seemed about to collapse. That could have dented the hopes of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, who this week announced that he would run in the first direct election for the presidency in August, for which he hopes to secure Kurdish support.
In the event, the Kurds won. Construction of the army bases has been frozen and more PKK flags have been raised around Lice. Last week the government unveiled fresh reforms that give the cabinet authority to pursue the talks, including an amnesty for PKK fighters untainted by violence. Mr Ocalan called this de-facto anointment of the PKK as a formal negotiating partner “historic.” Thousands of Kurdish activists, including members of parliament, have been released from jail. Laws allowing education in Kurdish, albeit only in private schools, have been passed. But ordinary Kurds, who say they face discrimination elsewhere in Turkey, are unimpressed.
Gulten Kisanak, who in March was elected Diyarbakir’s first female mayor on the pro-Kurdish BDP ticket, says that, if a referendum were held in mainly Kurdish provinces, “at least 80% of the people would vote for independence.” Mr Ocalan, who launched the PKK in 1978 promising this, now says some form of autonomy will do. Even this remains a distant goal. Power remains concentrated in Ankara, which continues to dictate policy in such areas as health and education. “We still need the governor’s approval to change street names,” Ms Kisanak complains.
Mr Erdogan, has promised that, if elected president in August (which he almost certainly will be), he will “stop at nothing” to fix the Kurdish problem. Critics insist that such talk is tailored merely to win Kurdish votes.
That is unfair. Mr Erdogan has done more to address the Kurdish question than any of his predecessors. Bans on the Kurdish language are being eased. (The sight of a PKK banner on any road in Turkey would previously have been unthinkable.) Unemployment in the Kurdish region remains at nearly twice the national average, yet the wealth created under AK rule in the country as a whole is starting to spread there too. Diyarbakir will soon boast the country’s fifth-largest airport, with direct connections to several cities in Europe and the Middle East and, for the first time, to other Kurdish cities.
Meanwhile, in central Diyarbakir dozens of mothers are continuing a month-long protest against the “abduction” of their children by the PKK. Until recently few would have dared publicly to air anti-PKK feelings. Yet the Kurds’ nationalist passions are not going away: rather they are being further inflamed.
Turkey’s Kurds are especially excited by dramatic recent changes in northern Iraq. During the latest fighting in Iraq, the northern Kurdish region has grabbed Kirkuk and accelerated its march towards independence. Mr Erdogan, who sees the 6.5m-strong Kurdish region of Iraq as a close ally, is quietly egging it on. “They think that if the,,y allow a little Kurdistan to be established outside Turkey’s borders, this will prevent a larger one from being carved out of its own,” says Ms Kisanak.
Such thoughts are echoed by senior AK officials, who insist that autonomy for Turkey’s own 14m-odd Kurds is a step too far. The most they can be offered, argues Galip Ensarioglu, an AK deputy from Diyarbakir, is an amnesty for PKK prisoners and fighters who are not linked to violence. Vaguely worded anti-terror laws must be scrapped and education in the Kurdish language permitted in state schools, he adds. But back in Yalaza, Mr Celik says it will be for Turkey’s Kurds to decide their own future. “We won’t be hanging around waiting for Turkey to give us our rights, we will seize them for ourselves,” he declares.
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21606297-buoyed-recent-success-their-iraqi-brethren-kurds-turkey-look-hopefully
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