A multi-cultural society

an interview with  Kemal Kirisci

BI: What are the origins of the Turkish Kurdish issue?

Kirisci: The origins lie in the effort of the Turkish state in the 1920s and 1930s to construct a Turkish national identity and engage in nation building in a geography that lacked a homogenious national identity. Turks referred to the Kurds as "Mountain Turks" rather than acknowledge or recognize that they have a separate cultural ethnic identity, just like Arabs, Bosnians and others living in this geography.

The Kurdish leaders in east and southeastern Anatolia resisted this nation building process, as well as the efforts to build a centralized state. This resistance led to a series of rebellions. By the late 1930s, the Turkish state had succeeeded in suppressing them and by the post-World War II period the state had achieved a reasonable sense of national identity in most of Turkey with the possible exception of Kurdish-populated areas. There were also many Kurds who integrated themselves into the larger Turkish society, including many who made it to the highest echelons of the state apparatus.

BI: And in recent decades?

Kirisci: Starting from the 1960s, with the rise of left wing groups in Turkey, some began to address the Kurdish question, particularly in the context of class conflict, imperialism and colonization. The late 1970s saw a polarization between the Turkish and the Kurdish left-wing groups and it was in this context that the infamous PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) emerged. From the mid-'80s the PKK waged an armed struggle against the Turkish state with the declared intention of setting up a Marxist-Leninist Kurdish state covering the geographic areas populated by Kurds in Turkey as well as in neighboring countries, especially Iran and Iraq. The first Gulf crisis enabled them to acquire bases from which they could coordinate larger guerilla-type infiltrations into Turkey, while in some of the urban centers of southeastern Anatolia they attempted to organize urban uprisings. By 1993, the PKK was claiming liberated areas in some of these urban centers. This was the period when the Turkish state's authority in the area was most deeply challenged. Subsequently the Turkish security forces, sometimes at a high cost in human rights violations, mounted a counter-offensive that gradually undermined the PKK's control. By 1995-96, Turkey was coming under heavy criticism from the international community, particularly in western Europe where large Kurdish diasporas had formed, and in the United States.

By 1998, the Turkish security forces had generally isolated the PKK into parts of northern Iraq, where the Turkish military set up its own presence, while the leadership of the PKK resided in Syria. In the fall of 1998, Turkey's threat to intervene militarily in Syria if the authorities did not turn over Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the PKK, obliged Damascus to force Ocalan to leave. The Turkish secret service eventually apprehended Ocalan with American assistance as he left the Greek Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

In his trial in the late spring of 1999, Ocalan revealed embarrassing information about the extent of international support he had received, including that from Syria and NATO countries. In a volte face, he also declared that he had been mistaken, and wished from now on to work to solve the problem within a democratic Turkey, [thus] abandoning the PKK's previous agendas of secession or territorial autonomy.

BI: What changes have taken place since then in the status of Turkish Kurds?

Kirisci: The year 1999 was critical. Greek-Turkish relations slowly but surely began to move toward rapprochement, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit supported political reforms in Turkey, and Germany advocated European Union membership for Turkey if it fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria. Among the criteria that Turkey had to fulfill before membership negotiations could start was the requirement that it allow education and broadcasting in mother tongue languages other than Turkish. In December 2002, the EU offered December 2004 as the date for a decision regarding membership negotiations, the basis being a judgement on whether Turkey had implemented reforms.

It is in the context of this formulation that the government's approach to the Kurdish question becomes important. Turkish society has always been conscious of the presence of a Kurdish identity; the Turkish state is now beginning to reconcile itself to the fact that Turkey is, after all, a multicultural society. There are those who still resist, but by and large these reforms regarding Kurdish identity are recognized. There are also Kurdish groups that seek to push the reforms beyond what is called for.

BI: Can you illustrate the success of reforms?

Kirisci: Here is a striking example of how far we've come. In early November of this year, a conference on Kurdish literature was held in Diyarbakir. When the local police authorities tried to raid the conference, arguing it violated Turkish law, the organizers persuaded the police chief that under new laws the police had to get a warrant before entering the conference site. The police backed down, were then denied the warrant, and the conference continued.

BI: What are the ramifications for Turkey of developments in the status of Iraqi Kurds?

Kirisci: First of all, Turkey attaches importance to the territorial integrity of Iraq. If this is violated and a Kurdish state is created in northern Iraq, it is assumed that it would develop irredentist claims in Turkey and would invariably support the PKK, which still exists in northern Iraq. Hardliners and security-oriented circles in Turkey have drawn a clear red line over this issue. They are deeply distrustful of the US, and despite reassurances from the US and the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, they fear this development. No one believes that an Iraq Kurdish state would not be irredentist; very few Turks believe a Kurdish state could be benign. But some in Turkey believe that no relevant parties have such an agenda for independence.

Turkey also traditionally objects to federation based on ethnicity in Iraq. The current Turkish government and a good part of the public could possibly live with such a federation if it receives genuine support from the population of Iraq and allowances are made for the security of Turkmen in northern Iraq and elsewhere, as well as if the Iraqi authorities and Americans finally take decisive action against the presence of 4,000-5,000 PKK militants in northern Iraq.

If Iraq indeed stabilizes and moves toward democracy and economic prosperity, this will have a positive effect in general. Petrol revenues in the north must be shared with the whole of Iraq by the Kurdish part of any federation, to guarantee that it doesn't become a separate oil power with its own agenda.

Kemal Kirisci is professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bogazici University, Istanbul. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration and is also the director of the Center for European Studies at the university.