Resolving Kurdish Issue

RETHINK INSTITUTE RESOLVING TURKEY’S KURDISH ISSUE Resolving Turkey’s KURDISH ISSUE Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Issue Turkey is in the midst of redrafting its constitution and the Kurdish issue appears to be the most challenging aspect of the process. The Rethink Institute, in line with its mission of understanding contemporary political and cultural challenges in realizing peace and justice around the world, brought together known experts to discuss every angle of the issue and thus contribute to its peaceful resolution. The one-day conference, which took place on May 22, 2012, at the )nstitute’s Washington DC offices, featured panel discussions focusing on the status of the Kurdish citizens in Turkey and the new constitutional efforts, the PKK, the politics of the regional Kurds and the increasing complexity of the issue as the crisis in Syria unravels. The following are proceedings of the conference. RESOLVING TURKEY’S KURD)S( ISSUE Edited by Fevzi Bilgin The Rethink Institute is a private, not-for-profit, nonpartisan research institution devoted to deepen our understanding of contemporary political and cultural challenges facing communities and societies around the world, in realizing peace and justice, broadly defined. The Institute pursues this mission by facilitating research on public policies and civic initiatives centering on dispute resolution, peace building, dialogue development, and education. Toward these goals, the Institute sponsors rigorous research and analysis, supports visiting scholar programs, and organizes workshops and conferences. © Rethink Institute. All rights reserved ISBN: 978-1-938300-06-6 Printed in the United States of America Rethink Institute 750 First St., NE, Suite 1125 Washington, DC 20002 Phone: (202) 842-2026 Fax: (202) 747-7637 info@rethinkinstitute.org This publication can be downloaded at no cost at www.rethinkinstitute.org Contents Abbreviations and Acronyms 1 Introduction 5 Contributors 9 Panel I Assessing the Kurdish Issue: Constitutional Politics, the AKP’s Kurdish Policy, Demographic Challenges 34 Panel II The Actors of the Conflict: The Turkish Government, the PKK/KCK, Civil Society Efforts of Conflict Resolution 65 Panel III The Regional Dimensions of the Kurdish Issue: Turkey’s Relations with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Kurdistan Regional Government; Interactions between the Kurds in the Region Abbreviations and Acronyms AKP BDP CHP DTK KCK KRG MHP PJAK PKK PYD SNC Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi [Justice and Development Party] Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi [Peace and Democracy Party] Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi [People’s Republican Party] Demokratik Toplum Kongresi [Democratic People’s Congress] Komo Civaken Kürdistan [Kurdistan Union of Communities] Kurdistan Regional Government [Northern Iraq] Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi [Nationalist Action Party] Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistan [Party of Free Life of Kurdistan] [Iran] Partiya Karkeren Kürdistan [Kurdistan Workers Party] Partiya Yekitiya Demokrat [Democratic Union Party] [Syria] Syrian National Council Introduction Turkey’s Kurdish problem is an increasingly complex, multifaceted issue. )t is a political issue about democratization, basic rights and freedoms, and recognition of cultural rights. It is a conflict breeding violence, terrorism and brutality. It is a regional crisis, implicating the millions of Kurdish minorities living in the neighboring countries. A peaceful resolution of this protracted issue would require addressing its political, social, and regional aspects, all at once. By bringing together distinguished experts working on the issue, the Rethink Institute hopes to provide a roadmap for the peaceful resolution of the conflict and send a strong message of hope to the affected communities. It is critical that we take up this issue at a moment when Turkey is redrafting its constitution. The Kurdish issue has emerged at the forefront of the constitutional debate. The Kurdish citizens of Turkey demand a constitutional recognition, granting them the right to use the Kurdish language in educational and public institutions, and providing for some form of autonomy. The calls for an independent state have significantly subsided. According to surveys, the majority of the Turkish people do not oppose these demands, as long as they do not become a prelude to a process of secession. It is important to acknowledge that the Kurdish issue is larger than the PKK insurgency. The Kurdish issue is a protracted problem tracing back to 1850s when the Kurdish tribal leaders rebelled against the modernization and centralization attempts of the Ottoman government. The PKK, on the other hand, is an armed secessionist movement that emerged in the mid1980s and continues to be active to this day, drawing support from large segments of Kurdish communities and various international sponsors. During Turkey’s war of liberation in the early s Turks and Kurds fought the enemy together. The Kurdish tribal leaders were promised regional autonomy and recognition by the nascent republican government in Ankara. These promises were not kept, and the people in the Kurdish region revolted against the Ankara government in 1925. This uprising was violently suppressed, but no less than twenty similar revolts took place in the next fifteen years. The young republican government devised two types of responses to the Kurdish demands and insurgency. On one hand, Atatürk and his closest lieutenant İnon“ embraced militaristic measures, such as declaring martial law in the region, forcefully relocating tens of thousands of Kurdish families to western Turkey, and launching a Turkification campaign towards the Kurdish communities. This approach peaked during the rule of the military junta in when the government declared a political war against those Rethink Institute who think they are Kurds . On the other, the one-time prime minister and later the first president of the multi-party era, Celal Bayar, defended a civilian approach with emphasis on more moderate measures such as revising bad policies and attending the needs of citizens. This dualism in Turkey’s Kurdish policy has continued to this day. During most of the history of the republic, however, the militaristic approach has prevailed. This was a result of the undue influence of the Turkish military on the political processes. The Turkish military defined the issue as a matter of national security and dealt with it accordingly while, the civilian governments quietly yield to it. In the peak years of military influence, it was literally impossible to discuss the issue without being branded a traitor or a terrorist. As the PKK intensified its operations in the 1990s, the armed forces were granted enormous amount of power and resources to battle the insurrection. This, in turn, weakened the hand of the elected governments, as well as the prospect for Turkish democracy. The AKP, which came to power in 2002 after five years of unchallenged military influence, took the issue seriously from the outset and lifted the state of emergency imposed on the region since the early days of the Republic. It further introduced Kurdish TV broadcasts and lifted the ban on use of Kurdish names for the places. )n , Prime Minister Erdoğan publicly acknowledged while in Diyarbakır, the largest city in the Kurdish region, that Turkey has a Kurdish issue, an unprecedented move by the highest government official. The AKP administration also introduced an unprecedented reconciliation campaign in 2009, which involved a program to integrate PKK militants to the society, The democratic opening campaign failed quickly as the parties of the conflict did not seem to be ready for peace. The military establishment, and Turkish nationalists, could not accept the possibility of an amnesty for PKK militants, while the PKK was not ready to give up the fight without being acknowledged as triumphant freedom fighters. The process was abruptly derailed in August 2007, after a PKK attack on a remote military post, which left seven Turkish soldiers dead. Turkey was first introduced to the PKK in 1984, when the organization launched its first attack against Turkish security forces. The organization was founded by Abdullah Öcalan in 1978 with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state in eastern Turkey. In the years between its founding and the first attack, Öcalan and his friends were busy defining their strategy, recruiting militants, and eliminating rival Kurdish groups. In the meantime, the Turkish military staged a coup in 1980 and established martial law during which it arrested, prosecuted, and tortured thousands of individuals, including many Kurds. According to numerous personal accounts, memoirs, 2 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question and press reports, the brutality unleashed in the Diyarbakır prison during this time gave a big boost to recruiting efforts of the PKK. The PKK has remained to this day, a radical militant organization that does not refrain from using violence against not only Turkish security forces, government officials, and civilians, but also Kurdish civilians, intellectuals, or simply anybody who challenges it. Since the 1980s, the PKK has executed hundreds of its own militants for disobedience or operational failure. In addition, Öcalan has eliminated every possible challenger to his authority. The organization frequently resorts to forceful recruitment of underage kids from the Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey as well as extortion from Kurdish businessmen in Turkey and Europe. These criminal tactics of the PKK have led to some analysts claiming that the Kurds in Turkey have a PKK problem . The PKK presents itself as the sole representative of the Kurds in Turkey. The BDP, the party that represents the Kurdish interest in Turkey, claims to be independent; but it is publicly known that their nominees for political offices are confirmed by the PKK leadership. In this respect, it is incredibly difficult for the Kurdish citizens to express their political will independently of the PKK. Despite the PKK’s prevalence, however, not all Kurds appear to embrace its aspirations: During the last five elections, more than half of all the eligible Kurdish votes have been cast in favor of parties other than the BDP, mainly the AKP. After the capture of Öcalan in 1999, the PKK leadership publicly declared that they had abandoned the goal of independence and had instead focused on the concept of autonomy within a federal setting. The PKK also changed its name first to KADEK and then to KONGRA-GEL after being included in the list of terrorist organizations compiled by the United States and some European states. In 2007, Öcalan, who is in prison in Turkey but still manages to send messages to his comrades via his lawyers, declared a new organization called the KCK. The KCK was built to politically represent the Kurds not only in Turkey but also in the neighboring countries of Syria, Iraq, and Iran. It is intended be a political structure that would operate within the borders of these states. The organization was immediately declared illegal by the Turkish Government. On the 14 th of July 2011, the KCK representatives declared democratic autonomy in Turkey. On the same day, PKK militants attacked a platoon and killed 13 Turkish soldiers in Silvan, Diyarbakır. Thus, the Kurdish issue has taken a tragic turn. Lately, the conflict follows a certain pattern. It starts with the rise of a conciliatory mood in the society. When the majority starts to believe in the peaceful resolution of the conflict, there comes an unexpected but a major PKK attack that leaves many Turkish soldiers dead. The national mood swiftly turns sour, the airwaves fills with vows of vengeance. The Turkish security forces launch a retaliation 3 Rethink Institute campaign. After a while, all parties are invited to consider a ceasefire and calls for resumption of peace talks become more frequent. Subsequently, a conciliatory mood settles in society. Then a major PKK attack follows, and retaliation takes the place of negotiations. This pattern has been repeated over and over in the recent years, most recently on July 14, 2011, October 19, 2011, and June 19, 2012. )t is difficult to talk about linguistic rights’ while blood continues to spill. After every such incident grief and anger takes over the political conversation. Since 1984, the conflict has cost Turkey no less than 50,000 lives, more than one million displaced persons, and $300 billion. What to do about it? How to defeat it? How to end the bloodshed? We have to address these questions, as we also need to continue the much needed conversation about improving basic rights and freedoms for the Kurdish citizens in Turkey. Fevzi Bilgin Executive Director Rethink Institute 4 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question Contributors TOZUN BAHCHELI is professor of political science at King's University College at Western University, London, Canada. He has written widely on ethnic conflict in Cyprus, secessionist conflicts in divided societies, GreekTurkish relations and selected Turkish foreign policy issues. He is the author of Greek-Turkish Relations Since 1955 (Westview Press, 1990) and co-editor of De Facto States: The Quest for Sovereignty (Routledge, 2004). Among his recent publications is The Justice and Development Party and the Kurdish Question’ co-authored with Sid Noel) in Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey; Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue, ed. Marlies Casier and Joost Jongerden (Routledge, 2010). BAYRAM BALC) is a visiting scholar in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, where his research focuses on Turkey and Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. He is also with CERI Science Po, in Paris, France. As a research fellow at the French Institute for Anatolian Studies (IFEA) in Istanbul, Turkey, Balci established the )nstitute’s office in Baku, Azerbaijan. From 2006 to 2010, he was the director of the French Institute for Central Asian Studies (IFEAC) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He is the author of Missionnaires de l'Islam en Asie centrale: Les écoles turques de Fethullah Gülen (Maisonneuve & Larose, 2003) and recently co-edited China and India in Central Asia: A New "Great Game"? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). FEVZI BILGIN is the executive director of the Rethink Institute. He has published on constitutional politics, religion and politics, and political liberalism, Turkish politics, and Middle Eastern politics. He received BA from Ankara University and PhD in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. He previously taught at Sakarya University and St. Mary's College of Maryland. His recent publications include Political Liberalism in Muslim Societies (Routledge, 2011) and Understanding Turkey’s Kurdish Question (ed. forthcoming) JEFFREY C. DIXON is an Assistant Professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and formerly an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Koç University in Istanbul. He earned his PhD in Sociology from Indiana University-Bloomington in 2006, and his dissertation was entitled Where Does Turkey Belong? Examining Europeans' Attitudes and LiberalDemocratic Values in Turkey, the European Union, and the Muslim World. His current and future research includes a focus on Turkey and the European 5 Rethink Institute Union, minority rights in Turkey, as well as attitudes toward the Kurds. His research has appeared in such journals as The British Journal of Sociology, European Societies, Social Science Quarterly, and Contexts. NADER ENTASSAR is Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice at the University of South Alabama. He is the author of several books, journal articles, and book chapters on the politics of the Middle East, including Kurdish Ethnonationalism, and most recently Kurdish Politics in the Middle East. Dr. Entessar has been the recipient of Fulbright and National Endowment for the Humanities awards. DOGAN KOC is a research fellow at the Gulen Institute at the University of Houston. He received his PhD degree in Political Science from the University of Texas at Dallas. In his studies, he focuses on conflict resolution, international relations, and social movements. Recently, he has completed an extensive qualitative research on Turkey's Kurdish conflict. He analyzes the strategies of military, government and civil society applied in the resolution of the conflict. Dr. Koc is also the author Strategic Defamation of Fethullah Gulen: Turkish vs. English (University Press of America, 2012). F. STEPHEN LARRABEE holds the Distinguished Chair in European Security at the RAND Corporation. (is articles include, Turkey’s Kurdish Challenge, co-author with Gonul Tol (Survival, August/September 2011); Ukraine at the Crossroads Washington Quarterly, Fall ; Turkey Rediscovers the Middle East Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007); and Danger and Opportunity in Eastern Europe Foreign Affairs, November/December 2006). Other recent publications include, Troubled Partnership: U.S.-Turkish Relations in an Era of Global Geopolitical Change; NATO’s Eastern Agenda in a New Strategic Era; co-author with Ian Lesser of Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty. ROBERT OLSON is Professor of Middle East History and Islamic History at the University of Kentucky where he is a University Research Professor. Professor Olson was selected as the Kirwan Memorial Prize University Professor in 1999-2000 and Distinguished Professor of the College of Arts and Sciences in 2000-2001. He is the author of many books including The Ba’th and Syria: From the French Mandate to the Era of Hafiz al-Asad (1982); The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion: 18801925 (1989); The Kurdish Question and Turkish-Iranian Relations: From World War 1 to 1998 (1998); Turkey’s Relations with Iran, Syria, Israel and Russia, 1991-2000 (2001); The Goat and the Butcher: Nationalism and State 6 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question Formation in Kurdistan-Iraq since the Iraqi War (2005); Blood, Beliefs and Ballots: The Management of Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey: 2007-2009 (2009). DAVID ROMANO holds the Thomas G. Strong Chair in Middle East Politics at Missouri State University. Some of his recent publications include The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press – Kürt Dirilişi: Olanak, Mobilizasyon ve Kimlik in 2010 Turkish translation with Vate Publishing ; Turkish and )ranian efforts to deter Kurdish insurgent attacks, in Wenger, Andreas and Alex Wilner, Deterring Terrorism: Theory and Practice, ; The Struggle for Autonomy and Decentralization: )raqi Kurdistan, in Lamani, Mokhtar and Bessma Momani, eds., From Desolation to Reconstruction: Iraq’s Troubled Journey, ; The Kurds and Contemporary Regional Political Dynamics in Gareth Stansfield and Robert Lowe, eds., The Kurdish Policy Imperative, 2010); He writes a weekly political column for Rudaw, an Iraqi Kurdish newspaper, and has spent several years living and/or conducting field research in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Israel/Palestine. GUNES MURAT TEZCUR is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago. He has received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2005. His work on democratization, political violence and ethnicity, Muslim political attitudes, judicial activism, and electoral politics has appeared in more than a dozen scholarly outlets in the last five years. He is also the author of Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey: The Paradox of Moderation (2010). He has conducted extensive field research in Kurdish inhabited areas of Turkey since 2002. His current project examines the conditions under which ordinary people take extraordinary risks and join insurgent movements. GONUL TOL is the founding director of the Middle East )nstitute’s Center for Turkish Studies. She is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s )nstitute for Middle East Studies. She received her Ph.D. degree in Political Science from Florida International University where she was a graduate fellow at the Middle East Studies Center. She previously worked at the U.S. Representative Office of the Turkish Industry and Business Association. (TUSIAD) She was also an adjunct professor at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University. BILAL WAHAB is from Iraqi Kurdistan, and is currently a doctoral student at George Mason University GMU . (e is also affiliated with GMU’s Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center. He served as the governance advisor for citizen participation in public decision-making at 7 Rethink Institute USAID's Local Governance Program in Iraq. Prior to that, he worked for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In the run up to Iraq's first democratic elections, he worked for the International Republican Institute and the American Development Foundation, where he trained election candidates, monitors and journalists. AHMET YUKLEYEN is Croft Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Mississippi and a senior resident fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for 2011-12. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Boston University in 2007. His dissertation research in Germany and the Netherlands in 2003-4 was funded by grants from Wenner Gren Foundation, United States Institute of Peace, and Dutch Council of Higher Education. His book titled Localizing Islam in Europe: Turkish Islamic Communities in Germany and the Netherlands is published by Syracuse University Press in 2012. He has published articles in journals such as Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Contemporary Islam, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Immigrants and Minorities, Public Choice, Insight Turkey, and Turkish Studies. His research interests include anthropology of religion, ethnicity, Muslims in Europe, Islamic movements, and multiculturalism. 8 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question PANEL I Assessing the Kurdish Issue: Constitutional Politics, the AKP's Kurdish Policy, Demographic Challenges Tozun Bahcheli, King's University College at Western University, Ontario, Canada David Romano, Missouri State University Jeffrey Dixon, College of the Holy Cross Fevzi Bilgin (Moderator), Rethink Institute 9 Rethink Institute FEVZI BILGIN: The panel discussion will proceed as follows. Every speaker will have 10 minutes to introduce his thesis and arguments and then I proceed with some follow up questions, and finally I take questions from the audience, and maybe we will have a second tour of discussion. So we are looking for a very interactive discussion here where everybody has a plenty of time to speak, and hopefully we will learn a lot. So let’s start with Dr. Tozun Bahcheli. TOZUN BAHCHELI: Thank you very much. I want to express my gratitude to the Rethink Institute for inviting me to this event and issue of enormous importance for Turkey. I am delighted to be here not the least because I meet all friends, Bob and others. My presentation is going to be in two parts. In the first, I am going to highlight the reforms and changes related to the Kurdish issue in Turkey during the past decade and Dr. Bilgin actually has covered quite bit of it, in fact more than I might, and in the second I want to consider the principal demands of nationalist Kurds in Turkey. Now I underscore the nationalist Kurds in Turkey, because the Kurdish community in Turkey is not a monolith, there are varied opinions among the Turkish Kurds. But I think that the nationalist Kurds have a crucial role in the ultimate resolution. There is no doubt that since the AK Party has come to power, there have been great many changes that have improved the cultural and political status of Turkish-Kurds. Some of these reforms are actually continuations of policies that have started by the coalition government that was in office before the AKP came to power, such as lifting the state of emergency, granting partial amnesty and reductions in prison sentences for convicted PKK members, assisting internally displaced Kurds to return to their former homes and properties. Beyond these, the AKP has introduced a series of democratization packages that have improved human rights by broadening the scope of freedom of expression and association. Additional legislation introduced by the AKP permitted such things as limited Kurdish TV broadcasting, Kurdish language courses in private schools and further measures followed and perhaps the most dramatic one was the introduction of 24 hour national Kurdish TV broadcasting TRT 6 (TRT Şeş in 2009. The introduction of Kurdish courses in several universities is starting with Bilgi University. The removal of the ban on the use of Kurdish in political campaigning and etc. All of these suddenly have raised expectations that there could be real progress towards the settlement of the Kurdish issue and all of these things have also won a substantial number of seats for the AKP. Now nationalist 10 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question Kurds and other critics have been unimpressed with these changes, they have, basically viewed them as paltry and begrudging concessions made by the government. Nevertheless, it is also true that no other party has done as much as the AKP to improve Kurdish rights in Turkey. That the AKP has achieved all of this, in spite of resistance by the opposition parties and the Kemalist establishments including the military, but also as the PKK insurgency sporadically continued, is I think quite remarkable. Whatever the shortcomings of the AKP’s Kurdish policy, and there are many, it has changed Turkey’s political culture in subtle ways. One area where changes are significant is in the nature of this course over Kurdish identity and rights. Once taboo subjects are now openly debated, I find it remarkable that the idea of an independent Kurdish state in Turkey is now freely debated much more in the media. After being officially forbidden for decades, the word Kurd is now freely used by government officials and the media alike. And once banned Kurdish language is now increasingly legitimate voice in the democratic arena. As impressive and welcome all of these are, as it is well known the AKP’s much hyped Kurdish initiative have stalled in recent years. We can get into the reasons for this, the discussion that will follow. But one consequence of this is that few Kurds and few Turks, I think, now expect that the Kurdish issue can be settled anytime soon. I fear that whatever the expectations that adopting the new constitution will achieve real progress in tackling the Kurdish issue they will be disappointed. The problem essentially is the gap between the traditional Kurdish demands and what the AKP can or willing to deliver is seemingly unreachable. And this becomes apparent when we consider the principal demands as voiced by the Kurdish nationalist. The first and the most important is democratic autonomy. Now there is some ambivalence, there is some lack of clarity about what it actually constitutes and )’m one of those who doesn’t really fully understand this, when ) pay careful attention to the content of this initiative or program. I see that it proposes for the creation of territorial autonomy within Turkey’s highly centralized. But what is being called for is decentralization on a quite massive scale. I note that the Kurds carefully avoid, most of the time anyways, the f word , the word federal . I assumed that this is because of reactions by the Turkish authorities that federalism will pave the road to outright separation and so on. In any case what is being called for is the decentralization of the 11 Rethink Institute kind that would be very new to Turkey. Not that it would be a bad thing, quite the contrary, I think the Turkish state has been excessively centralized and some decentralization would be a desirable thing. There is fear that decentralization and autonomy would really pave the way with simply slope leading to outright separation. I think the AKP, and they are not necessarily wrong about this, also fear that any kind of autonomy that would be exercised in the Kurdish region would be dominated by the PKK. And you know the idea, that there would be autonomous Kurdish region side by side with merely independent Iraqi Kurdistan. I think that would cause for a lot of Turkish officials to lose sleep if not nightmares. And furthermore, I think one other factor to bear in mind is that most of the AKP members including Prime Minister Erdoğan, President Gül, and Bulent Arınç are nationalist Turks, who really resist the idea of creating an autonomous entity in the Turkish republic. Moving on to another core demand one that Dr. Bilgin referred, is education in Kurdish at all levels of schooling. Bulent Arinc recently made a very ill comment saying that Kurdish is not a civilizational language. That was really foolish in my opinion. In any case what is being offered by the government is not actually clear on how far exactly they will go on this, but what is on our the table now, is limited offerings in Kurdish alongside Turkish at special institutions and perhaps in public schools as well. Another issue, another demand revising the constitution again so that it would recognize the Kurdish identity. Preferably explicitly but perhaps if that is not achievable, implicitly. In other words, get away from the current constitution which states that everyone in Turkey is a Turk and replace the constitution with a civic document that will not be associated with one ethnicity. And two more demands. The Kurdish nationalist would want a blanket amnesty. The government has made it clear that they would not be in favor of that. And I can see huge problems with granting any kind of amnesty to Abdullah Öcalan. Finally, abolishing village guards is something that the Kurdish nationalist have demanded but all the government has said was that they would be willing to reform the institution. So in conclusion, having underscored the wide gap between the nationalist demands and how far I believe the AKP government or any Turkish government can go, I would come to the sad conclusion that in years to come, we are going to see more and more managing of the Kurdish issue rather than resolving it. I look forward to the discussion. 12 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question FEVZI BILGIN: Let me follow up with a quick question. Since we talk about redrafting of the constitution, the constitutional commission came up with the first article that the state must uphold human dignity. Do you think this is a good omen for the rest of the debate in terms of reaching these demands? TOZUN BAHCHELI: Now, that is kind of a motherhood statement you know and I honestly don’t think that in itself really will justify a little hope. I talk to a number of friends who have far more knowledge about Turkish political developments and they rate the possibility of achieving consensus to rewrite the constitution as being very slim. As you know in the last election that the AKP hoped it would win enough votes to be able to draft a constitution and submit it to a referendum that would make its task much easier. One expert said to that the chances of getting a new Turkish constitution approved are no better than 20 percent. Again you know I defer to those who are more knowledgeable than me. FEVZI BILGIN: For those who are not closely following the constitutional process, Turkey has now an inter-party commission that is redrafting the new constitution. The problem is that four parties are represented in the commission and the voting is by unanimity. So every article must be agreed unanimously and that’s a kind of problem in the sense that you know you have in one room AKP representatives, BDP representatives, nationalist, MHP representatives and the CHP. They have been listening to people’s proposals so far and they have just started to draft it so we will see how the process goes. So now we will switch to Dr. Romano for his introductory talk. DAVID ROMANO: I would like to thank the Rethink Institute for inviting me to speak here , it is always an honor and a pleasure to get to discuss these things and I hope to, as usual, learn as much from the audience back and forth and from my other panelists. We are all asked to prepare something on resolving Turkey’s Kurdish issue in light of the attempts to draft a new constitution and several themes seem to reappear and that’s by accident because we didn’t coordinate. ) want to say first off that a vast majority of Turkey’s population agrees that a new more democratic and liberal constitution is needed to replace the military’s constitution. Various amendments to the 1982 constitution including notable ones 12 years ago, and, of course, the ones from the 2010 still have left in place, a fundamentally flawed constitutional document that views the state with much greater regard than it views the people or individuals. Now the 1982 Constitution 13 Rethink Institute tried to resolve Kurdish demands by pretending that those demands did not exist. Even agitating for regional devolution of power for the 1980s and the 1990s could be interpreted as treason as we know form many court cases. The biggest problem of the 1982 constitution is that basic rights and freedoms were and still are, despite all the positive reforms, subject to so many qualifications. When it comes to freedom of expression, despite all the positive changes there are severe problems with the basic right to freedom of expression. Now I will say though that hopefully this effort to devise a new constitution is not a cover to get a strong presidential system for Mr. Erdogan, as Andrew Finkel stated something on this issue not long ago. He said that if Mr. Erdogan and the AKP feel strongly that Turkey needs a strong presidential system, then Mr. Erdogan should promise not to run for president. That would be to avoid a very necessary debate about restructuring Turkey, avoid not having hijacked the debate about the power of one man. Because the opposition parties as you can imagine are not at all for a new constitution that moves in this direction. A new constitution if done correctly and not hijacked by some side issue, does represent an opportunity to solve Turkey’s biggest internal problem, of course, the long fostering Kurdish disaffection. Now many Kurds, I should point out, reject the language of Turkey’s Kurdish problem. For years they have been saying that Turkey has a democracy problem, not a Kurdish problem. I would revise this to say that Turkey actually has a liberalism problem like many in the electoral democracies. The system in Turkey does not contain sufficient provisions for individual and minority rights including ethnic minorities which do exist. To prevent the kind of dictatorship of the majority especially in a very centralized political system, insufficient guarantees, liberal guarantees from minority rights allow for this dictatorship of the majority to systematically and continuously discount or repress minority preferences. Now we saw similar process in Cyprus before 1974, similar process except for military executions of innocent civilians on a large scale. You know you can see some kind of comparable issues here in terms of discounting minority views and preferences so systematically in a way that minority can never really have a chance of affecting a centralized political system in a way to guarantee its interest. Now, one big question before I already touch down is who you negotiate with to resolve Turkey’s Kurdish issue. Let me pull a statement about a 14 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question recent opinion poll by MetroPoll, summarized by Dogu Ergil. He says that when asked which party should negotiate with the government for resolving Kurdish issue 34 percent of respondents in Turkey said the Kurdish people . What is that exactly? Of course, you know there are 15 million Kurds. 9.3 percent said that the BDP should negotiate with the government. Only 9.3 percent. And 3 percent said that PKK should be negotiated with. Those who have no opinions or do not want to answer were 40 percent. What this says to me that Turkish respondents, Turkey’s population at large just like Turkish politicians have no idea, who to negotiate with to resolve the Kurdish issue. This is a part of the problem. There is another question about whether the Kurdish problem can be solved without an agreement with the PKK. Now, speaking of reforms and progress, you could not even ask these questions a few years ago. But now you can, and the response of 36 percent of the people was that it’s impossible to resolve the Kurdish issue without negotiating with the PKK. Another 49 percent, however, believe that the Kurdish problem may be solved through a direct settlement between the government of Turkey and the Kurdish people. But again we are not sure what that means. The PKK of course has naturally offered its views on what Turkey’s new constitution should look like. Tozun spoke a bit about that, they did so via their front organization KCK. Now according to Cevdet Askin, writing his column in Radikal, he says the comprehensive set of proposals include demands for constitutional guarantees for the recognition of the Kurdish identity, adoption of the European charter for local self-government and steps to comply with that document, the removal of any impediment blocking education in the Kurdish language. The package of proposal also does not contain any objections to the status of Turkish as an official language, the current design of the Turkish flag, Ankara’s status as the Turkey’s capital, but demands that Kurdish also be recognized as an official language in the public domain. Now a lot of Turks might respond to this with something like to hell with what the PKK wants or demands . But they should pay attention to these proposals because if you want to bring the guerillas down from the mountains, if you want to end the armed aspect of this conflict, it only makes sense to pay attention to what they have to say. Back to the 39 percent, who think that you have to have them involved in some way to negotiate to end this conflict. Now, the PKK’s proposals amount to what it would take to get them to lay down their arms, this is essentially what they are saying. In stark contrast to the separatist terrorist label, the official discourse in Turkey always attaches to the PKK, these proposals do not deny the Turkish state. It 15 Rethink Institute symbols, its language, or its government, it is important to recognize that, that’s also progress. This needs not to be a mortal threat to Turkey. It only requires that the official paradigm change from one of an assimilationist, mono-ethnic melting pot to a kind of mixing pot of more genuine diversity. Now of course, it is legitimate that many Turks ask aren’t these demands are more part of the PKK’s true separatist game plan? And shouldn’t we therefore oppose any demands made by the PKK? I should think that the answers to these questions are perhaps unknown; I have no idea what the PKK secretly plans or wishes or so forth. )t’s not the rubric by which their demands should be judged and the AKP has been reasonably good about this. The demands should be judged separately of who’s making them, whether or not they are good for Turkey, including its Kurdish population. And ultimately that means no, we shouldn’t reject anything PKK demands because it’s coming from the PKK. Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether or not people in the PKK or KCK—they always have to have a lot of acronyms when we discuss these issues—ultimately want to secede from Turkey and form a Kurdish state. Reflexively opposing any demands they make is the surest way to keep them in the mountains. If the demands make sense by most normative and political measures, such as greater local government, local freedoms, language freedoms, recognition of others’ identity, then they should be considered important. So whether or not the PKK or Mickey Mouse makes these demands, fulfilling them would be the surest way to keep the Kurds in Turkey and increased chances of ending the conflict. And we have examples again about how the Spanish government accommodated most of the Basque population. Of course we have some hold out Basque separatist in the ETA but they have lost the support so much of their communities that they have become French. We also have Quebec in Canada, )’m from Montreal, and we have the Belgian example. Despite of the paralysis, the longest government, the longest post-election scenario without a government ever, Belgium is still a state and it is not violent. ) don’t think that new Turkish constitution will actually fulfill all of these demands, if any. I think Turkish society right now is just too polarized still, more polarized in some ways, and not ready for this big paradigm shift, which means the politicians are not ready to go too far ahead of public opinion, mainstream public opinion in Turkey. Even if they know that this is what needs to be done. And I got another opinion poll here this one from 16 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question Konda from 20101 and the results of the opinion poll on political polarization in society and so you can imagine the theme. What’s interesting on this opinion poll is they give you the general populations responses and then they break it up by level of education, or party affiliation and it is a pretty sobering picture of polarization, political opinions that may not be reconcilable. When the population was asked if the state should support diverse ethnic groups so that they can preserve their traditions and customs—that’s a nice general statement—we had some around 68 percent of the population that said that’s good. So that’s progress right there, the society has advanced a lot. But then as soon as you suddenly get more specific and say, should the state allows some citizens of Kurdish origin to educate their young in their mother tongue support goes down to 40 percent . Now if you disaggregate this into education, it is interesting that those with a university education or higher are more favorable than the majority of Kurdish mother tongue education. But then as soon as you go less education than that, the majorities are against. But if you disaggregate, here’s the important ones for the committee, if you disaggregate according to party affiliation we’ve got bordering on to percent of those who affiliate with the MHP, strongly against such a proposal (isn’t that a huge surprise?). But also a majority or slight majority of those who affiliate with the AKP are against the Kurdish mother tongue education. In the CHP, we have the smallest, not as small as the AKP’s majority, supporting Kurdish mother tongue education, and of course for the BDP this is the central demand. There are ways to try square the circles in such a constitutional document that says the majority of mother tongue education must be in Turkish; you can even just leave it that. But you know you have some devolution of power that allows a significant concession for Kurdish mother tongue education in public institutions. But we still got a situation and this is just one example that shows that as soon as you get into the details, you may have trouble getting anything that even resembles a consensus. Given these I think it is more realistic for Turkey to aim for an interim constitution, which would hold for five years or so. The idea here is that, right now you avoid trying to settle all the competing demands of different groups in Turkish politics. Many demands cannot be reconciled and you instead give more time for the debate to continue. You focus on an interim constitution that creates a better general 1 http://www.konda.com.tr/en/reports.php 17 Rethink Institute institutional framework within which all the various political actors in Turkey continue to pursue their interest legally within the system. So in contrast to the constitution of 1982, the prescribed red line should be minimal. So, the eventual new constitution of Turkey can grow and change with the population. With this in mind the single most important objective of the new interim constitution must be to truly safeguard freedom of expression in Turkey. I was sitting in an AKP deputy’s office in the national assembly when they have the vote to end the law against insulting the Turkish nation. I was sitting in his office and he stepped out and went to vote and then came back in, and he’s like, success, we repelled the law against insulting the Turkish nation; it’s now been replaced with a law insulting Turkishness . I look at him and I said really? And he said baby steps, baby steps . But this is such a severe constrain, especially when you get overzealous public prosecutors, without freedom of expression that you can’t have the real necessary debate to get where you need to go. This is especially true if you want a bottom-up process to get a living strong document rather than a top-down one for constitutional revision. And strong freedom of speech guarantees would also allow Turks in western Turkey to become more familiar with the Kurdish perspective. Frankly, they don’t hear it enough now, most of them have never traveled to eastern Turkey. When I travel there on my own, I hear a different message from average people I speak with than when I travel there with Turkish colleagues. There needs to be a more open debate and as such given the polarization I think that could only happen within an interim constitution that focuses on very general things, that allows the framework for the debate to proceed. I will say though as my final point that a true freedom of speech and a more debate will allow room for more inter-Kurdish politics as well. Amongst the Kurdish nationalists are the Kurds who wish to compete with the PKK or its affiliated organizations. The PKK is not exactly very democratic internally and I am not sure if the Kurdish society in eastern Turkey is even ready for devolution of power under current circumstances. They need more room for more debate as well, and once that debate has progressed further, then we can get more hopeful chances for a more permanent constitution. FEVZI BILGIN: Now to Dixon. Let's just move to your presentation and then we will have questions. JEFFREY DIXON: I want to begin by thanking the Rethink Insitute for inviting me here and for all of you for attending my talk. My talk this morning 18 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question is motivated by a substantive concern with democracy and minority rights and a methodological concern for the need of data to address social problems. It is based on my reading of research in this areas. 2 You see, in the absence of reliable data on ethnic groups in Turkey, it is easy for the discussion of the extremely sensitive Kurdish issue and proposed constitutional changes to become politically contentious. On the one hand, some claime that there are 25 million Kurds in Turkey, on the other hand, the Turkish state has traditionaly defined citizens as Turks, implying that there are no Kurds in Turkey. Neither of these claims is correct on the basis of other available data and both may hinder finding a meaningful solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Debates about official recognition of Kurdish ethnic identity raise a further difficulty. How, exactly, do you define ethnicity in Turkey? Finally, constitutional guarantees of minority rights may not succeed without monitoring their implementation, including on the basis of data. This talk attempts to move past rhetoric towards the potential solution of the Kurdish issue. It takes as a starting point the proposed constitutional changes of recognizing Kurdish ethnic identity and the guarantee of minority rights. Not just language and education but beyond political and socio economic rights. In order for these changes to have the intended practical consequence of guaranteeing rights, it is necessary to first clearly define ethnicity; second, set up an independent administrative structure to monitor the implementation of the minority rights; and, third, possibly—and, I emphasize possibly here—collect census data by ethnicity. These data would have to be used for good—namely, for the purposes of monitoring discrimination. However, these suggestions present political, economic, practical and even ethical challenges . These will be discussed, too, as I take each suggestion in turn begining with the need to clearly define ethnicity. In my field of sociology, we define an ethnic group in terms of shared linguistic, cultural or other characteristics. In contrast to Turkey, some states explicitly mention ethnicity in their constitutions and forbid ethnic discrimination. For example Canada’s Constitutional Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin. Canada is not the only one; Poland is another model of constitution that talks beyond minority rights. Now the shared culture component of ethnicity that I just mentioned also includes religion according to some. In Turkey the treaty of Lausanne and the 2 For a complete list of references upon which this talk is based, and elaboration of points made, please email the speaker at jdixon@holycross.edu. 19 Rethink Institute current constitution provide the basis for recognizing this component of ethnicity—namely, to protect religious minorities and their rights. In thinking about the proposed constitution, the most democratic solution would be to adopt a broad definition of ethnicity, prohibit discrimination on this basis and others, and grant all minorities linguistic, cultural, religious, and other rights. Now, based on my research, and many others including those in this room right now, this solution may meet with the opposition on at least two fronts. First, for those who already express reservations about recognizing Kurdish identity, may see this proposal as creating more divisions of a nation state. Kurdish groups may fear that this solution may dilute their power, as their ethnicity is recognized as one of potentialy many in Turkey. Konda indicates, by their definitions, there are more than one hundred ethnic groups in Turkey. The point to emphasize, though, is that these solutions represent a compromise, a compromise in the spirit of democracy. It is a compromise between not recognizing ethnicity at all and recognizing, say for example, only Kurdish ethnic identity. To grant rights on paper is one thing; to ensure that they are followed in practice is something else. This brings me to my second suggestion, which is to set up an administrative structure to ensure the fair implementation of minority rights. This suggestion is actually very consistent with suggestions made by the European Union. And it might even follow the US model of a Civil Rights Commission or Equal Opportunity of Employment Commission. Similar to the US rights commission, the structure in Turkey, lets call it a minority rights commission, would need to be independent and politically neutral. This commission would need to overcome some of the problems that the US Civil Rights Commission experienced. Namely, it will need to have clear goals; it will have to be well funded and properly staffed. These are not just only challenges such a commission would face; it will also be difficult to determine minority rights violations and discrimination especially without reliable data. And that’s my third suggestion. As my third suggestion, I mentioned the possiblity of collecting census or other data by ethnicity. Now Turkey is not alone in the world in not collecting ethnic or racial data on census forms. But it is in the minority along with some other countries in Europe. Now if we take a broad definition of ethnicity that I mentioned earlier and recognize that individuals themselves decide whether they are member of an ethnic group or not, the census will allow for people to identify which ever ethnic groups they felt like they belong. The 20 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question specific questions asked could be debated and also revisited after an initial census. However, I would suggest an open-ended question on ethnicity adopted from the Konda report that David highlighted. With some modifications based on research, the question may be as follows: We all live in Turkey but we might consider ourselves to be a different ethnicity. What is/are yours? )t’s okay if you don’t know or if you refuse to share this information. The data collected will provide an estimate of ethnic groups in Turkey, which I mentioned at the outset of this talk. More importantly, these data will be used for the purposes of monitoring discrimination, including by minority rights commission. The determination of discrimination maybe made at least partly on the basis of something called statistical proportionality. From census or another aggregate-level data, for example, we could understand the extent to which Kurds and other ethnic groups are represented in parliament relative to their numbers. Likewise, we could understand the extent to which Kurds and other ethnic groups are represented based on their socio-economic levels, relative to their counterparts. However, ethnic data collection should only take place if all standard protocols for the protection of human subjects are carefully followed. Specific to Turkey, ethnic data should not be reported on national address based systems or otherwise identify individuals. They should not be included on national identity cards. In order to ensure the highest level of professionalism and the greatest validity of ethnic data, there will be likely a high financial cost for the state pay. The training of the census numerators alone might be costly. The coding, processing, cleaning can be very messy and time consuming. The benefit, though, is that we would know, we would know more about Turkey’s progress towards democracy, minority rights, we would know what further steps, if any should be taken. To conclude, there’s much to consider in rewriting this constitution in a manner that ensures minority rights. Clearly defining ethnicity, setting up an administrative structure to implement these rights, and possibly collecting data, but only for good: to assess of the implementation of these changes. These are all suggestions and they are not in limitations. But what this debate needs, in my opinion, are suggestions based on data in research. FEVZI BILGIN: Thank you very much. That was a very interesting insight given the fact of nation-state concept in Turkey. This could be earth shattering; maybe even more difficult than rewriting the constitution, in terms of determining what kind of ethnicity we have in Turkey. So, 21 Rethink Institute considering the consequences of it, if the people like the Kurds come less or more than expected, if ethnically Turkish people come less or more, that would produce another problem. However, this is one of the concrete examples or solutions that we are looking for in terms of enriching the debate in Turkey and resolving the issue. So, let me open the floor for discussion. Please specify which panelist you would like to answer your question or whether you are addressing the entire panel. Yes, go ahead sir, and also if you introduce yourself, that would be appreciated. ROBERT COOPER: I think that the suggestion about the commission is very interesting. A couple of quick thoughts about that. Number one is to look at the record of the Civil Rights Commission in this country and see what effect there has been, what problems it has had. Secondly I think that there is something here called the Equal Opportunity Commission, and it has a lot of leverage because over 500 billion dollars are spent by this government on public contracts and those contractors must comply and that commission can suspend those contractors in the event of noncompliance. So there is some real leverage. And the last comment is that the commission should have membership that ensures independent and objectivity and it should include Kurdish members, it should include outside independent individuals etc. Basically it is a very good idea. KEVIN MCCLURE: Good morning, my name is Kevin McClure, )’m from the University of Maryland and I just wanted to say thank you for three excellent presentations. My question is based on a phrase that I heard repeatedly from Dr. Romano that, I think, relates to the panel in general. That phrase was what the Turkish state should do, and it seems that the panel was kind of framing this conversation in very statist terms or trying to find a state based solution. It strikes me that the state is part of the problem or the state is creating and perpetuating a problem, and so perhaps it is not in the best position to find a solution. So I was wondering if you can comment on some non-state actors that might be more involved in trying to find solution, thinking specifically about transnational entities that have influence on Turkey such as the EU, or perhaps some more bottom-up solution, if such a thing were to exist. DAVID ROMANO: Thanks for a very good thoughtful question. Of course we are always using cognitive shortcuts, and labels for complex phenomena that are difficult to put our finger on. That much said, the two most significant actors here, although, by no means the only actors, are the Turkish state and 22 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question the PKK. The Turkish state, in all different manifestations and its complexities over the years, is a complex apparatus that has put in place the structure and the system which is largely responsible for Kurdish alienation and disaffection ever since those promises during the War of Independence were not fulfilled. If the PKK did not exist and had not engaged in violence (please don’t take it as a justification of such) )’m not sure we would be talking about a Kurdish problem the way we are now. That’s not a normative statement that’s just my best guess as to how things are. The squeaky wheel gets talked about doesn’t always get the grease but gets talked about, and demands that are not backed up by something there are other ways. There is a long tradition of nonviolent, resistance, which I think is underexplored. Those are the demands that get recognized. When I use the term, I am really aiming at what to do to achieve to an objective of resolving this issue. So if this is your goal, then this should be your strategy, kind of thing. ROBERT OLSON: I wonder if the panel would address this topic in a sense that I think just a two or three days ago Sezgin Tanrikulu, who is a wellknown Kurdish nationalist and the head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, joined the CHP. I think just two or three days ago he said that there should be a wise man commission (bilirkisi komisyonu). Do you think that would be helpful? Do you think that is the effort of the CHP to put pressure on the state as well as the AKP? And therefore trying to broaden the question in a wider sphere beyond the state? TOZUN BAHCHELI : My brief response to that would be that first of all the idea promoted by Tanrikulu has been broached before, including by groups associated with the PKK that ask for wise persons or group, sometimes actually ask for European or outsiders as well as join such a group to enumerate the steps to be taken to help settle the Kurdish issue. My suspicion is that the AKP would actually resist this, maybe seen as an attempt to pressure on the AKP to do things that it may not want to do and so on. So I don’t see this going far. But I might point out one thing by the way that we are now dealing with a different CHP than was when Deniz Baykal was leader of that party. And I see this, I even give some credit to the AKP for this, because you know the CHP has set to adjust to new circumstances; they would not better continue with the nationalist rhetoric and so on. So I think I see this is a very welcome development in the CHP. But I do not see this going far because the AKP is going to do what it wants to do. You know one question that arises is, just what is the C(P’s own agenda on the Kurdish issue? I think 23 Rethink Institute there is a little bit ambivalence there. I mean look at the Kilicdaroglu himself, an Alevi Zaza from Dersim, to say things that have comforted the Kurds. But, I think in many ways, actually he is far behind the AKP or what needs to be done. AHMET YUKLEYEN: I really enjoy the panel although I have to admit that I am a bit of a more optimistic guy and the gloomy picture got me off. So I want to start out by that, saying yes indeed the problem is urgent but as was noted that resolving it would take long time, which I think, means that we should probably pay more attention as we develop the discourse and resolving this issue on mainly two things: one is who are we really talking about, right? These actors because I think in the first presentation Dr. Bahcheli was talking about Kurdish nationalists, which I think was not specific enough in my view especially when it comes to negotiating certain parameters that were laid out. We do know as it was pointed there is no single voice. So I think maybe zooming in a little bit more on the various actors and their various demands that maybe shifting on time could be useful. Otherwise, we would fall back on the state versus PKK kind of actor relationship, which then redefines the whole issue of the Kurdish issue. I just want to point out that the group right demands of the Kurdish people and the demands of PKK are not always the same thing. I think, this is a learning process among the peoples, Kurdish and Turkish peoples and this is going to take some time. I think the polls and surveys do play an important role. I have a quick question about that, because you talk about the polls that were taken among the Turkish people, but what about the polls that were taken in Kurdish concentrated cities? And to what extent do people have cultural right demands such as language and otherwise? So is there a way to know anything about that? And maybe lastly, I think there the whole idea is developing this trust relationship between the Kurdish people and their actors as well as the Turkish people and their actors including the government as well as civil society actors. We should also keep in mind that those group rights should not be limiting individual rights of the people in that minority. This is to say the PKK and other actors should guarantee also not to impose teaching Kurdish language to the people who may not want to teach Kurdish to their kids. TOZUN BAHCHELI: Now very briefly, you know that actually most of the reforms, the changes that have been brought about have been to address individual rights rather than collective rights. And I quite agree with your 24 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question comment by the way that we have to define what and who would be the Kurdish nationals are. This is actually more complex than might meet the eye. I did very briefly say that the Kurdish community is not a monolith. )t’s a diverse group and that there are various shades of opinion amongst the Turkish Kurds. It does seem to me based on large measure on service of the kind that Dr. Romano has referred to that it actually brought support for the kind of demands such as use of Kurdish in schools and in the Kurdish region and some form of autonomy, however they defined. You know that is going to be an enormously complicated task and so on. And I also have this feeling again on the basis of my reading of mostly the liberal Turkish media, and to some extent to the Kurdish media in English as well, that the support for the PKK related demands actually is on the rise. So this is going to be a tough challenge for the government to contend with. JEFFREY DIXON: One of the things that you ask and thank you for that wonderful comments and questions, too, I think that they are really important. One of the things is that you mentioned, for example, this kind of data. I have some notes here on the specific report, and it says, based on this, and how they define Kurds in this particular survey 76 percent of Kurds reported that Kurdish identity must be constitutionally recognized. So that’s pretty wide support, and on the another figure that they have somewhere— and again this comes, this all comes from Konda—specifically this report called Polarization on Politics in the Society. Here, too, it said, for example, that percent of people or percent of Turks say that discrimination is the main reason for the Kurdish issue, while 25 percent of Kurds say this. That gives you a little bit of an idea where groups stand and are polarized in terms of these issue. There is always a really, a difficult issue and important tension between individual and group rights or collective rights. In this case, you know what I proposed in my talk here is to basically guarantee minority rights, which would be collective rights as well. Now, I have seen some constitutions myself that say something that you will need to check the English translation on this. This is Bulgaria’s constitution—and )’m getting this from an English based source—it neither the privileges nor restricts rights on the basis of ethnic self-identity. For example, this is an interesting way of going, perhaps going, to addresses both issues that you raise. DAVID ROMANO: I agree with much you said I do need to point out in a Machiavellian sense. However, that a package of reforms that might otherwise be acceptable to Kurdish nationalists and other different stripes 25 Rethink Institute and colors of the Kurdish population at large in Turkey, might not be so if the PKK is not involved in the negotiations. As the hegemonic, the most powerful actor, in the Kurdish nationalist circles, they do have certain ability to tank proposals, to frame things in ways that will take away support. This is just politics and that has to be kept in mind. ERIC LO: One thing for Mr. Dixon is that you talk about the constitution, about the rights and everything, but there is like one hundred minority groups in Turkey at this point. So can a constitution of a blanket rights cover everybody, not just the Kurds, or something like that would dilute the Kurdish issue in a certain way? And also about the local language which is important of course, but also in a lot of big countries this is a problem, not only in Turkey. Like in our own country how prominent Spanish is being used or in China it is a problem as well. And sometimes it is not only the language or culture per se; they may just want to have their own country as the break of Yugoslavia and more recently the separation groups from Scotland from the UK demonstrate. They do not have a cultural problem but they still want to get away. So, basically the underlining thing may not just be a cultural education, maybe is much deeper in the certain sense of individual identity. JEFFREY DIXON: I really appreciate your comment. And, actually, you made a great comment earlier, and there are two things that are important to be considered here. I began my talk by saying, you know, I have this substantive concern with democracy and minority rights. And it is true that Larry Diamond, for example, and a lot of people who study democracy and minority rights, feel that this is normative. They feel that they have a normative requirement to promote democracy and minority rights. So, my concern here was minority rights broadly, and it is true that Kurds are not the only ethnic groups in Turkey. And what you said parallels exactly what I said in that I do think that there would be some resistance to some of the things that I proposed because it would dilute Kurdish power. It would set up a situation where you would have these cross-cutting identities that dilute anyone’s specific identity. Now that’s not too different, for example, from especially in the US after 2000, for example, 2010 census. The people are allowed to identify with multiple racial groups, and some have argued that this makes it quite difficult to monitor discrimination when oftentimes legislation itself is based on a specific racial or ethnic groups. So, I think your point is so valid and maybe something we would consider, but I mention just to stress my major point there, that it would represent a compromise, it 26 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question would representand I think all of us agree that compromise is necessary in the spirit of democracy in fact—it would represent a compromise between not recognizing ethnicity at all and recognizing only Kurdish ethnicity. DAVID ROMANO: There is an aspect of your question, however, which is an old issue in Turkey: if we give the Kurds this, than we would have to give all 72,5 other ethnicities of the country everything they want. I think it is a fundamentally flawed argument. There used to be many more, but there is one significant, very significant minority in Turkey and that is the Kurdish one. As if English Canadians, where I am from, had said years ago, we would like to give Quebec to French-Canadian . But then you know how many nations dwe have, how many other groups in the first place. That would have been a big problem. The two significant political groups in my country are French speakers and English speakers; we throw out some kind of back handed stuff for the first nations. But that is just to be politically correct. In Turkey, it is ethnic Turks and Kurds. TYLER THOMPSON: Hi there, I am from International Law and Public Policy Group. You guys said a little bit earlier that we are not sure what autonomy structures would look like or what form it would take. But since the autonomy idea has been an issue for Turkey for quite some time now, have there been any compelling models proposed for an autonomy situation? I know earlier you discussed about how in such a centralized government you know, any sort of autonomy would put a serious strain on the general structure the way the Turkish state looks. But have there been any compelling models for autonomy or is the Turkish state just afraid of the Iraq model and that’s what pretty much what they are looking at? Thanks. TOZUN BAHCHELI: I think the Iraqi Kurdistan model would be a nightmare for the Turkish state. Look, the Kurdish nationalists have looked at numerous multi-national societies including Canada that David and I are citizens of. And numerous European cases: Spain, Belgium, and so on. The ideal would be something like Quebec situation where Quebec enjoys considerable level of government guaranteed by the Canadian constitution. And I might add to what you said earlier David that Canada began as binational state. Two peoples founded the Canadian state and that really is the Kurdish nationalists’ ideal for this new constitution to actually say that Turkey is the bi-national state. And they see the attempt by the Turkish government people who say that there are dozens of other ethnicities, as an attempt to dilute the importance of the very substantial Kurdish community, 27 Rethink Institute Kurdish minority in Turkey. So to get back to the question, no one actually has specifically listed the powers that this Kurdish autonomous entity would have, but there have been a number of them. Including electing their own leaders, including having its own flag, which is very inflammatory as you can expect, including a considerable control authority over budgetary issues, having the capacity to tax and so on and so forth. So you have a list of powers that the nationalists have listed. And you have mostly silence on the most part of their government which i think extremely resistant to granting anything resembling that kind of wide authority. DAVID ROMANO: I would agree completely and just to add one point that in contrast to the Iraqi-Kurdish case, in Turkey if we talk about local government it should be on provincial level. We do not want situation like in Iraq with disputed territories and what do you do with problems like Kahramanmaras which are big mosaic and so forth. That’s a whole Pandora’s Box and if you are going to push the BDP to compromise anywhere it has to be that you are sticking with the provincial boundaries you got now we are not playing with borders here . FEVZI BILGIN: One of the questions that lingers, when we talk about autonomy, is that if some sort of decentralization happens in Turkey and one of the unit would be mostly Kurdish-intense unit, I think that’s the idea. Then the question is what to do with the rest of the Kurdish people living in the regions other than the Kurdish region? I think we have about 2 million Kurdish people, people of Kurdish decent in Istanbul and many more in Izmir and Antalya and so on. So in terms of these local territorial type of autonomy isn’t this is kind of ironic thing and just ) would like to add that I was in Turkey in March and I heard from the BDP circles, that if somebody has any doubt about Kurds in Turkey governing themselves, they should look at northern Iraq example. You said that it is a disastrous scenario. TOZUN BAHCHELI : It is not disastrous , it is wonderful for Iraqi-Kurds, but it is a nightmare for the Turkish government. DAVID ROMANO: But if it is local government at the provincial level Diyarbakir, Van, they just have more powers, determining aspects of their education program, then the issue of what to do with the Kurds in Istanbul is not an issue. They live in Istanbul they vote in the municipal elections, that is their government. We do not have to end up with a Kurdistan region like we have gotten in Iraq. Now Iraqi-Kurds have a lot of good reasons for wanting a Kurdistan region and I actually agreed with them there. But Turkey is 28 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question different and I think to avoid some of these problems like you so correctly point out. Then we talk about provincial governments in the municipalities that are given more powers and that effectively means more selfdetermination without forcing people to choose. You do not have to be this ethnicity to live in this province. ) don’t foresee it as having to go that way. TOZUN BAHCHELI: I completely agree with David on this. By the way, again, if I may decide on a Canadian analogy here, Quebec obviously has considerable autonomy in the Canadian federation or confederation, which is its formal title. There is significant French speaking communities in northern Ontario and some in southern Ontario where I live, in New Brunswick. They are almost half and half with the English speaking population in Manitoba as well. So granting autonomy, if it were to come pass to the Kurdish region, would not necessarily pose a problem for the issue on what to do with the Kurds in Istanbul, Izmir and Antalya. Actually, it is really a non-issue in my opinion. STANLEY KOBER: At the risk of being somewhat didactic I thought that I would invoke the Federalist Papers on this point since we are in Washington. Hamilton, in Federalist says The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing confederation is in the principles of legislation for states or governments in your corporate or collective capacities and as contradistinguished from the individuals of whom they consist and in Federalist 20 legislation for communities as contradistinguished from individuals is subversive of the order and ends of civil power. So that is part of the American heritage, and since we are in the United States, perhaps the panelist could address the lessons of the United States for Turkey and the Kurdish people in Turkey. TOZUN BAHCHELI: The United States has evolved into federation where one nationality really is the model, which is broadly accepted by the people of the United States including many millions of immigrants who come to this country. The constitution, the kind of federal arrangement that is being promoted by the Kurdish nationalists in Turkey is one for a multinational society. As you well know the majority of the countries of the world are multinational. Although only about a three dozen among them are federations. So the challenge for the Turkish state is how to deal with the demands for creating a multi-national federation. And some multi-national federations dissolved and went to oblivion. Czechoslovakia was a bi-national federation that became two separate countries. Canada itself is peaceful and 29 Rethink Institute wonderful as it is, but still has a Quebec secession on its agenda. So, multinational federations are difficult to sustain. But those countries like Belgium, Canada and Switzerland that are multi-national do so quite nicely and peacefully. JEFFREY DIXON: If I can just mention one thing. The one thing that I wonder, too, is that there’s a theory, ) think from political science, called the radical flank effect. The radical flank effect says basically when you have multiple groups,sometimes evoking violence such as during the 1960s in the United States, this helps more moderate groups’ claims seem to be more reasonable. So, in other words, in the 1960s, and this was written, this was an article was written by someone I cannot remember right now. But in the 1960s, the Black Panthers and others who were advocating for somewhat different more extreme, radical solutions, at least according to that time, made Martin King Jr. and others look much more moderate and made their demands seem more much more reasonable. Now I do wonder, for example, if some of the more radical claims made here, could actually open a way for a more moderate solution in Turkey, that is. JOSHUA NOONAN: Do you think that there is an Islamic dimension driving the Kurdish approach and then is AKP seeking a paradigm shift from ethnic Turkishness to religious Turkishness or something along that line? TOZUN BAHCHELI : The second question, I do not know, but I am actually very pleased that you are raising the first question, because I was discussing the subject matter of this panel with a friend of mine, Emre Uslu, I am sure you know him. He is a columnist for Taraf and has written widely on the Kurdish issue. His argument is that a group called Hizbullah—not to be confused with the Hezbollah of Lebanon—is actually on the rise in Turkey. This is a group that has been associated with some gruesome murders several years ago in Turkey. It turns out that some of these murders were actually committed not by them but by the so called JITEM, the counterguerilla shadow organization created by this so called deep state and so on. And according to Dr. Uslu, it is significant that this group has brought together, nearly half a million Kurds in Diyarbakir several weeks ago celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. So any group that its argument or any group that actually bring together half a million of people is a group that should be paid a serious attention. Now they have an Islamic agenda and not the secular agendas of the PKK, the BDP and so on. But to be 30 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question candid, I do not know. I mean, they are nationalist but what kind of Islamic Kurdish entity then? MAHIR AYHAN: I am a graduate student at the George Washington University. First, I would like to comment about the panel. I think you should be resolving Turkey’s Turkish problem, because, first of all, we have a Turkish problem in Turkey. It is not just in the state level, it is even in the intellectual level. Here we now have three panels, but none of the speakers is a Kurd from Turkey. So how can you attend these Kurdish aspects in Kurdish sides? I think we should first solve Turkish problems. And we should invite Kurdish speakers as well. TOZUN BAHCHELI: Are you saying that we are pro-Turkish? MAHIR AYHAN: )’m not telling you are pro-Turkish. But most of the speakers are Turks. There are some neutral people, but there should be some Kurdish as well. We have just one Iraqi-Kurd, but there should be a Kurd from Turkey. And second Professor, you told that the CHP is adjusting the situation. Isn’t this also true for AKP as well? For example, look at the AKP in 2006 and today. The AKP in 2006 was opposing the Turkish military. But today they are pro-military. Yesterday, one of the C(P’s deputies sued the chief of general staff of the Turkish military. So I guess it is same of the AKP as well. They just take their position according to situation. Do you not think so? TOZUN BAHCHELI: I actually credit the AKP for having greatly diminished the authority of the Turkish military and bring it to be subject to civilian rule. I think that is a fantastic achievement and kudos to them. Not to say that the Turkish military is without a voice and influence by the way. But, they have been defanged thanks to the AKP. Some of their plunders have gotten them into legal trouble and into disrepute, and they have been in many ways the architects of their own demise. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you for the discussion, the title of this panel is constitutional politics and you pointed out a very negative picture about the constitution. And I follow the Kurdish issue pretty closely and I am still confused on what the AK Party’s Kurdish policy is. It is current approach I guess. On the one hand, for example in northern Iraq getting closer with the Iraqi Kurds, hopefully they want to use them against the PKK and basically control them. On the other hand, there is this constitutional process we do not know where that is going to go, and then you have constant arrests, whether it is the KCK or PKK. And at the same time you have a gradual kind of reform process. And it is the third judicial reform. And little steps, like for 31 Rethink Institute example yesterday, the court making decision that saying Sayin Ocalan Mr. Ocalan) is no longer going to be a crime, and I think there are several thousands of people in prison just for saying Sayin Ocalan. Anyways, could you outline what the AK Party’s Kurdish policy is, and how do you view it, because it seems to be all over the place at this point. TOZUN BAHCHELI: You know you can look at the AK Party’s policy and say, just to pick on the last comment you made, it is an approach falling apart. But you can look at also the question that was raised earlier more optimistically. You can look at this glass and say that it is half empty or half full. I would not minimize just what the all of the changes, all of the improvements related to the Kurdish issue which has occurred during the past decade. My goodness, there has almost been a sea change in Turkey. Who would have thought that the kind of improvements on human rights, the freedom by which people can discuss taboo subjects can now happen? The truth of the matter is that as I see that the AKP is hesitant to take radical steps to meet some of this core demands made by the Kurdish nationalists. But if somehow it can make further improvements to what it has done and present it to the Kurdish people as work in progress, like we are doing more, here is what we are doing, more is forthcoming , then I think it is quite consumable. Many Kurds actually will be quite satisfied with that. As I see it right now, the AKP is trying to drive the wedge between the PKK and the Kurdish people. Whether this is achievable or not, ) don’t know. But I would not minimize what they have achieved. And I would not prematurely say that they are going to fail out there. DAVID ROMANO: I think the AKP, like most people is making it up as they go, now seriously you got this super complex problem. You have got a party with people of different perspectives, some of them Turkish nationalists, others are liberal, others Islamic, others Secular-Islamic and so forth. And I think your Kurdish nationalist friends have been feeling is before 2009. The idea was primarily the characters including negotiations with the folks in Kandil and so forth. And I think something that was not mentioned today yet was this Habur incident. Basically the government, not even the state so much, and the PKK make a deal secretly. And the PKK are going to start sending its people down from the mountains, and they are going to surrender themselves at Habur where they would be allowed to come back into Turkey. And you know the groups come, the first groups and there is like three thousand Turkish Kurds there to welcome them having a celebration, placed 32 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question very badly on TV. The nationalist flank to right of Erdogan taking them to town over this. He never foresaw anything of this, and of the Kurdish opening. Because first and foremost, you make up as you go always but first and foremost you have electoral calculus in front of you. If you are going to lose the next elections because of some celebration at the border post, sorry your initiatives are done. You do not have to do anything else after that and those people end up being arrested. And that is really nagging your secret agreement and that is when the PKK really picks up its attacks after that. It was quite before so, that takes two to a tango, and this is the end of the carrot. Then we have the mass arrest, we are going to crush until you are willing to deal again or we are going to completely freeze you out. And this is where we are at now. 33 Rethink Institute PANEL II The Actors of the Conflict: The Turkish Government, the PKK/KCK, Civil Society Efforts of Conflict Resolution Gunes M. Tezcur, Loyola University Chicago Robert Olson, University of Kentucky Dogan Koc, Gulen Institute at the University of Houston Ahmet Yukleyen (Moderator), Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars 34 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question AHMET YUKLEYEN: Let us get started with the first afternoon panel of the conference on the Kurdish issue, here at the Rethink Institute. Trying to rethink some old time questions and this is one definitely. I am really glad to present a very distinguished panel. Starting on your right end Gunes Murat Tezcur associate professor of political science department at Loyola University Chicago, to his right we have Prof. Robert Olson. He is a university professor of Middle East history and Islamic history from University of Kentucky and lastly, Dogan Koc, Senior Research fellow from Gulen Institute at the University of Houston. I look forward to the discussion and we will go by sequence if that is okay and we can start off with Gunes Murat Tezcur. The word is yours. GUNES TEZCUR: Good afternoon, thanks for coming. I am going to talk about possible scenarios for ending the conflict in Turkey. But basically following the pattern established in the first panel, I will be more pessimistic and you will see why. Let me basically say my conclusion and I will basically elaborate how I reached this conclusion. My conclusion is that ultimately there are two dimensions to Kurdish problem in Turkey. The first one is more about expansion of rights, and in a sense reconfirming the ethnic hierarchy that has been characterizing the Turkish state, since the establishment of the republic in 1923. So this is the first dimension it is more about democratization, and establishment of liberal rights. But in my presentation I am focusing on the second dimension which is obviously the insurgency that has been active in Turkey since 1984. So the question becomes how you can end this insurgency. And obviously when you talk about insurgencies, if you look at the world more than anything else, these are about power struggle, in a sense of power sharing, and there are maybe three bases you can add insurgency. My conclusion is that it will be misleading to spend too much time trying to end the insurgency. The priority should be given to democratization and liberalization. But be aware that democratization by itself will never end the insurgency. And of course I will explain how I reached this conclusion. So if you think about ending insurgencies, there are again three different scenarios that we can think specifically in Turkey. The first one is to defeat of insurgency and I will tell you why it is almost impossible to defeat the insurgency at this moment. The second one is the marginalization of the insurgency in the sense of making insurgency insular and just isolating them 35 Rethink Institute from the general Kurdish society. I also think that it is also very difficult to achieve at this stage and I will also explain why. And final one is basically some kind of negotiations that will end in power sharing, and I will also explain why at this stage it is very difficult to reach this conclusion power sharing. So this basically means that for foreseeable future we will see the continuation of the insurgency in Turkey. What is insurgency? We always talk about the Kurdish problem, as if we know about the basic empirical regularities characterizing the Kurdish insurgency. Let me summarize certain patterns. So if you look at the insurgency in the last 10 years, I will say since the beginning of 2002, even before AK Party came to power you basically see several patterns. The first pattern is that the violence by both sides has been highly selective, so you do not necessarily see lots of indiscriminative violence that characterize other insurgencies in different parts of the world. So if you look at the actual figures, it is always the case that you have some civilians being killed either by security forces or by the insurgents, sometime mistakenly like friendlyfire. It happened in Uludere in December 2011. But in most cases, the people who are killed are either PKK militants, or the security forces. So in a sense, most of the civilians who are killed are actually killed of random violence, for example by land mines that have been a problem in different parts of the world. In a given year we can think about 20 children, for example, killed by land mines because they are spread all over the different parts of the regions. But ultimately this is just very selective, and I mean obviously violence is never good but selective violence is much more manageable than indiscriminate violence. The second pattern is that, unlike some of the conspiracy theories that we see in the Turkish media lately, the violence on both sides is highly under control of the strong central hierarchies. What I mean is that if you can look at the patterns of violence, they typically follow political events, for example in 2009 when there was a Kurdish initiative, which ended by the Habur debacle in October 2009. You do not see much violence in 2009, which basically means that both the Turkish security forces and the militants refrained from attacking each other because there were some expectations that there would be some kind of breakthrough in this conflict. But then when you look at 2007, it had been the most violent year in the last 10 years, and the main reason is that because 2007 was the year when the AK Party actually consolidated its power by winning the elections in July and then 36 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question there were lots of tensions among the Kurdish nationalists. Because of the fact that they were losing their control over the constituency and they basically responded with lots of violence, especially in the late summer and the fall of 2007. And most recently in 2011, in the election year, you also see high levels of violence. So the point is that unlike some conspiracy theories or some kind of views saying that there is a lot of fragmentation in the PKK or the Turkish security forces, I do not see this when I look at the actual patterns of violence. This basically means that as long as you basically have some kind of political process, than the both sides commits their resource to political process by not committing lots of violence against each other. The third pattern that I would like to say briefly is that if you look at the geographical distribution of violence it is mostly concentrated in two provinces, which is called Botan in PKK parlance, Sirnak and Hakkari. Around 35 or 40 percent of all the attacks which result in deaths in each year actually take place in these provinces. Which basically means that the insurgency is contained, so you do not see insurgency in Agri, or Malatya, or in most part of Elazig, and nothing in Urfa. But you see lot of violence in these two border regions; Hakkari and Sirnak regions. Which means that these are two areas that are not necessarily controlled by the Turkish security forces. You have basically lots of insurgent activism in these two regions and that is surprising given the mountainous characteristics of the region. And also they are very close to the PKK’s sanctuaries in northern )raq. And the forth pattern I would like to say is that, this is something too cynical but I come from a more realist tradition. If you look at the past, in none of the years, the deaths from the insurgency exceed four hundred people including the militants, civilians and the security forces. You basically see the limit amount of violence characterizing the Kurdish problem in the last 10 years, especially compared to what happened in early 1990s or late 1980s when there were many more people being killed. And it is tolerable not maybe for me, coming from also having some liberal convictions but tolerable to some governments, as long as there are not very strong attacks by the insurgents. It is somewhat tolerable by the insurgents inside, because as long as they can get maybe around 400 recruits every year from their bases then the insurgency becomes sustainable. Ultimately they only need 400 hundred people from different Kurdish communities, not only in Turkey but also from Syria, Iraq, and Iran, to replace those who left or killed. So it is not very difficult for insurgency to find these 400 young people from these 37 Rethink Institute communities to sustain itself. It is almost impossible for any kind of Turkish government to end this recruitment given the social networks characterizing the insurgents recruitment. I mean this is very like a bold statement but I can basically sustain my statement if you ask further questions. Coming back to the first option, defeat of the insurgency, I basically make the claim that it is almost impossible for the Turkish government to defeat insurgency. There are four factors that contribute the feasibility of the insurgency and its viability. First of all, you need recruitment, I have briefly talked about recruitment, you need sanctuary in the sense that you need some camps or maybe like cross border camps, from which you can stage attacks which is the case in the Kurdistan region of Iraq at the moment. You need some kind of public endorsement, which basically means that when you attack the Turkish forces, you also need some kind of approval from the larger Kurdish constituency, which is the case at the moment. And finally you need some kind of financing because this is the only way you can buy weapons and sustain yourself. And if you look at all these four factors recruitment, sanctuary, public endorsement and finance, with the partial exception of sanctuary that I will come in the end of my talk, It is not very likely in the foreseeable future that any these factors will be ending. It is very difficult, almost impossible for Turkish government to end recruitment. Public endorsement, yes many Kurds are against the insurgency but then I mean there are also Kurds who endorse attacks by the Kurdish insurgency and as long as they continue to endorse their attacks, the insurgency will enjoy some kind of public legitimacy and this is what basically matters. And if you look at the finance, well, you can cut of some finance by operations as the Turkish government tried to do so in Turkey, with the KCK operations, but there is a huge Kurdish diaspora living in Europe and there is no way you can basically pretend the Kurdish diaspora is not supporting the PKK at the moment. And I think important part of the PKK’s income comes from the Kurdish diaspora living in Europe. So given these all four factors, I can basically say with some confidence that, at least in the foreseeable future, it is very difficult for the Turkish government to defeat the Kurdish insurgency. So what about the marginalization of the insurgency, which is the second option? I mean, is it possible for the government to marginalize the insurgency? From what I follow, this is what the government tries to do in the last years or so. And if you look at the KCK operations, their aim is to completely suppress the political expectations of the insurgency and hope to 38 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question liberate the Kurdish constituency. But the problem is that this is not how it works if you basically talk to ordinary Kurds. Because if you talk to ordinary Kurds, and ordinary Kurds are not always willing to talk to strangers, I can say that these operations are highly unpopular among Kurds, even if they do not necessarily support the PKK or the BDP, even among some religious Kurds. And I never get the impression that these KCK operations will lead to some kind of marginalization of the insurgency in the eyes of the ethnic Kurds. So I do not think this is working either. You can also say that well, what about some kind of constitutional reform, for example the recognition of the Kurdish language in education? And I will say that this may be successful, especially if you look at 2007, when the AK Party became much more popular among the Kurds. Many people thought that AK Party is having a very different approach of the Kurdish problem in contrast to previous Turkish governments and ultimately it is going to establish some kind of an atmosphere in which the Kurdish or the public of expression of Kurdish will be much more free. But when you look at the political atmosphere nowadays you do not get this impression. There is lot of skepticism, there is a lot of cynicism. Even many religious Kurds, and I talk to the religious Kurds in a regular basis, they do not feel that at the moment the government is pursuing a strategy that will somehow result in greater rights for Kurdish people. But ultimately, you can make the argument that as long as the government comes with a new constitution which would make possible for Kurds to teach their own mother language in their education system, it may achieve some kind of a progress in ending or at least limiting some of the support for the Kurdish insurgency. But then again coming from the realist tradition, I am very skeptical of these attempts to marginalize the insurgency in the eyes of the Kurdish insurgency. So, what about the third option, which is about negotiations? There have been some negotiations as we all know made between the government and the insurgency starting perhaps maybe in 2009, even maybe going to the previous years. But ultimately when you look at the content of these negotiations, and expectations of the both sides, you basically see a huge gap. Things like Turkey colonizes the Kurds, and this has been kind of rhetoric that characterize the Kurdish nationalist since the late 1960s, still persists. And, they think, now it is our time to get some kind of benefits out of it which basically means that they demand some kind of power sharing. Now it is their time to get some kind of benefits when they go back home in Turkey or what 39 Rethink Institute they called the north Kurdistan in their language. If you look from the government perspective this is something probably unacceptable, not just from the AK Party’s perspective, I cannot really imagine any kind of Turkish government, at least in the foreseeable future, saying that okay now we are basically willing to share some kind of power with the Kurdish nationalists. And now there should be some kind of amnesty, and as a result from amnesty this people should get some power positions in the regions inhabited by the Kurds in Turkey. So if you look from the insurgent’s perspective their expectations and demands are so different from what the government is willing to give them. Because from the government’s perspective, which is not surprising that they want to end the insurgency because it is harming the Turkis economy, costing Turkish lives. They can come with some kind of an amnesty at most, they can come up with some broader rights, but ultimately it is almost impossible to think that the governments will say okay now, there is some kind of power and you are welcome to share this power with us. I cannot imagine this is happening at least in the foreseeable future. So what is the purpose of negotiations? Well the purpose of negotiations can be several things. First, it basically buys time for both sides, it somehow limits violence, because whenever there are negotiations, as in the case of 2009, you look at the actual numbers and see that fewer people get killed, which is obviously a good thing. As long as there is some negotiation between the insurgents and the government it basically decreases intensity of the conflict. So coming back to my earlier points, given this structural and maybe these institutional constraints it is hard to say that it is possible in foreseeable future to end insurgency in Turkey. So what can we do? We can of course try to basically accelarate democratization, we can try to provide more rights for Kurdish people and basically just hope for the best in the near future. So let me complete by talking about maybe three different possible developments in the near future. Well, I can think of some breakthroughs in the next elections both the local and parliamentary elections, which are important because in a sense since 2007, the AK Party government has only been on the defensive especially since 2009 in the Kurdish areas. And , when I say on defensive it basically means that it now tries to protect its own votes, rather than trying to take more votes from the Kurdish nationalists. And how does it implement this strategy? Well through two ways. Through economic development, basically promising more prosperity, but also using the the 40 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question Islam card, basically emphasizing the religious bond between the Turks and the Kurds. But the problem is that if you know something about Kurdish society, it is hard to say that these two things may be sufficient to really curve Kurdish nationalists in the next elections. Because if you again talk to people who do not necessarily support the insurgency and who have strong religious sensibilities, they are critical of the government. Because they think that the government’s initiative is not enough for the Kurdish rights. So the one danger or risk from the government’s perspective is that if the Kurdish nationalists manage to increase their vote share significantly in the next local or parliamentary elections this is going to change the direction to a certain extent, and this is actually very possible given the current trends in the Turkish politics nowadays. The second thing is that, I think it is also important and this is the subject of the next panel, the relations between the Kurds in Turkey and Iraqi Kurds. There are all these speculations about the Iraqi Kurds, who are obviously demanding independence and they are basically preparing infrastructure for that. One thing I always find it interesting is that, at the moment the Iraqi Kurds depend on the Baghdad government to export their oil except for some trucks which are exporting oil illegally, because they do not have control over the pipeline. But you can imagine some kind of an agreement between the Turkish government and the Iraqi Kurds, saying that now we will basically allow the Iraqi Kurds to export their oil independently from the Baghdad government’s control to Turkey in exchange for all the economic opportunities in Iraqi Kurdistan for Turkish investors. And you can say that if something like happens, then you may have some real attempts by the Barzani government to end the sanctuary in Kandil, which is used by the PKK. I do not know if it is possible or not because I do not know have enough knowledge about the mountain structure in this area. But you can make the agreement as long as the relations between the KRG and Turkey improve. There is always the chance that KRG will be less willing to tolerate the PKK presence in this territory. So this is basically the breakthrough which may happen in the near future. And finally, just to conclude, I will say that we have this conflict for more than almost for thirty years, and the conflict cost many lives. But again it is important to have a more realist perspective and not have false expectations regarding how we can end this insurgency. I think it is important to emphasize the constitutional process, which may continue or not, but 41 Rethink Institute ultimately result in more rights to many people including the Kurdish minority. But just prioritizing ending insurgency can actually backfire and may result more violence. AHMET YUKLEYEN: Thank you very much Gunes. Thank you for the presentation. Just one note and we will move to the second panelist. As you mentioned several times in your talk, realism seems to be focusing on the zero sum game, so I hope there are other options. I think that what we will talk about more, now we return to Dr. Robert Olson. ROBERT OLSON: Well thank you Ahmet and thank you for the great talk. Let me just say that I have known Gunes now for few years or so, and I started out in Middle East Studies forty years ago and at that time there were few people who really study anthropology, sociology although there were plenty political scientist. But now Gunes has just told me that as a very young and brilliant scholar that he has won Guggenheim award and I think that everybody should acknowledge that great achievement. As I mentioned I started out my career a long time ago, in 1989 I publish a book called the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism, and I had been working on it in England and France in the public record office that I came across all kinds of documents talking about Sheik Said rebellion. Being a young scholar I was eager to gather enough materials so I could get promoted. And you know I mean the Turks and Kurds were secondary in my thought. So I had family and so forth but then I did finish in 1988, and then it came out in 1989. Then of course soon after that it was being published and read and sold and so forth, and then the 1991 war. When the United States went to war against Iraq and of course, I had enough experience then by studying in Middle East and in the Ottoman Empire in Turkey to realize this was going to be very significant event. But I did not think I, think anyone else did and very few scholars of Turkey, I do not know about analysts in Turkey working for the intelligence agencies and so forth knew how large it would be and I certainly did not as a scholar. I did a little study a few years ago and in fact, I think I have given it in the our book now about nationalism in Yugoslavia and Miroslav (oc’s idea of how ethnic minorities nationalism in majoritarian ethnic societies evolve. And he divided into three major categories that is in a nationalist movement, what the intellectual scholar so forth do. Secondly the nationalist mobilization you know of the movement, and then the nationalist themselves and then the masses. And he was particularly interested in what the Danes would do and what the Flemish in Belgium would do, which has been the 42 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question topic of our conversation here, because they run to German and French domination and international capitalism to a large extent and they broke off and went into other nationalist movements in Turkey. That left five major groups, the Norwegians who were under Danish hegemony, the Czechs in Bohemia, who were under Germany hegemony, the Fins under Swedish hegemony, the Lithuanians of course, Poles and the Estonians, the Russians and the Slovaks who fought under German and Czech, largely German domination. If we exclude the Danes in Germany and the Flemish in Belgium, where the Norwegians, it was only the Norwegian bourgeoisie, which is what I wanted to make some comments on, who fought for the nationalist movement and therefore I want to touch upon the role for example of the Kurdish bourgeoisie would follow. So out of all of these it was only the Norwegian bourgeoisie who were willing to fight for the nationalist goal, in all those three categories. And this brings up another point to think about the nationalism and the bourgeoisie from a scholar whom ) enjoy, Tom Nyeren, who said ethnic linguistic features so prominent in the ideologies of nationalism have always been secondary to the material factors of uneven development . And all of us certainly know with regard to Turkey and especially with the Kurds in Turkey, you had tremendous uneven development. The fact is that, I would suggest this is still the major policy of the Turkish state, certainly the major policy of the AKP, and I would say the armed forces and the intelligent agencies as well is to recognize belatedly. Yet it remains that notoriously subjective or rational or irrational elements in nationalism are always functionally subordinate to the economic reality. What is that context of development in Turkey between western Turkey and eastern Turkey? The Kurds and Turks are mixed up in all that area, but if we can put economic regions and also with relations of course particularly without leaving the Kurds in Iran aside and in Syria aside with Iraq which is so important. So, those are the things that I want to, that I want to mention. So recently I have been very interested in the project of management. Being an American I am very interested how the United States manages its foreign policy and just one out of many paradigms, how the United States does manage the war on terrorism and the complete disconnect between the government and the intelligence agencies. The United States armed forces operate with regard to how that is propagandized in the American public. You hardly know you are in the same world, if you listen to American 43 Rethink Institute discourse in public media on this instance. So I think that what it is very important for Turkey is how to manage. I think that the audience here knows but just let me mention it briefly how Turkey has managed the Kurdish questions really since the origin of the republic in the 1923 onward. So the Turkish armed forces, of course the national police, the local police, infiltrators, informants, torture, acid pits, assassinations, special spies, agents and so forth. We could go on and on how the Turkish state has sought to manage the Kurdish questions over the last almost 85 years. So in this, of course, especially as so many panelists have mentioned, you have the situation with the PKK, especially since 1984, when the Eruh attack was kind of direct challenge to the Turkish state. From that the time on really from 1999, you had this whole plethora of various Kurdish parties and Kurdish ethnic parties and so forth. How to manage that at that time, you have crescendo or judiciary in Turkey became more important in terms of managing the question. In fact, now I would say now the judiciary is more important than the armed forces become of the developments in the past five or six years or so. And remember that this management of the Kurdish question or Kurdish issue took place in TurkeyAnd let us remember that Europe was a very significant important place of managing the Kurdish questions as far as the Turkish state concerned. And also the control of the mass media, cyberspace, and so forth all played of course major roles. So it should be pointed out here as well that up 75 Kurdish deputy are in the AKP. We already mentioned in this discussion that Sezgin Tanrikulu is now a major deputy to Kemal Kilisdaroglu’s C(P. )t is extremely significant in terms of the response of the various Kurdish nationalist groups and parties how to address the Kurdish question on more, having more advantageous political positions now because of the discussions on the constitution, which potentially could come up in the next coming year or so. Let us remember too that the AKP had a lot of votes from the Kurds, some people mention more than 50 percent. Just three days ago, once again to forego lot of history here, Erdogan said that ben Sirnak, Mardin ve Diyarbakir’i istiyorum . And then Selahattin Demirtas responsed ben Londra, Roma ve Paris’i istiyorum . And ) thought that was interesting in that Erdogan was addressing the constituencies in Turkey on what I would call national basis and Selahattin Demirtas was addressing it in universal or international audience in terms of saying that ) want London, Paris and 44 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question Rome with revocations of course to address domestic politics within Turkey, so the challenge still of course goes on. Let us not forget that the Turkish state with regards to nationalism has always allowed Kurdish political parties to exist from 1990. This was done in many different countries with minority groups that acts as safety valve in many ways. And we had probably the support of the Turkish state or intelligence services in Turkey to do that. So the most important factor seems to be in the Kurdish question is really the Kurdish bourgeoisie in many ways. The topic that has not been addressed yet is the extent to which the Kurdish bourgeoisie is significant in terms of the management of the Kurdish nationalism in Turkey. I think that of the main objects to persuade the Kurdish bourgeoisie to cooperate with the state and, prior to this of course, the Turkish Armed Forces to some extent, are the negotiations that have taken place over the past decade or by Turkey’s intelligence agencies and the elements of the PKK. In order to receive greater funds from the state and if they want to develop TUSIAD, MUSIAD and all of the other kinds of things, I mean the last five or six years what I read is always constant threats from TUSIAD, even MUSIAD, which claims to be with Muslim organization, is that you know no funds are going to go to southeast of Turkey unless you severe your ties with the PKK and of course this means all affiliates, certainly the KCK. And there is no fund for the Kurdish bourgeoisie, and some Kurdish scholars have said well there is no Kurdish bourgeoisie. So if you prefer we can save money and not use the term Kurdish bourgeoisie. But how are they going to be funded, and not much has come really although the AKP said we did this and that . ) think Bulent Arinc said the other day five billion dollars here and so forth. I am not getting into the GAP project and to what extent that benefits the Kurds or the Kurdish bourgeoisie although probably substantially but how much Kurds as a whole that is the question that Gunes and the scholars here can address. The Kurdish bourgeoisie, according to election results, as far as I can see, vote for the AKP in the southeast. And all the prominent names I come across ran for the AKP, in Diyarbakir and other cities. So, the Kurdish bourgeoise had to cut relations with the PKK, KCK. Though, I do not think the BDP, because that is a useful element for the Turkish government to say that "we are democratic legal state". But, remember, this also places a dilemma for the Kurdish bourgeoise, however you want to describe it, in a sense how it that going to affect their relations with the elements of Kurdish nationalist 45 Rethink Institute movement. You have BDP spokesmen, from Sebahat Tuncel and others, saying that "this is our base, we cannot cut relations from that". We do not know how many voted, 1,8 million in the last election, and there maybe 4-5 million people passively supported. So they would be cutting off their hands probably, if they did this. So the management of the Kurdish question means that Kurdish nationalism have to manage its own Kurdish nationalist movement. So the Kurdish bourgoisie also have a Kurdish question and a Kurdish problem? In order to manage this problem, to maintain their legitimacy, as interlocutors of the Turkish state as well as those people who are favoring their party and their identity. This is very important, as Gunes said, in terms of the success or lack of success of the abilities we are seeing in history to divide and conquer, divide and fragment, divide in marginalize and whatever it is the policies of the Turkish state in this various collaboraters or operatives are, whether they are the Diyanet the Gulen movement or whether they are the Naqshbandi and so forth. And I say that is important because the Gulen movement is is important not only in eastern Turkey, but it is important in Iraqi Kurdistan as well. Iraqi Kurdistan is important for Turkey to manage the Kurdish question in Turkey, and so they need their support. Of course they have to have the support of Naqshbandi order in Iraq as well as in Turkey as well as the Gulen movement. Let us not forget that there are fourteen Gulen schools for examples in Iraq, there is a university, there are other things there and they collaborate and I do not know to what extent to the Naqshbandi collaborate or cooperate I should say. Collaborate sometimes in English has a bad connotation, but it does not academically speaking. In addition to that, you have to consider the connections between the Diyanet with the Gulen movement and also with the Naqshbandi but that is beyond my expertise, but Ahmet probably can address those issues. But I think they are very vital and I think the Diyanet is important. I mean, I have heard that 110-115 thousand people are working in the Diyanet. I do not know what their all relations are with the Gulen movement or with the Naqshbandi movement. And let me make a comment here. I think that in order to manage the Kurdish question in Turkey you have to very much take into consideration the Kurdish question in Iraq, that is not the topic of the conversation here, leaving Iran and leaving Syria aside. The reason why is because it affects the strategic depth policy of the Turkish foreign policy and the whole foreign policy of the AK party and certainly Ahmet Davudoglu’s position, even from 46 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question 2003 on, before he became the foreign minister I think in August of 2009. Of course that has some setbacks everybody is well aware of it because of the situation in Syria. But I think that Turkish role in Syria is the most vital certainly more important than Europe or United States policy, because I think Turkey is the most important person in the policy makers because of the implications that it has for the Kurdish question in Turkey especially because of the involvement of Iran and the differences between Turkey, Iran and this policy. The fact that strategic depth doctrine and the Kurdish question are intimately tied because of not just the Kurdish question in Syria, we know that it is very divided, we know there are 12 or 13 different groups, but because of the effect on the Kurdish question in Turkey. In this sense, probably in my own judgment, despite difficulties over longer period of time that the Assad government will be compelled, to change very dramatically along the lines the Turkey wants for geopolitical reasons within the Middle east and the global geopolitical reasons as far as Europe and United States are concerns. So the Kurdish question really is the global dimension if you want to bring in the city where we are now in Washington DC. So let me end here by saying that there was an interview, in 2008 I think, with Huseyin Avni Mutlu, who was the governor in Diyarbakir, before that he had been in Sirnak and in his interview, they said, well, what is the main issue of the Kurdish question? Or is it a regional question? And here he said niye kimlik sorunu olsun? Why should it be an identity issue?). He insisted that the main issues were regional and humanitarian, and that these issues had to be dealt seriously. (e insisted further that some Kurdish politicians were exploiting their people in the region for their own political benefit in order to have an identity problem. It is necessary to have such a problem emerge. If a problem is being created or caused some of our citizens who are Kurds then this might be called a Kurdish question. But there is no such thing. With a citizen document, every citizen can travel to every part of the country and is able to work and its children can study in any place in Turkey . But then the interviewer pressed him a little bit more and about the identity question. When he responded this time, insisted that issues were not just issues of identity or economics. In his opinion the biggest violation of human rights was poverty, as it dissipates the principles of honor. Then he added: The agas and beys, the landlords of these region are now selling cigarettes giving back to my question to the Kurdish bourgeoisie I mean an aga can be considered a nascent in bourgeoisie. Without doubt it was the demand for identity he said. 47 Rethink Institute Let me just conclude by saying that it seems to be his policy and I think that Mutlu was one of the chief architect of the AKP and probably of the state with regard to the challenges that the Kurdish questions present. One has to think that there was some success because August of that year he become the governor of Istanbul and I see his pictures frequently in the paper. That is it. AHMET YUKLEYEN: Thank you very much, Dr Olson, it was a tour de force. I think you covered the major questions. One trend seems to be that the language is now shifting overall in the conference as far as I see, from resolving or solving to managing. So that seems to be something that I would briefly note. And of course the biggest question of the economic basis of this problem which we have not touched yet. And there I think you had brought it very forcefully and role of economic classes such as the bourgeois class among the Kurds could play a role in understanding this issue ahead. So thank you very much and now we turn to Mr. Koc. DOGAN KOC: Thank you. I think first of all I need to confess that I am not an expert on the issue as other panelists attending this conference. My research actually is a one-time research that I conducted in 2010 in the region and I usually look at the conflict resolution in general sense. But for this research, I went to the region and conducted some interviews and collected data and applied some models to the data and today’s presentation that I have is actually result of that research. In my presentation I have four questions that I am planning to address and hopefully I will be able to clarify my answers to those questions. First how do we define the resolution of the problem? Who are the actors? And I define four actors in the conflict, one is the PKK mainly and the second one is the Turkish government but I divided Turkish government into two one is Turkish military and the other one is the Turkish elected government, which I think are not very same, they are different. The third is civil society and I have included Gulen movement in this case as the civil society and its involvement in the resolution. For each actor I define different parameters, different variables to measure their strategies. And their activities or strategies are actually tied to how they define the problem. If we go back to the first question, how do we define the resolution? The problem that we have is not a recent one and it is been going on probably for a century and the PKK is actually a product of that conflict. But I define the end of PKK as the resolution of the problem. It does not matter how you end the PKK or any insurgency, as long they are not committing violent activities 48 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question or attacks or if there is no militant actually participating the PKK, then the PKK ended. When I say militants I specifically use the armed people that are fighting for the PKK, if you do not have these two things, no attacks no militants, the problem is resolved. When we talk about the Kurdish problem we usually talk about the PKK and the Turkish state. There is less attention paid to civil society and that is why I actually spent more time on the Gulen movement and its involvement in the Kurdish issue. And Dr. Olson actually brought the issue over here, it is a very important actor not only in the Kurdish issue but in probably all social and political matters in Turkey. The second question I would try to answer is, why we should or why do I include Gulen movement as an actor. The third question is that what the strategies of the Gulen movement are, i.e. the activities of the Gulen movement that are related to Kurdish issue. And the forth and the last question that I will try to answer is whether these activities work. Are they effective? The Gulen movement has become a major actor in Turkey not only in the Kurdish conflict but in any social and political matters in Turkey. Apart from these general reasons the movement is also very active in the Kurdish region, while its activities are not directed at the PKK, they are nonetheless affecting it indirectly. And also in recent years, there has been some statements coming from the PKK about the movement. At the beginning, it was actually friendly but later on the language changed. As you may remember Ocalan made a statement in 2010 saying that the movement is very powerful and is very important in Turkish democratization and the PKK should engage with the movement. Of course the movement or the leadership of the movement denied an engagement with the PKK, but, later on, Karayilan also made statements which changed the language. This time it is not very friendly, it is targeting the movement. Also recent police reports coming from the region and some private organizations’ reports also show that where the movement is active and is operating an educational institution, the crime level and the activities of the PKK drop significantly. Also, another reason why I included the Gulen movement as an actor because its educational activities increase cultural interaction between the Turks and the Kurds. And I will get to the point when I give details about the research. Most of better universities are located in western or central part of Turkey. And students who attend the Gulen schools, the Gulen education institutions are placed in other parts of the country. And also a lot of teachers are coming from to the region from 49 Rethink Institute other parts of Turkey, so by itself the activities of the movement increase the cultural and social interaction between Turkish and Kurdish ethnic groups. What are the strategies and activities of the movement in the region and how does Fethullah Gulen define the problem? For those who don’t know him, Gulen is an Islamic scholar from Turkey who inspired a huge social movement. I think the numbers are in millions right now, and very active in the Turkish society. How Gulen defines the problem is very important in the activities of the moment. According to him, while economic and cultural grievances are part of the problem, the perception of the Kurdish people that they have been abandoned by the state is also an important element. He suggests that the state should attend its citizens’ needs whether economic or cultural. Representatives of the state, such as security forces and bureaucrats should respect the values of their citizens. He believes that the power of state might have blinded its reasoning and the state might have used force to overcome the problem by pressure. While this could solve this issue for a short time in long term it will create bigger problems. Gulen also suggests that while security forces should deal with the criminal activities, they should be very careful in distinguishing innocent people from criminals and terrorist. This is what he thinks with regard to what the state should do and what the state did not do in the past. A critic of the state, in a sense, but on the other hand he does not expect a resolution only from the government or the state; he suggests that the people of Turkey should embrace the people of the region. People living in other parts of the country should also feel responsibility and engage in the conflict resolution in this matter. For Gulen, these are the main things that he thinks are important for resolution: Education, interaction between people, and dealing with the poverty. The activities of the moment match these categories. We can categorize the educational activities of the moment in three categories: university preparation or high school preparation centers, (dershane in Turkish). You have to take a nationwide test after you graduate from high school or graduate from middle school and according to your test score you are placed to a certain university. So for children who are attending high school or graduate from high school it is very to go a preparation center or dershane to get additional education. The second is schools, high schools, private high schools and the third is tutoring centers (in Turkish okuma salonlari) and reading centers. These are the three major educational 50 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question activities or institutions that the movement has in the region. I have some numbers related to these educational activities. First of all the dershanes, or university preparation centers. The movement is known mainly for these for these preparation centers all over Turkey. )n fact the movement’s first education institutions were university preparation centers in the region. The first university preparation centers affiliated with the movement was opened in the Diyarbakir and Sanliurfa in . My data, by the way, covers from to , so )’m looking at that time period. And the movement affiliated preparations centers were the first of their kind in these cities of Diyarbakir and Urfa. In their first years, the centers started with 40-50 students, but when the students began to go good universities, these centers became popular. And the number of students attending these centers increased dramatically. Between 1993 and 1995, the number of centers increased dramatically. Now there are university preparations centers not only in the cities but in towns and large villages. There are more than one hundred Gulen movement affiliated universities preparation centers with more than ninety thousand students in the region. And the data that I am given over here that also data for sixteen cities in the southeast, sixteen cities, and this is actually 2010, I believe right now is over a hundred thousand students attending only to these university preparation centers. In some towns these centers are the only education institutions besides the government schools. One teacher explained the interest and the approval of the movement by these educational centers: These people wanted their children to go the university and to save their lives. Education is the only hope for most of these people, the region has been abandoned and they did not have a good school for the long time. When we came here and opened these centers and help their kids go to the university it was like we saved their lives, countless time I was thanked by parents of our students with high gratitude. People of the region are tired of violence and terror. They want good education, good life and peace. Student also would like to get education and go to university but they have not given chances. If you come to our centers in the middle of the night at 9 or 10 pm, you can see our classrooms full of students. There are two reasons for these, first they really want to go to university thus they are working hard and the second their homes are overcrowded. Each family has 7-8 children and these students do not have suitable study environment, therefore they stay at our centers until 10 to 11 51 Rethink Institute pm . All these preparation centers charge tuition, and depending on the region, around 20 percent of the students received scholarships. The second activity or the institution of the movement is schools, private high schools. Private schools that are affiliated with the movement are very active in the region. The schools provide high quality education for students of 8th to 12th grades. There are not as many as preparation centers but there are schools in every city and also in any major town. These schools also charged tuition but then again almost 20 to 25 percent of students receive full scholarships. Most of the schools are the best schools in the region and they follow state curriculum and additional international curriculum. The main language of instruction is English. The school facilities and technological instruments are above the state schools in western part of the country. In addition to tuition, these schools are financially supported by the local businessman. While some of these schools are built by western businessman, most are built by the wealthy families of the Kurdish region. Children of the wealthy families of the region and of the upper class state officials mostly attend these schools, along with financially supported student. These schools, on their own, provide an environment of integration of both ethnic and class differences. These are also more than 10 similar schools in northern Iraq and a university in Erbil. The third type of educational institutions the movement has in the region are tutoring centers. And I think this is very important to this discussion, and I think the PKK was disturbed by these tutoring centers more than other institutions. Although there are tutoring centers all over Turkey, they are mostly concentrated in the southeast region. These centers are smaller than preparation centers with 200-300 students per center. Since these centers target low income students, they are mainly located in low income neighborhoods and suburbs. Unlike the schools and the preparation centers, these tutoring centers are free of charge and run especially to help low income students. These centers are operated by nonprofit organizations that are affiliated by the movement. Only students whose family income below a minimum level are admitted to these centers. The students’ needs including books, test materials and even sometimes clothing provided by the centers for free of charge. The first of such centers opened in 2003, in the largest cities in the region. Now there are tutoring centers in every city, town, and even some villages. In summer of 2010, there are more than two hundred tutoring centers, serving more than 50 thousand low income students. These 52 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question centers apply the same curriculum of any similar private preparation center. Middle school students are attending to these centers. As I said in the Turkish education system, in order for you to get in a high school you have to take the national test after you graduate from middle school. So all these students who are attending these centers are eight graders actually and from low income families. And 80 percent of the students who are attending these centers are placed to a better high school. The centers also provide social sports activities, sport tournaments in parts of the country, and aid distributions. The nonprofit foundation that manages and operates these centers also provides scholarships after they graduate. Each year more than two thousand students are receiving full scholarships. According to some members of these centers, the PKK is disturbed by these centers due to its high activity in low income regions and suburbs. There are statements actually from the PKK leadership that these centers are targeting PKK’s recruitment. You know it is known that sometimes the PKK used the children to throw stones to the police. And these instances have dropped dramatically after tutoring centers opened in these regions. The other type of activities of the movement are those which I call fellowship activites, which is not included actually in the data set, due to the difficulty of collecting data in this area. So I did not include in my analysis. But it’s worth mentioning because Gulen defines education, interaction, and dealing with the poverty, as tools of remedy. The fellowship activity is the interaction between the Kurds and the Turks and the people from the west and the east. Gulen values close personal relations, he states that personal contacts can make big differences and establish culture between people. He emphasizes that personal contact between the people of the west and the east can eliminate the sense of abandonment that the people of the east has. For him these personal contacts are as important as educational activities and economic investment. Once Gulen gave an online statement in 2007, which jumpstarted a huge campaign in Turkey. (e said that even a rose that you give to your fellow or a smile on your face towards that fellow, can change the things millions of dollars cannot. The people of the region feel abandoned by its state, by its country, and by reaching out and visiting them in their homes, you can show that you did not abandon them and you are there with them. After this statement, a lot of people from the western part of Turkey visit people in southeastern Turkey. ) don’t have data for each year, but I can give you a data for 2006, during this four days campaign that 53 Rethink Institute happened during the sacrifice feast, over 18 thousand people from the western part of Turkey visited 103 thousand families, and this is organized through Kimse Yok Mu foundation, an aid foundation affiliated with the movement. They collect donations all over Turkey and Europe and they distribute donations all over the world not only in Turkey, But because of the economic grievances, 70 percent of their distribution goes to southeast and eastertern part of Turkey. And they still organize similar campaigns each year, and I think the number is also increasing. Probably right now 20 to 30 thousand people from western Turkey are going to eastern Turkey to make the donation. This foundation, in this case, is not asking people to donate, but asking them to go and make their donations to the people in the Southeast. Because they gain interaction between people in the west and the east. One question actually keep appearing is that whether these activities are working. Are they significant statistically? For this I have done correlation and regression analysis. There’s a negative correlation between the number of students who are attending the Gulen education institutions with both PKK annual attacks and the number of annual PKK militants. But a correlation analysis gives you an idea but it doesn’t explain everything because there might be other reasons that may have negative relations. While the numbers of students attending in the Gulen institutions increases, the number of PKK attacks and PKK militants decrease. For that I included, as I said in the beginning, different actors like the Turkish military, and Turkish government and their variables. From the Turkish military I acquired the number of PKK militants, captured and killed. The amount of military spending is another variable; also I included cross border attacks as a variable. From Turkish government I have two variables: public investments in the region and the change in the minority rights of the Kurds. For the Gulen affiliated institutions I include the number of students attending. My findings are based on twenty regression analyses. In all analyses the relationship is significant and it has a negative effect on both PKK and the number of PKK militants and attacks. ) don’t want to go into details, but ) just want to give you an idea how big the impact is. For every hundred students attending to one of these educational institution, the number of PKK militants decreases by 4 to 7. I also included lag variable to measure the effects of these years on the number of students on the PKK militants and it’s actually getting bigger and for that, for every hundred students there is 8 or 9 decrease in number of militants of the PKK. For the attacks again just to have you an idea, for every 54 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question hundred students attending these institutions, there is a decrease of 5 or 6 in the number of attacks of the PKK launches annually. And the lag values added, it becomes 6 or 7 for attacks. Thank you. AHMET YUKLEYEN: Alright. Thank you very much Dr. Koc. I think the role of civil society is not being discussed enough and your presentation was right on target concerning that lack of discussion in the literature. So without further ado, I would like to turn to the floor for questions. ROBERT OLSON: Can I ask a question first? What is the total number of the various schools that you’ve mentioned? What is the total student body represented in Gulen schools that you’ve mentioned? )s it to thousand, you mention 200 hundred thousand including the early dershanes on this? DOGAN KOC: You know students that are attending dershanes also attend high schools. There may be the same students. The number that I gave you is for 2010. In my data set, the last year that I have is 2009, so for 2009 I also calculated because I also wanted to have unique students. So I have overcome that problem, as far as I remember in 2009 in 16 cities, 82 thousand students. KEVIN MCCLURE: Thank you all for your presentations. One of the things that I really appreciated in the panels that they started to broaden the definitions of the issue in certain respects. I think there is still a pretty heavy focus on the PKK and on the Turkish state on the Turkish military and insurgents. But I really appreciated the thought that went into start thinking about the problems in terms of socio-economic disparities, developmental disparities, between western and eastern Turkey. To that I am wondering if you all could talk about a little bit of solutions that address income disparities, poverty, educational problems in the regions where a large of number Kurds live. Well, I appreciate the presentations on the Gulen movement, ) don’t think that the Gulen movement can and should be the sole solution. )t’s kind of one of the part of ) think the large problem and issue or large problem in the region. So, I was wondering if you all had solutions beyond the PKK, maybe solutions that addressed conditions that make the PKK seem like something that the people would want to join or young people want to join. Thanks. YIGAL SCHLEIFER: I am a journalist on current Turkish affairs. Dr. Koc, you used the terminology of eastern and western Turkey versus Turks and Kurds. )’m wondering if that’s a movement conception on regional differences versus ethnic differences and if you could elaborate in how the Gulen 55 Rethink Institute movement of the Gulen himself sees the issue. Is it ethnic differences or more the regional differences? And the other question is beyond the Gulen movement, what other civil society growth do you see in the southeast; especially when domestic is the word, home grown Kurdish civil society efforts? AHMET YUKLEYEN: Okay, let’s tackle these two questions. First one is about the role of economic progress and the other actors I guess. If I may interject I assume one of the actors, expected actor is the government. So regarding the first question, anyone who wants to tackle that? GUNES TEZCUR: Okay so, for multiple reasons, a lot of people may find insurgency attractive. But if you want to focus on poverty, if nothing you can make the argument that poverty reduces a person’s risk perception. )n the sense that if you are poor you are on a greater risk to join with insurgency. But the thing is that at the same time, many people who simply leave their careers or are university graduates. They thought that their life is more meaningful if they join this insurgency. ) just can’t say that it is just mainly because of the poverty. )f you look at the insurgent’s perspective, it is better to get a shepherd than a university graduate, a shepherd is more robust in the mountains, they make a better fighter, all other things being equal. DOGAN KOC: The economic variable I had was public investment. I was looking at the public investment to the regions to these 16 cities on how it affects the number of PKK militants and the number of PKK attacks. Interestingly it had neither negative effect nor positive effect on the number of PKK militants and the attacks. But I think, when we talk about investments there should be a distinction between job creating investment and mere investments. Because when we look at the Turkish state investment in the region, it’s difficult to make a distinction between security spending, and other investments for infrastructure and other issues. But I think you are right, that have been the case as part of the Turkish government to define the problem. )t has an economic side because when you look at again there’s a huge differences in terms of life standards between the east and the west. And Turkish government with GAP project has been trying to invest in the region but trusting in my analysis, the public investment, the investment made by the government and state of the region will have a positive impact, it was increasing the insurgency. AHMET YUKLEYEN: If I may ask Dr. Koc, by increasing insurgency do you mean in that particular area or you mean overall? 56 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question DOGAN KOC : Overall. Mine is actually including 16 cities of southeast part of Turkey and the investment also made into those 16 cities. AHMET YUKLEYEN: Okay and on second question? DOGAN KOC : Second question, it doesn’t have any theoretical explanation. When I say Kurdish populated region, my research is done in the southeast part of Turkey and eastern part of Turkey where we think that the population is predominantly Kurdish. Not only Kurdish but predominantly Kurdish. So with regards to how Gulen defines the issue, I think based on my readings, he thinks that the people of the region are subject to complicated ethnic issues, poverty issues, some democratic issues as well, like minority issues. For him, the people were abandoned by the state and their needs are not being taken care of for the long time and the state used force to overcome the problems. But he thinks that the state should do its part but also not to be the solution but become part of the solution. He encourages people in the movement to involve in three major things: education, interaction with the people in the region, and also dealing with the poverty and investment in the region. BILAL WAHAB: My question is for Dr. Koc. I think it will be doing disservice to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, putting it by the single variable which is the PKK attacks. It is larger than that. So my question for you is that the Gulen movement or the Hizmet movement’s primary activities are education or doing education all over the world not just in Turkey. So maybe some conflict resolution aspect is the side effect of that activity, but the major goal of the teaching and hizmet and the education is not solving the Kurdish problem. Nonetheless, given the religious undertones of the Gulen movement and how traditionally religious the Kurdish region is, I think the Gulen movement has a larger weight or leverage that can be used and put behind behind solving the Kurdish problem in Turkey that could go way beyond the schools and the dershanes. My question is, has the Gulen movement put its weight in earnest in finding a solution to the Kurdish problem, yes or no? And what else do you think the movement can do other than having schools with side effect of reducing those attacks but looking at the broader issue? For example, in addition to education and schooling the Gulen movement has also pioneered the interfaith dialogue, so how about inter-faith and ethnic dialogue within Turkey? So, to recap, the Gulen movement has a larger clout and leverage especially in modern day Turkey to put its weight behind in the 57 Rethink Institute solving Kurdish issue that I do not personally see the weight that being used and push through the solution. What do you think? DOGAN KOC: You know I actually I tried to make the point as well. The movement or the activities of the movement are not directly targeting the PKK or the Kurdish problem. its activities are helping to solve the problems. I don’t know if it’s a side effect, or the fact that was thought of ) don’t know. )n order to put leverage, ) don’t know what else they can do. AHMET YUKLEYEN: I sort of remember a TV station. DOGAN KOC: Yeah I had mentioned at the beginning, the movement was first to establish—the first in Turkey—a private Kurdish TV channel in 2010. And I was at the inaugural reception of that TV channel in Gaziantep at the time of my research. GUNES TEZCUR: His logical conclusion would be that if everybody in the Kurdish region go to Gulen schools then there would be no people going to mountains. DOGAN KOC: No. I just focused on the Gulen movement. My study has three other major actors, Turkish military, and the Turkish government. So, if you include all of them and also if you look at the regression analysis, you only happen to explain a certain part of the problem. And there is also an unexplained part of the problem in the analysis. So, we don’t know what other variables we can include to explain that. But there’s an analysis that shows that it has an impact and the number of students attending this schools has a negative effect on PKK attacks and the militant numbers. That’s what I can say. MAHIR AYHAN: (i )’m from George Washington University, graduate student. So you told that Mr. Gulen has three things to offer, education, interaction and remedy on poverty. In mathematics when you give a counter example this proves the theory, right? So as an example, I am educated, I believe in dialogue and I am not dying of hunger, but still I believe that there is a problem over there. What Mr. Gulen thinks about Kurdish education or empowering local authorities, does he believe in that or not? And since when the Gulen movement embraces the Kurdish movement a Kurdish problem? Second question, when the Gulen movement is going self-criticize? Thank you. DOGAN KOC: Many actors in the conflict and there are a lot of variables affecting on the solution of the problem. And I think that the Gulen movement in this case study is just part of the solution and making a contribution to a 58 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question solution. So it doesn’t mean that they are solving the problem, but they are aiming to solve the problem and their activities are affecting a change. And the other issue… ) don’t know, in terms of Kurdish issues? Actually, there are a lot of things to criticize in the movement; but ) don’t know ) don’t see any problem with this. And Kurdish language…) think Gulen had made a lot of statements on that and you also need to know that Gulen is not a political figure; he is an Islamic scholar and it speaks about Islam and it teaches Islamic sciences but he address social issues as well. Gulen in a recent statement, criticized the government for not letting people to use their own languages. And he also gave an example of United States and the Western countries and I think that he said that it is a sign of being a big country, a big state if you let people practice their own cultures. The movement established the first Kurdish private TV channel that also shows that ) think there’s a huge support for Kurds to speak their language. )t’s the problem of the past. ROBERT OLSON: I read a little piece by Mumtazer Turkone on this issue and he asks three questions. First was, would the right to education in Kurdish divide Turkey? Two, would Turkey be divided with it denies the right to education in Kurdish? Three, which country would the Kurds attempt to divide, a country where the Kurdish is freely taught or a country where it is denied? Well he then said, the real enemy of the Kurds meaning the Kurds in Turkey is not the state but the market place. He said it is also indispensable and benefits both the Turks and Kurds if the country goes as a single piece. He said that the Kurdish education will be accepted only to the extent that this language would be received in the larger market place in the region which is Turkish and English. This goes back to my view that the depth doctrine in the foreign policy what the AKP is particularly trying to do to widen the market of Turkey. That the people can lessen or reduce their ethnic affiliation if the market place was wider. Turkey’s definitely trying to establish a wide market place, internationally and certainly to the whole region. So this is the case if the Gulen movement schools have English as a second language, that certainly proves what Turkone says that the middle class Turks, or you want to call it a bourgeoisie or petite bourgeoisie, maybe two thousand of their best students in the schools in western Turkey are not learning any Kurdish language in the Gulen schools. Then of course the Gulen movement as well as the market place is very much asking for diminishing of the Kurdish nationalism which would fit in to the overall doctrine. It will also satisfy the need for the evangelical Muslim movement which I think the Gulen 59 Rethink Institute movement is. ) don’t want to compare with the evangelical Christian movement because both are very different but to me and we can argue this that the Gulen movement is an evangelical Muslim movement that would fit in to the overall theory, as far as I understand religious movements. GUNES TEZCUR: Let me say one more thing about your comment, I mean, yes, in the sense the Kurdish does not necessarily have a strong market value but it doesn’t mean that this is going to really contribute a solution of the demands or the conflicts because if you’re a Kurdish nationalist and if you feel that your language does not have a strong market value, this basically means that you’re under threat. )t basically means that you push for more state support for your language. AHMET YUKLEYEN: I just want to inject one note, because it relates to my study as well. If you look at the Nur movement, it is based on the writings of Said Nursi. Nursi Is a very interesting figure, his mother language was Kurdish language of course. And his ideas are very influential in Turkey or the region, one could say globally as well. And definitely Gulen movement is influenced by his ideas. So going back to the language issue and to the extent the Gulen can approve that I think you can find a way to justify the use of Kurdish permission to use the Kurdish language publicly and freely based on Nursi as well. KANI XULAM: I am coming from Kurdish Information Network. I have two questions. The first one is to Robert Olson, the role of middle class in terms of the expansion of rights for the Kurds. Only 17 years ago, Prime Minister Ciller held a list in her hand and said ) have their names and a number of them got brutally murdered. In your opinion, is there a rule of law enough to protect the middle class to be able to say they are Kurds and to support Kurdish cultural foundations and institutions? ) just don’t see it but )’ve love to hear your views on that. My second question is for Dr. Koc. You told as that Gulen claimed that the state has abandoned the Kurds, do you believe that? Do you personally think that the PKK is fighting the government to bring it more to the Kurdish region? I grew up in the region, hear it from me if you haven’t heard it before, the state hasn’t abandoned us, the state has conquered us, and it is in our hair in the best sense of the word. Late New York writer Susan Sontag before coined a phrase, the white race is the cancer of humanity . ) don’t know enough about human history to pass a judgment on that. But I know about the Kurds and the Turks and I could tell 60 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question you that the Turks are the cancer of the Kurds, there are institutions that they don’t want us to grow, ) wonder what you can say about that. ROBERT OLSON: I have a quick response to that; it’s a peculiar situation ) think on how to describe the middle class or the bourgeoisie or whatever. Especially in southeastern Turkey they have certainly have a lot of concerns that ) mentioned. And as what )’ve said the primarily the PKK the KCK and other organizations exist in the Southeastern are the ones belong. I doubt I think it can be protected in terms of their life and things like that, but to what extent their ability to participate on the fully as they were determined within the Kurdish nationalist movement in terms of expressing their Kurdiyati, I think probably is limited given the self-censorship they impose on themselves. I mean all of us know that Americans society have acted my own family have been through those things like and all those immigrants, prejudice, bias, discrimination, of one kind or another. When that materializes at intellectual level, it will become an intellectual you still carry that, Right? )’m a professor in the university I still carry some of the prejudice and bias of the ethnic things which in my own life or even Americans do so. I think yeah, that’s probably very prominent, probably inhibitive to agree in extent. GUNES TEZCUR: Just quickly, if you look at the 2006 anti-terrorism law, it is very vague. It is the basis of many accusations against thousands of people, so if you want more freedom of expression in Turkey then obviously you need to modify the 2006 anti-terrorism law, which ) think it’s just a big problem at the moment. DOGAN KOC: Yes, again in my research, I was looking at the actors on how they define the problem. And I did not spend time to look at the Turkish and the state. But that’s how Gulen himself defines the problem. He thinks that the Kurdish people feel that they are abandoned by the state, by their country, and he suggests what the state should do, which is, you know, to respect the values of the people whether they are social, cultural, and also take care of their needs in terms of, again, culture or economy. What I think about it, ) don’t know, )’m not an actor in the solution. So ) never thought about the reasons of this problem I was actually comparing the strategies of different actors to each other and how they are effective in reducing the number of militants and the attacks of the PKK. AHMET YUKLEYEN: If I may I just interject one point because the question was very powerful if you put together, although I think based on a 61 Rethink Institute misleading analogy and the misleading analogy is the categories over race versus the ethnic group. And ) think it is a significant one and please don’t take it as a personal response. Because I see that unfortunately it is kind of spreading here and there in the Turkish media and ) don’t know, possibly in the Kurdish nationalist media as well. But as an anthropologist, that’s why )’m intervening here, any type of grouping of people is constructed. Let’s just say the people, through institutions, history, political context group them. In a way it is a process. That’s the relationship that groups them. But the grouping that is used for race and ethnic group or religion are based on the different selected aspects of human experience to group them and I think that race is a category of people is unfortunately so very exclusive that one still has not seem to switching from one to the other. Especially in the US when you look at, we in some sense we have African-American president, but keep in mind that it is supposed to be half and half if you go by the parents and put it that way. So ) don’t think that the analogy’s right. What )’m trying to say, ethnic identities are based on language, and sometimes religion can be part of. But racial categorizations use physical arbitrary choice of personal traits . So let’s just be aware that a comparison of a racial group, and ethnic group would not be helpful for the resolution of the problem, let us put it that way. DAVID ROMANO: ) was left a little uneasy; ) haven’t read your study about the Gulen schools and on the effects on attacks. I was left uneasy thinking on correlation rather than thinking causation for million different possible reason and ) was wondering on especially in light of Gunes’s work on why ordinary people take the extraordinarily risky decision to join in an insurgent movement if you talk about the possible causation here or lack thereof on how you view the situation here, I would expect that if there would be a cause of a relationship that there need to be time lag, a significant one, so you became a student in a Gulen school and that is going to reduce the number of attacks this year, and the militants are already in the mountains and they’ve gone a strategy. What exactly is supposed to be going on here and if you’re going to resolve the violence part of the conflict then we need to hear about the causation the reasons why there’re becoming insurgents and choosing to fight. GUNES TEZCUR: I can briefly answer the question why ordinary people saw all this and join in insurgents as just an important one. At this moment, one of my hypothesis is that independent of your democratic characteristics, the social networks who invite you in is the most important factor in the 62 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question sense that if you happen to spend more time with Kurdish nationalists, if you happen to be exposed to their discourse, their basic activities, I think you have the higher likelihood of joining the insurgents. So coming back to Dogan’s analysis, yes ) agree with you, it’s just very difficult to assess of the causation because of the argument the families who sent their children to Gulen schools actually don’t want their children to join the insurgency. You can make the argument that the poor families who lose their relatives in the mountains more likely they sent their many children to join the insurgency and they are also the ones who don’t want to send their children to the Gulen schools. You can make an argument that it’s not about schools per se, but it carries more of a family characteristics to determine whether the person ends up going to the mountains or not. But ultimately, at least from a more personal scholarly perspective, ) can also say that, it’s also the point ) made earlier, every year if you need to recruit 400-500 hundred people so that the insurgency remain resilient, robust. It is easy to recruit these people regardless of what the government does or regardless of any kind of weapon or any kind of government initiatives, from Turkey, Syria or Iraq, who will be willing to join the insurgency. If nothing else there is a long violent history. If I as a person have memories that my relatives, my father, my brothers killed in mountains, you can basically make an argument that I have a strong obligation to basically follow their paths, regardless of whether I go to Gulen School or something else it will not change my persuasion. DOGAN KOC: I think that it is also true that it was my concern. You know not all the Kurds are supporting the PKK, you know most of the students attending Gulen schools wouldn’t support the PKK even if they don’t go to Gulen schools as well. But my initial interest was to compare strategies of the military compare and the government the elected about what they said in the past mainly they define the problem from a culture and minority type of issue or from an economic perspective. On the other hand we have the military defines it from a greed perspective and say we need to kill and eliminate, and that would be the end of the problem . ) was trying to measure those and compare them to each other. Once I started interviewing in the region, and looking at the reports, I found out that the interaction happens between individuals from the region with the Gulen or the Hizmet affiliate institution, it could be not only in schools but also on a study circle. And one of the businessman that )’ve interviewed said that his brother joined the PKK when he was in high school, and he was about to join the PKK, but somehow he met 63 Rethink Institute with the people from the movement in the early 1990s and he changed his mind. He wanted to know their study circles, and attended one of the university preparation school and centers; then he got accepted to a university in the western part of Turkey. And he came back and established a business in the region and he was very successful and he was actually part of the movement. And he is actually right now collecting donations for students who need scholarship. He also said that his story was not unique, there are other people and it is common in the region. So it shows that actually having an engagement with the movement has an impact on joining the PKK or not. AHMET YUKLEYEN: And lastly I just want to note that considering the last few years that the PKK is targeting, as I understand, some of these readings in rooms and similar. DOGAN KOC: Ten days ago the PKK bombed some and they kidnapped some of leading figures that are affiliated with the region. But it happened recently not in the past. And I asked the question why the PKK was not targeting the movement before. There are different explanations but what the Kurdish people that I interviewed mainly said that perhaps the people are happy to have the movement, they have actually value its contribution to the region and also the PKK was careful not to target the movement institutions because it has a popular acceptance in the society. ROBERT OLSON: But the resolving the Kurdish question in Turkey, which is the topic of this panel, even let us hypothesize that some of the instruments which the Gulen movement is using, let say that even more efficacious than you suggest and even If the Gulen movement is strong in northern Iraq, so if you could hypothesize these contributions of the Gulen movement who are managing or even resolving the Kurdish question could become a greater challenge geopolitically even with a stronger development of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey or Iran whatever happens in Iran. So the problems are multiple and a wider political and strategic range to consider and the Gulen movement will have to consider these as well. I mean, in my view. 64 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question PANEL III The Regional Dimensions of the Kurdish issue: Turkey's Relations with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Kurdistan Regional Government; Interactions between the Kurds in the Region Gonul Tol, Middle East Institute Stephen Larrabee, RAND Corporation Bilal Wahab, George Mason University Nader Entassar, University of South Alabama Bayram Balci (moderator), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 65 Rethink Institute BAYRAM BALCI: So we start now the third panel this afternoon. This panel is devoted to the regional dimensions of the Kurdish issue that means Turkey’s relations with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Iraqi Kurdistan where there is a very potent Kurdish community. My name is Bayram Balci, I am a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace. I am not a real expert on the Kurdish question and Kurdish problem in Turkey and Middle East. But we are lucky because we have important, very excellent four experts on these questions. The first expert is Gonul Tol, she is from the Middle East Institute in Washington. And then we continue with the Mr. Stephen Larrabee from the RAND corporation. And the third with Bilal Wahab from George Mason University and then will finish this the third panel with Mr. Nader Entassar from the University of South Alabama. And I think we’ll have enough time for the discussion, so thank you very much for coming to this panel and now will start with Gonul. Thank you. GONUL TOL: I would like to start with thanking the Rethink Institute, and Dr. Fevzi Bilgin for putting together this conference and there’s no doubt that it’s a very timely event. ) don’t think it’s timely not because there are some new dynamics domestically in play, but I think it is because of the regional dimension of the Kurdish issue. And I would like to keep my remarks brief, so that we have more time for the discussion. For decades I think Turkey has ignored the regional dimension of the Kurdish issue. And in 2009 Kurdish initiative, that was launched by the current Turkish government, was an important step in this regard that a recognition that the Kurdish issue had a regional dimension and it was an important dimension. There was again there was a recognition that the Kurdish issue was multidimensional in essence that involved multiplicity set of actors, domestic, regional and international actors. So, within that framework of the Kurdish initiative, Turkey cultivated closer ties with the Kurdistan Regional Government it stepped up its investments in the region and opened consulate in Erbil. But the Arab spring has brought the Kurdish question to the forefront of the regional and the international debate for several reasons. And the first one is, the democratic demands that are articulated by the Arab uprisings brought regional and the international attention to the state was of the Kurds, and to the rights of the marginal groups. And for sure the Kurdish community, which is dispersed into four different countries in the region, is one of the most marginalized groups in the world. And the second one is, due to the changing dynamic after the US 66 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question withdrawal from Iraq and the Arab spring, Kurds are the important actors and the new strategic calculations of the regional and international actors. After the US withdrew in December , there’s been an increasing tension between Turkey and Maliki. There are several reasons from that, basically Turkey supported the Alawi group in 2010 Iraqi elections and the differences over Syria. So the tension basically defined Turkey-Baghdad relations after US withdrawal. And the crisis between Turkey and Maliki carries the risk of Turkey’s marginalization within )raqi politics. And that’s why Turkey has been trying to use its close relations with the KRG which developed right after 2009, to carve itself a space within Iraq... And also, the Kurds in Syria become the king makers and as you know currently the minority groups are behind the Bashar Assad regime, and that’s why the Syrian has become quite a different scenario than what we saw in Egypt, in Libya and in Tunisia. The Kurdish minority is an important actor because if they change sides they can actually tip the balance in Syria. So that’s why they are important actor and Turkey is very concerned about what’s going to happen. Everyone is concerned on what’s going to happen once Assad is gone. But especially for Turkey, Turkey really doesn’t know what will be the status of the Kurds living in Syria look like in a post-Assad nation. And of course Turkey wants to have influence, because an autonomous Kurdish region within Syria is not only Turkey’s, but also )ran’s worst nightmare. So Turkey would like to have some kind of leverage, but it doesn’t have over Syrian Kurds. So again we see the KRG in the picture, and now again Turkey is trying to use the Kurdish Regional Government in order to have some leverage over Syrian Kurds. So the whole transformation, that’s been going on within the region, in the Middle East is both regionalized and internationalized the Kurdish question. And )’m sure you’ve been following, just two weeks ago, where there was a Syrian-Kurdish delegation in Washington D.C. and they had high level meetings. And before that the members of the BDP, a Turkish pro-Kurdish party, were here, and in April, Barzani again had high level meetings with the Obama administration. So this is just any indication that how the Arab Spring has transformed the Kurdish issue and again re-initiated a debate on the status of Kurds. So from the Kurdish perspective, of course these are all positive developments, but the problem is that the Kurds are fragmented, and this will certainly weaken their hand. And from the Turkish perspective, if we look at this internationalization and regionalization of the Kurdish issue, it puts 67 Rethink Institute more pressure on Turkey to resolve its own Kurdish issue. But domestically the Kurdish initiative is basically closed now, and process is deadlocked. And the situation in Syria poses a security threat to Turkey. And the regional chaos and domestic deadlock have pushed Turkey back to the security oriented approach of the 1990s. If you listen to the government and the Prime Minister’s remarks vis-à-vis to Kurds, you see that the government has hardened vis-à-vis the Kurdish problem domestically. So again the KRG is in the picture, and it looks like Turkey now has a new regional policy because Turkey had to recalibrate its Middle East policy after the Arab spring. And it looks like the KRG has become a new backbone of that new foreign policy and not just a backbone of Turkey’s new Middle East policy, but it looks like KRG has been important actor in the resolution of Turkey’s domestic Kurdish problem. And of course this will have some repercussions in the future. I think first, Turkey definitely needs to resolve the Kurdish problem in order to play a leadership role in the region. And second, if the Turkish government takes constructive steps such as granting language rights and the right to education in Kurdish, I think in the medium term, not in the short term. It might fight a more effective fight against the PKK in the region with the support of the regional actors. But if Turkey cannot take those steps, it means that it will lose its legitimacy regionally. And now that there’s a win-win relationship between the Turkey and the KRG and especially when Barzani visited Ankara last month he was greeted by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the President. So it just indicates that Turkey really valuing that relationship and Barzani made a signal that could actually cooperate with Turkey on its fight against PKK. And many people especially skeptics within Turkey say that: Well Barzani said such words before in the past and why is it different now? And ) think the regional context is changed because of the Arab spring and because that regional context actually brings these actors together. Because KRG is, considering the fact that it has tense relations with Baghdad, KRG and Barzani really need Turkey. And they have the resources, the natural resources but they don’t have the infrastructure and Turkey’s is more than willing and happy to step in and help KRG in that process. And in return, KRG can actually be Turkey’s bridge or Turkey’s gate to the SyrianKurdish politics in the post-Assad era. But then again the domestic calculation, ) mean currently, ) don’t think the government has the whole Kurdish issue is all tied to draft in the new constitution and that is tied to Prime Minister Erdogan’s presidential ambitions. 68 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question So in that sense the domestic leaders are in deadlocked, but regionally I think a lot is going on and Turkey is on the right track. Turkey is really trying to communicate with the Iraqi Kurds and with Syrian Kurds. But again domestically Turkey needs, in the medium term, an effective relationship or to have a legitimate relationship of the Kurds of the region; Turkey has to solve its problem because it will need the legitimacy. In order to both unite and also create the interdependency among the Kurds of the Middle East through trade and investment. And I stop there and hand it over to you. BAYRAM BALCI: Thank you very much for the very important presentation. I think the link between the Arab Spring and the Kurdish Spring is important. But I only have one question for you, I have the feeling that Turkey’s Kurdish policy in the Middle East is completely obsessed with the PKK issue, for example, when Turkey’ policy with Syria and )raq. They are very obsessed with the kind of the PKK dimension of the problems so, maybe you can discuss this question at the end of the panel. BAYRAM BALCI: Now, we’ll have the second presentation with Mr. Stephen Larrabee from RAND Corporation. Please tell us the topic of your presentation. STEPHEN LARRABEE: the topic of my presentation was already made by Gonul. First let me start about saying how important I think it is that this issue being discussed and get as much attention as it can and to thank the organizers for holding this conference. Secondly to pick up on the remark that I just made, not too long ago I was on the panel with four senators, plus myself and after the third senator had spoken I turn to the fourth senator and said ) think that everything that can be said has already been said . And he said, Yes, Mr Larrabee, but not everyone has said it. And so it is in that the spirit )’m going to try to pick up where Gonul have talked but in basically ) agree in the analysis is very much to the point. Again, the basic point that Gonul made and you also made, is the fact that the Arab Spring has given the Kurdish issue a new momentum and a new dynamic, and I would see basically five trends and they interacting in some way like a Rubik’s cube, very hard to tell to turn one part of the cube and it affects all the other. The first trend is what Gonul pointed increasing regionalization and the increasing contacts among the various Kurdish communities in Iran, in Iraq, in Turkey and in Syria. And here the Syrian crisis has been the catalyst for these increasing contacts and which is given the issue in more regional focus and dynamic that had before. 69 Rethink Institute Secondly there’s another element, which is part of the equation, and that is the relationship of the Syrian-Kurds, who basically have sat, I would argue, on the sidelines trying to decide when and how to react to what is going on. But if they were to join the opposition, which they have not basically so far done, this could change the dynamic of the Syrian crisis and indeed the regional aspect of it. Then the other aspect which I think is important is the way in which the crisis in Syria has given a new dynamic to relationship between Syria, Iran and the PKK. While the evidence I think is far from conclusive many Turks that ) talked to in Ankara, in )stanbul feel that there’s sufficient evidence to suggest that Syria has begun to back the PKK in way that they have not done since 1998 and 1999. So there is this aspect that the PKK, the links between Syria, Iran and the PKK. The fourth aspect is the Iraqi aspect, which has been also mentioned. The fact is that Maliki has tried to consolidate his power and has a way sought to push aside the Kurds and to large extent the Sunni’s. Therefore this is given a new dynamic to the KRG approach to the whole issue and indeed now when Barzani’s speech some weeks ago where he raised again the question for independence for the KRG. And the more the Iraqi-Kurds interests are violated or not taking into consideration that Maliki tries to consolidate his control by marginalizing the Kurds and the Sunni’s the more likely it is that in some point the KRG will press for their independence. And I think the first time in Turkey, the Turks are beginning to face up to that in fact they may see an independent KRG. What is interesting though, I think, is the fact that where five years ago, this was a nightmare, it was the horror scene because of the improvement of Turkey’s relations with the KRG, both sides ) think need and see each other in a very different way they saw in the past. I think for the Iraqi-Kurds, the KRG, as they look around Turkey is, despite all of the problems of the past, the country that is where they see their interest best realized. And when Turkey looks at the region and the Kurdish issue, I think, the relationship with Iraqi-Kurds and the KRG, they also see an important benefit. So, I think you are seing the transformation of the whole Kurdish issue and the relationship between Turkey and the KRG. The last aspect of it, which is important is the way in which the increasing contacts between the Kurdish groups and communities impact on the domestic and internal situation in Turkey itself. And what you’ve seen over the last couple of years in Turkey is, I would argue, activism and a more assertive policy by the Kurdish community by a certain way in simply 70 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question pushing for autonomy and pushing more willingly for their own rights. This has a foreign policy implication because there’s a great deal of talk, like of course as we all know about a Turkish model to the Middle East. Now, it is not clear what they mean by the model, because there are at least two Turkish models. One is the role which the military played in Turkey which is somewhat similar to the direction of the Egyptian situation moving. But there’s a second one, which is the idea of moderate )slamic party which puts emphasis on democratic reform and secularism. But that model cannot be credible if Turkey is unable to resolve its own eternal problem in the Kurdish issue. So Turkey’s own image in the Middle East and its ability to be a leading actor in the region is going to be effected by how it deals by its own Kurdish problem. And here I agree again with Gonul, I think you see two directions in Turkish policy towards the Kurds. One is much harder approach to the PKK and militarization and securitization of Turkish policy. Which I have many questions about because it seems to me that the militarization and securitization of Turkey’s Kurdish policy has never worked and it has not resolved the problem that lasted years or so, but that’s been combined rhetorically at least and the effort to divide the Kurdish or democratic opening. But in the final analysis, ) personally don’t believe that you can solve the Turkey’s Kurdish issue solely through military means. )t can only be solved, resolved by social, economic and political reforms. And the more Turkey use the military to resolve the problem, I think the more difficult to resolve the problem. Again I think just another point that Gonul made but I think it is worth repeating essentially the Arab Spring has forced Turkey, as you said, to recalibrate its Middle East policy. Zero problems with the neighbors policy which had a lot of benefits for Turkey, in a way the basis of the policy is shattered by the Arab spring and the Syrian crisis. What zero problems with the neighbors policy left out was the question of the internal nature of the regime. It was based on a kind of the Kissengerian realpolitic which did not look very closely to the nature of the regime. What the Arab Spring did was to focus more on the issue of the democratization and internal change. And that is something ) think that particularly Davutoğlu saw and tried to get out in front. The Turks were very slow to do it in Libya and I think in Syria they thought wrongly that Assad will be able to overthrown more or less in the same way that Kaddafi was. That’s proved to be much more difficult Syria for variety of reasons. And therefore, I think 71 Rethink Institute what the Syrian crisis has done has been to show the limits of Turkey’s foreign policy. Because it does not want to use military force and ) think that’s correct. But at the same time the international community has been unwilling to do very much. And Turkey is stuck I think in a very difficult position in Syria. But, the real danger I think again is the first, the regionalization of these issue and the fact that if the Syrian Kurds are become more radicalized to join the opposition the dynamics of the crisis in Syria and in the region I think will be severely exacerbate. BAYRAM BALCI: Thank you very much for your presentation. And now we have a presentation by our third panelist. Bilal Wahab comes from on the region and he speaks very easily all the language of the region from Kurmanji, Persian, Turkish and Arabic. And I think he is qualified for the presentation about the Kurdish issue in the region. BILAL WAHAB: Thank you, Thanks and that is very generous of you. I wanted to segway from the previous presentation by talking about what is the cornerstone of the KRG. And the cornerstone is actually the energy. Energy deals that had been signed between the Turkish government, Turkish companies and Kurdistan Regional Government. And of course if you flip through the newspapers recently, including yesterday and the day before, there are very recent and very interesting developments at the same time and they’re going to have long impacts. For students in the room, studying energy is very interesting, and fascinating because it helps you bring together issues of politics, economics, society, and believe it or not anthropology together. And it is interesting how when you study oil you have to understand a lot of things in order to start making sense. So, ) hope that )’ll be making sense today. Basically, )’ll give you news of recent developments and talk about what is in it for the KRG and for the Iraqi Kurdistan region and contemplate about what’s in it for Turkey. Because there would be people more qualified to talk about the Turkish side than me in the crowd. And then I actually want to say that )’ll be talking as a researcher, a student academic and ) will present myself. And I agree on taking about the Kurdish issue at the conference in Turkey, we should have had a voice at least in the Kurdish side of Turkey. So thank you for the commentators pointing out that I am the only Kurd in the crowd; but ) won’t be a replacement of someone who can talk about the Turkish side of the border and of these issues. 72 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question The KRG has energy resources. In fact just two of the oil fields Sheikhan and Miran have about 1800 billion barrels of reserve, which makes them one of the largest regions in terms of reserve. The KRG has some 48 contracts signed with international oil companies. According to regional law, that is based on the Kurdish interpretation on constitution and the federalism clauses in the constitution that the Kurds in 2005 got organized and push for. It is based on that law which is very liberal and adopts a contracting model that is favored by the industry. They have been able to manage and create oil industry on the ground, which is the great achievement of its own. And tie in international interest to the region through the oil company and obviously there’s something about how oil companies, given their size and influence, are tied to the national governments. Even if they are called international oil companies. So, the KRG has adopted an aggressive energy policy that is also reflective of the generation divide between Kurdish politicians of the all generations of ultra-nationalism and statehood and everything Kurdish, to the newer generation of politicians in which see economic solutions to economic problems. And the energy industry between Turkey and the KRG is the reflection of that new generation of Kurdish politicians being increasingly effective in the KRG side. And then to the lack of energy deal, it seems that this tendency on the Kurdish side is being reciprocated in Turkey as well by, as what put in the lunch break, by the government that is very economically very liberal. The other piece of news, just this past weekend Sunday and Monday, the KRG and the Turkish energy minister, the later being in Erbil for a conference on Kurdish energy, have come to agreements and laid out plans for independent Kurdish oil and gas export into Turkey. That is directly into Turkey. For now, so you know the important to this, the Iraqi government thinks and believes that only this state-owned marketing organization SOMO is the exclusive organization in Iraq that has the authority to export Iraqi crude. And of course the KRG has had, you know, ups and downs being able to export Kurdish oil. But since April, Kurdish export as share of the Iraqi oil export, has been cut because of this ongoing dispute between the KRG, between the federal government over the payment over the companies and the legality of the contracts. Very briefly - Baghdad thinks that the contracts that are signed by the KRG are illegal, illegitimate and unconstitutional, and no one has the right 73 Rethink Institute other than the federal government to sign oil contracts on behalf of the Iraqi government. The Kurdish counter argument is that the constitution allows regions the right to exclusively manage the oil found in the region. As long as they are not producing after the constitution was drafted. And therefore, Baghdad can have revenue sharing with the KRG. KRG is willing to share revenues with Baghdad. But Baghdad should not have any authority over signing and managing the oil, and now even selling the oil. So for example for now, when KRG was able to export, that oil would go to the Iraqi pipeline would be sold to the international market and the money would go to the federal coffers, to the central bank and then the KRG would receive 17 percent. What is going to happen now if this export plans going to work out is that the KRG is going to sell the oil, monetize the crude and the gas and takes 17% and give the rest to the Iraqi government. At least this is how it will work out theoretically. So because the KRG has not be able to export oil to the Iraqi pipelines and twice so far the exports have been cut, the KRG has been looking for a way out, out of this bottleneck - this Iraqi federal government imposed a bottleneck. And here’s you have Turkey open arms saying, bring it on, ) need it. And the reason, ) get to the Turkey side, is you know Turkey has interests in tapping into Kurdish region oil and gas reserves. So, the news again is by the end of this year there should be 400 hundred thousand barrel pipeline being built by Turkish construction companies. The KRG should be able by 2019 to produce 2 million barrels of oil. Just to put that in context right now Iraqi export only 2.5 million barrels and the budget this 10 billion a year. So, we are talking a lot of money and of course a gas pipeline is also being planned to be constructed. And of course the gas pipeline has even has more importance than the crude pipeline, because this would be )raq’s first gas exporting pipeline. )raq has always only crude, whatever gas produced is consumed domestically. But KRG which now produces gas, it has excess capacity and of course of the pipeline it will be able to export gas into Turkey. So, what’s in it for the Kurds, well obviously a new way out of the bottleneck that Baghdad has imposed. More independence from Baghdad, imposing the federalism and allowing the local oil industry to survive. I mean again, the federal government, because the things contracts are illegal has refused to pay this companies who have put in a lot of money to use this oil. The agreement that the KRG makes that Baghdad takes the oil and does not 74 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question pay the companies. So the KRG has had to yield to other means of recuperating enough money to pay the international oil companies. Some of it being selling to local refinery and of course some allegations of trans-border smuggling. So that’s an important point. Another thing is that the KRG knows that its only viable outlet, at least to its oil, is going to be Turkey, So from the get-go of signing the oil contracts the KRG has been wooing the Turkish companies both into construction of pipeline as well as actual exploration and production of oil. Even when foreign companies will come, the KRG according to the International Crisis Group report would encourage these non-Turkish companies to go and partner up with the Turkish companies. So there was an intentional desire from the get-go to have as much Turkish involvement as possible. Of course there’s also an American involvement, but that one goes into more the green line would, the disputed territories. The point is the KRG has been using its oil strategically. And this is one difference between the Kurdish oil policy and the federal oil policy. For the rest of the country for Iraq proper, oil and Arabic nationalism is sort of intertwined together and, for the anthropologists in the room you can comment or further correct me if )’m wrong, because, you know, when Iraq was established it was a concession system. And the companies were very exploitative out of independence and nationalization of oil kind of going together, a kind of a same concept. Not for the Kurds, the Kurds, you know, oil has been a curse, it helped Saddam Hussein to buy the tanks and the chemical weapons to use against them. Now we are going to use the oil to get what we want. So they have being pragmatic about it. And of course these companies love this, and so far it has been working to a level and of the Kurds. Now to put this into a context, the right context for this I think, to put on my academic hat for a minute, is that politics in Iraq and probably in the wider region is best viewed through patronage, through use of patrons and clients, through politics of dependence. The reasons that the KRG, one reason that the KRG is willing to sell its oil to Turkey and find their way out to decrease on dependence on Baghdad. The challenge for the KRG would be to change one patron, which is Baghdad so far, with another which is Turkey. And taking this view, then it becomes an open question of the KRG policy which one is a better patron for you. And if the argument can be extended a little bit more by changing one patron with another the KRG is a inflating a 75 Rethink Institute regional and national problem, which is between the regional government and the federal government, into a regional problem that involves Turkey. So, the Turkey is a player that complicates the problems between the KRG and Baghdad. However, if the KRG uses these pipelines, these new plants to export oil directly to Turkey as leverage against Baghdad, and to be able to export independently. I mean a leverage in order to get the solution and resolution to the current conflict, when the KRG will be in the good position to have a diversified outlet - one through Baghdad and to the official channels, the federal channels and one independently through Turkey. If it goes this way it’s a sweet spot; if it goes the other way changing one patron to the other. I believe by changing the Iraqi patron with the Turkish patron the KRG might have undercut, at least structurally the desire for Kurdish independence and secession. Because the federal government is more willing and has actually has accepted its constitution for federalism. While Turkey is far away from accepting federalism for the Kurds, so by having Turkey as a patron the dream of secession is going to be a step far away than closer. Which is unfortunately not the argument that also often made in the KRG which is the desire of once we have independence of Baghdad, that would be step toward statehood; I actually think otherwise. Let me talk about this change of patrons may also change the issue of the PKK, because for now the KRG admit it or does not use PKK as the leverage for its politics with Turkey. Now if oil and gas comes in, then the leverage may change the KRG may give up PKK and these maybe a Turkish hope, will give up PKK as leverage and replace it with oil and gas. That’s an open question. Now, what’s with Turkey really quick, Turkey wants to diversify its energy resources; it wants to reduce its dependence on Russia and the whole Nabucco project, which wants to diversify gas resources for Europe, because Russia has this very nice habit of turning off the taps every winter. So Turkey wants to feed into Nabucco and of course and develop and promote its position within Europe by accessing Kurdish and Iraqi gas into Nabucco project. The other one is, of course, its 11 billion dollars annual trade and Turkey wants that. Actually one reason for this opening up regionally is that Turkey is not suffering as other European countries and actually shrugging off the whole European Union membership. Finally one point of precaution to Turkey here is that these are long term contracts and personal deals there going to be short lived. If they are legal and transparent and accountable 76 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question deals there would be long term. And I think it will be in the interest of Turkey, and in interest of the KRG for these deals really be legal, accountable and as transparent as possible. Because of domestic politics in Kurdistan is also undergoing changes, and unless it has enough support within the domestic society, those deals with the changes with the government elections and politics may be harmed. So there’s an interest of the Turkish side to understand domestic politics and deal with it as transparently and accountably as possible. And I would like to close with the questions that I didn’t have answer to: What does this energy deal between the KRG and Turkey mean for the Kurds in Turkey? ) close with that. Thank you very much. BAYRAM BALCI: Thank you very much for the interesting presentation. And now we’ll finish with the fourth presentation by Mr. Nader Entassar from the University of South Alabama NADER ENTASSAR: I will just basically summarize and another thing is I will have another 10 minutes. I timed myself so since I was asked to give a talk for minutes and ) am going to do that… )f ) go beyond that just stop me. And also I would like to thank the Rethink Institute for organizing this very stimulating gathering today in Washington D.C. on a very important topic. What I am going to do, in a form of summary, mention factors that still favor regional cooperation to some degree, amongst the major actors in Turkey, Iraq, and Iran all the Kurds and then the factors that will make it difficult for continuation of this type of cooperation. First factors that make it easy or easier for these countries to cooperate. Well as other panelists had mentioned obviously over and over the issue of PKK although its primarily a Turkish problem but it also has a regional implication. As many of you know there’s a sort of smaller group operating alongside, has been operating at least since 2004 primarily in the Qandil mountains of Iraq, alongside the PKK. The PJAK organization, Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê roughly translated as Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, which is usually referred to an offshoot of PKK. To some extent is true if you define offshoot in a very broad sense of the world. They support the overall goals of the PKK, it sees itself as a broader member of KCK and it participates very much in KCK. I have talked to good number of people who either all or claimed to be members of PJAK about the goals of the organization which is a very fluid goal. But nonetheless all of them talk about looking at the Kurdish problem regionally not from a state centric point of view, but from a bottom 77 Rethink Institute up point of view. A sort of communalism as opposed to statism as an issue. But beyond that of course they do carry military operations as does PKK, but PKK primarily targets Turks and Turkish targets, whereas PJAK targets Iranian targets. Its membership is diverse it has Turkish Kurds, it has Syrian Kurds, it has Iraqi Kurds, as its members and it does have Iranian Kurds as its members. So it is different from other groups because it has a multinational Kurdish guerilla organization. Like the PKK they also carry the number of specific attacks that target randomly civilian populations, bombings in a mosque may kill a cleric but also it can kill many more parishioners who have gone to prayer in the mosque. And therefore the social base inside Iranian Kurdistan has been weakened significantly in the last two or three years. Because they have been identified primarily with random bombing of targets that kill Kurds essentially and others. Having said that operationally it is different and separate from PKK. It has its own nominal leader Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi who lives in Cologne, Germany, considers himself as a German citizen and is indeed a German citizen. And it is difficult to determine his actual control over day to day operations of PJAK. People pay lip service to him as a leader but my impression is that based on talking to people in the field is that they simply want to have somebody that would be the public face of PJAK; and he is the public face. But in the actual day to day control, once you are an exile you become irrelevant. Doesn’t matter what nationality or an exile or political irrelevancy go hand in hand usually. And his case is the same. And he has far out ideas also philosophical ideas that ) don’t what to get in right now for ten minutes. But there is an understanding between Turkey and Iran over coordinating their activities against PKK/PJAK, and there were a number of meetings, sometimes at very high level, to coordinate these military activities that will continue probably in the foreseeable future. Another thing that will allow Turks and the Turkish state and the Iranian state to continue cooperating with each other with respect to the Kurdish issue is that despite the fact that Turkey has developed extensive economic interest in Iraqi Kurdistan and indeed as was mentioned few minutes ago, these are crucial economic interest for Turkey. But nonetheless neither Turkey nor Iraq wants to see a destabilized Iraq in any form of fashion. Because it will have a spillover effect no question about it. It will destabilize Iraq from the north, will have a 78 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question destabilizing impact on both counties irrespective in what type of economic interest they develop in the region. So that will continue. I think another thing has to be mention is that, there are still significant divisions within Iraqi Kurdistan the old Talibani-Barzani feud maybe on the raps at this time but there’s no question that feud continues today. And Turkey and Iran are using the division there. The Talibani tilting, if you would, somewhat towards the Iranian side, Barzani tilting towards the Turkish side. We have to see that also in the context of domestic Kurdish politics in Iraq. That is also effect of, there is no monolithic Kurdish government and the divisions go farther than that between these two. And the emergence, we talked about the Arab spring, there is also been a Kurdish spring about whose final outcome is not known. It may completely change the political make up in the future of that we know of the KRG and the KRG power structure today. So we have to take that into account. Also another thing is that it was mentioned several times mostly in journalistic writings that you know Turkey being a Sunni state would want to have closer ties with other Sunni states and, indeed, would want to have a coordinated policy in )raq with Saudi Arabia and so forth. ) don’t buy that. There are Sunnis, and there are Sunnis. Try to mix Turkish version of Sunni law and of Saudi version of Sunni Islam into a workable mix that anybody could drink and say, the greatest taste ) have ever had ; this is not going to happen. In the issue of the Sunni-Shia confrontation that has been mentioned something nice to write… op-eds you know… But ) think it’s far-fetched that there are significant difference between Turkey and Saudi Arabian but interest is different. The fact that both are Sunnis doesn’t gloss over the other differences. Having said that there are also problems, lingering problems. The PKK and PJAK have constituted a leverage that Iran and Turkey used to cooperate with each other against Kurds. But also this leverage can be weakened too. )’ll give you a specific example. Iran although it opposes the PKK in general, but it opposes it because it helps PJAK. )f it doesn’t help PJAK )ran’s geostrategic interest is not to put all of its eggs in one basket against PKK. So we’ve seen indeed discussions between Murat Karayilan and Iranian leaders. I am not talking about the highest leaders, relevant operational leaders over these issues of cool it on PJAK we will not push you . (ow is it working? ) don’t know. I was watching BBC television interview with Karayilan and He was effusive in his praise of Iran. So I assumed that here is something between the 79 Rethink Institute two on that ground. And were publicly and say something, But if you don’t push us in this direction we will not consent about you. Go ahead. But could obviously create problems for Turkey and Iraq, if this knowledge becomes public it goes on than Iran somehow is in cahoots with the PKK that would be a red line for Turkey. Another thing is the issue of NATO missile shoot and that doesn’t have to do with the Kurds per se. But it’s something that )ran had opposed and now it’s not a secret to oppose that it sees that it’s a direct threat against its on the national security. If it uses a point where when Iran thinks by using its Kurdish guards in Turkey it could somehow damage or weaken that policy then it will use that. Kurds become a factor than in the broader issue of NATO’s policy in Turkey, that’s another thing. Another issue that will certainly will not help is this type of regional cooperation is, again was mentioned in the previous panels and this panel, is the increasing tension between the Maliki’s government and the KRG. Again there’s no secret that Iran supports Maliki, has supported it from day one and does not want to see his government weakened in any form of fashion, does not want to go to the Saddam era period in )raq. And we’ve seen strong reactions for example with Hashemi got protection by the KRG and later on went to Turkey. We saw very strong unusual reaction coming from all corners, with the exceptions from the Iranian Foreign ministry, which has remained outside of this frame. The foreign ministry views Turkey as a long term strategic ally despite the differences that may emerge and views Turkey that the only regional country which Iran can have long term strategic allies as opposed to tactical allies. So, it does not want to make waves when it comes to that. But other elements of the Iranian government have written in the newspaper articles op-eds and so forth has its strongest attempts and attacking Turkish policy towards al(ashemi and giving him… )’m not sure where he is now, he was in Turkey and may still be there. So these are things that are obviously fluid things they change, none of this things has carved in stone - they change according to regional changes. But nonetheless, Kurds, you know, to summarize the Kurdish issue plays a much bigger role in regional politics and will continue to play much bigger in regional politics of the area than the specific Kurds centered issues made imply. Thank you very much. BAYRAM BALCI: Thank you very much for the very interesting presentation. I have no doubt that we have a lot of questions in the audience. So I have personal questions, but I prefer give the priority to the audience. If 80 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question possible we try to have two or three questions. Please present yourself and your institution, your affiliation. TOZUN BAHCHELI: My question is actually meant for all of you. I have a number of curiosities on the improved relations between the Turkey and the KRG. I am curious as to how much clout the KRG has over Turkish-Kurds and particularly Turkish nationalist Kurds. How much clout does Barzani have over the BDP or the PKK and so on? And a couple of related questions you talked about the improved relations with the KRG and Turkey. Now might Turkey be willing to contemplate an independent Kurdistan era, have they protected themselves for the possible attack that might happen and finally has Turkey’s policy to Kirkuk in a way to changed? DAVID ROMANO: My question is for Dr. Entassar. ) don’t know ) am naïve of this one, but a year and a half ago, )’ve gone through everything ) could find to all of PJAK’s attacks in )ran and they all seem to be revolutionary guards, security forces, police outpost, are the incidences against civilians something I just missed them or it happen on the last year and a half or could you give us some specific examples of what naïve people like myself have missed? NADER ENTASSAR: Yes, there are obvious confrontations with the revolutionary guards and those are reported and )’m sure that’s what you are refereeing to. But also there are significant number of other bombings, daily bombings almost in various cities all the way from Mahabad to Sanandaj to Marivan that have nothing to do with revolutionary guard stations or just a maybe targeting to a particular official who viewed as unsympathetic and he may be attending a particular gathering at that point in time. The official may die in the process of bombing too at the same time significant number of casualties are or in average people. DAVID ROMANO: Does PJAK claims responsibility? NADER ENTASSAR : Occasionally it does; occasionally it doesn’t . GUNES TEZCUR: I also read that some comments of some kind of vague Islamist group was responsible for this bombing attack and not necessarily PJAK. Do you have further information about that? NADER ENTASSAR : In Kurdistan? GUNES TEZCUR: Yes, in Kurdistan. NADER ENTASSAR: No. No really. There is no Islamic group in that nature. There are some in Balochistan sort of )slamic… GUNES TEZCUR: In Halepche region there is a sort of Islamic group in Iraq, which was destroyed after the invasion. 81 Rethink Institute NADER ENTASSAR: Yes but that is, the Iranian Islamic groups are, if they exist there are very few of them really, pro-government type of groups. But no, there is no organized armed Kurdish Islamic group that is fighting against the government. BILAL WAHAB: There were three questions from Prof Bahcheli )’ll give a shot at the second and the third to Gonul. The question is about the Kurdish independence whether Turkey will support it. I think the way I see it, I try to say it in my presentation this deal with Turkey is going to use to reduce the chances of Kurdish independence. This may be counterintuitive. But there is a curiosity with oil, that oil exporting countries becomes so much dependent on oil itself. Consider the ’s oil was used as a weapon, if America doesn’t do this then they cut off the oil exports. So when you become so much dependant in the oil itself you need the export more than you need the import. Because you have multiple sources while I only have one source of income. So right now, you know its kind of reversal of faith, the international committee is imposing oil embargo on Iraq in 1990, on Iran on 2011 and you know these countries are begging the world to buy their oil. And I think right now, the KRG 70-75 percent of its budget on its bloated bureaucracy. It hires 1.3 million employees and if even for 1 month or two, their exports is cut and the revenues are cut. Then it cannot maintain calm in the population. So if the deal will be going to be leverage against Baghdad, so KRG can have two outlets of export then that would be good for the KRG’s future toward more independence. But it is going to be replacing one patron, one dependency with another and the second dependency is Turkey, then ) think they’ll be moving one step away from statehood. GONUL TOL: And I would like to answer your question Bayram. You ask about now Turkey’s kind of looking at regional dynamics through its perspective of the PKK. And yes, when you look at the domestic and regional dynamics in 2009 for instance, when the government launched the Kurdish initiative. Domestically there was a political will to move forward with the Kurdish issue. First the AKP government wanted to increase its votes. When the AKP lost its Kurdish votes and the BDP actually increased its votes. So, there was that initiative was partly aimed at increasing AKP votes within the Turkish Kurdish community. And second there was another factor in play in 2009 which was there was the Ergenekon case and through that Ergenekon case the AKP the government could actually curb the military’s role and also marginalize the hardliners within the security establishment, which made it 82 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question easier for the government to launch that Kurdish initiative. And regionally Turkey was sailing in friendly waters in the region, close ties with Iran, close ties with Iraq and Syria. So, when that is the case you can actually focus on the domestic dynamics and the time is right for Turkey. But in 2012 the picture is not that rosy. Domestically there’s a deadlock and you really have this whole new constitution process, you really have to have the national consensus. And how are you going to have the consensus on contentious issues such as the language rights, or the definition of Turkey’s citizenship or region autonomy. When you have parties like the MHP and the BDP on the other side of the political spectrum. And add to that the regional dynamics, now the regional situations is completely different. )t’s not a suspicion anymore that the Assad regime is supporting the PKK in Syria and Turks fear that Iran is doing the same thing. And the only ally left is the KRG and the Syrian situation constantly poses a security threat. So when that is the case, it is really… and nothing is going on domestically. So that’s why Turkey is viewing its Middle East policy through the lens of the PKK. And the PKK intensify these attacks. Particularly the summer of 2011 was a very difficult year for Turkey. Right after the summer, right after the elections with the PKK intensifying these attacks and there was this democratic autonomy declared, which was really vague but still infuriated the public opinion in Turkey. So, all these dynamics just really weaken the government’s hand and as the answer to the question how much clout does Barzani have over Turkish Kurds or the BDP? ) think not much, right after the Kurdish initiative in 2009. Barzani wanted the Kurdish channel asking Kurds to support the Kurdish initiative did have an impact? Not really. And recently the BDP basically criticized Barzani and the government, the Turkish government, saying that Barzani is not a party to this conflict. And I think he has a point, because domestically the government is saying that: Okay, we want to sit down with BDP if it does break ties with the PKK. So as the government you basically say that you know the BDP is not a party and yet you turn to Barzani and that created a problem for the BDP and we saw it especially when the BDP members came to Washington and after Barzani. And it was just a message that we are the main actor in this problem. And the second one Turkey’s view on the independence of Kurdistan. ) mean that’s a very simple answer of course that’s Turkey’s worst nightmare. 83 Rethink Institute But, surprisingly when Barzani visited Ankara, a month ago, and when he talk about statehood there wasn’t a strong Turkish reaction. And ) think it is just doesn’t mean that Turkey’s is not worried about it at all, and Turkey is worried. In fact in every meeting between the military establishment and the government they said that you know, we are concerned about these. But, at the same time, I think, Turkey is so vulnerable because of the dynamics unleashed by the Arab Spring, Turkey doesn’t want to alienate the KRG the only ally it has currently in the region. So, in that sense I think Turkey is trying to keep it low, but the threat is still there and certainly Turkey does not really want any independent Kurdistan in )raq or in Syria. And Turkey’s policy of Kirkuk, we can tie this to Turkey’s view about independence Kurdistan, I think Turkey had a very strong policy vis-a-vis until 2009. But we have seen a change, transformation in Turkey’s )raq policy starting from 2009. And again this was part of the Kurdish initiative. And Turkey decided, okay again this is a multidimensional issue we have to address it as a social issue, as economic and political issue, and also as a domestic and regional issue. And that’s why Turkey opened a consulate in the capital Erbil , in KRG’s capital. And that was a change, but at the same time Turkey of course wants the integrity of )raq and that is Turkey’s highest priority. And ) think that’s why Turkey is kind of trying to balance its policy vis-a-vis Iraq, with its policy vis-a-vis with the Baghdad regime. I think starting from 2009, I think Turkey really played a very balanced role in the region. And )’m sure you’ll remember in 2011 for instance, after supporting the 2010 Iraqi elections the Turkish prime minister went to the Shia cities. And that was a deliberate thing, because Turkey’s just wanted to give this message to )raq: We want the relationship with the Kurds; we certainly want to cultivate closer relations with Sunni’s and also with Shiites. So in that sense ) think Turkey’s Kirkuk policies right now is on the back seat, because Turkey just really vulnerable and doesn’t want to alienate anyone in )raq. STEPHEN LARRABEE: I generally agree with Gonul on the first part of the question about Barzani. I think it is more interesting in some ways is the change in the Turkish attitude towards Barzani. Three or four years ago he was disbarred as a tribal chief and not somebody we would talk to beneath our dignity. And he came this time from Washington to Ankara he was greeted and welcomed as basically as an international statesman as a de facto head of state. That was a major change in the Turkish attitude. )t’s also interesting to look at some of the polls, because there are pools that show 84 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question that most Turkish Kurds by most, ) mean almost percent, don’t want, if given a chance would not move to the KRG. )n other words, they don’t want to get out of Turkey and go someplace else, because they know that there living is better. On the question on being depending on Kurdistan, again one has to look at exactly Gonul said the way to context has changed. What is happened in Syria, has made a tremendous difference in the Turkish attitude. The Turks tried for a long time in 2008, 2009, 2010 to develop a good relationship with Baghdad as a way of countering the KRG to a certain extent. That is all falling by the way side because of Maliki’s policies. ) mean Maliki is looked upon in Ankara as essentially )ran’s man. And there was differences with United States over how much influence Maliki had. How much support should be given by United States, giving him more support when the Turks focused on Alawi. But the point is as Turkey’s relationship with Baghdad has deteriorated that, as I said is sparked by more references by Barzani to independent Kurdistan. And Kirkuk. ) don’t really see a major change in Turkish policy and ) don’t think that they have pushed very much on Kirkuk. What is different, again two or three years ago, they saw the government in Baghdad, as our ally on Kirkuk, that basically that there were commonality of interest both the government of Baghdad, the Arab community did not want to see a Kurdish Kirkuk, neither did Turkey. But now that relations with Baghdad have deteriorated so badly, then I think the Turkey has just kept that issue on the back burner. BILAL WAHAB: There’s a Kurdish claim over in Kirkuk not just in Kirkuk, the whole green line disputed territories, in which many of oil companies have actually started drilling and exploiting oil in these regions and of course they are called disputed because it means that there is a claim in both sides. And the KRG has strategically invited that influential companies like Exxon Mobile and Hunt Oil, American companies to invest in the disputed region a part of it is in the side of the green line part of it in other side part of the green line. Of course you know oil fields kind of like, they don’t take a square shapes, so you maybe drilling here but tapping from the other side. And by the way, the whole siphoning drilling was the part of the reason that Iraqi invaded Kuwait. One of the accusations of Iraq had on Kuwait is that you know this is the border and we actually drilling this way they tap into their oil. So, unfortunately this conflict is all intertwined, complicated. And ) don’t think that war would solve it. Because a war between the federal, between 85 Rethink Institute Iraq proper and this Kurdish community has not solved problems, including using weapons of mass destruction. The Kurds are still there and their demands are more right than ever before and I think that Maliki government or any government in central Baghdad will have those centralization tendencies. But it needs a some kind of awakening that the time of centralized governance is over. The KRG has imposed on the status quote regardless of how does this go of working for democratic and economic progress in Kurdistan. And that’s a different conversation. But nonetheless because of how intertwined and complicated these issues are, for some reason the parties tend to complicate this further as they said by making in the regional. This deal with Turkey turns a national problem between two ethnic groups over federalism and over oil into a regional issue that brings in Turkey. And also bringing Iran because obviously Turkey wants Kurdish oil to go to itself than not through Iran, because obviously the Kurdistan region has an outlet through if things in Iran changed. So, you know it is getting complicated and its getting more complicated. I think the solution is going to be political negotiations rather than war, because they tried the war already and they failed. STEPHEN LARRABEE: Just telling this, I think there are more downsides that you allude to. In the sense that, first of all the energy issue. That they would lose... I mean the way that government laws have been set up now, by the central government they would have more control, but they have more benefits. If the KRG becomes independent and the KRG control over their oil field and gas field is total rather than shared. Secondly whatever one may think of Maliki) may be seen as in many ways )ran’s man, but he doesn’t want to be completely dependent upon Iran. And what you would end up in there is a very weak Iraq and Baghdad truncated which is totally would be almost totally dependent upon Iran and against the KRG, in which perhaps American influence comes back. The United States doesn’t want to be involved, but you know the leadership of the KRG leadership continues to raise the issue saying that the United States welcome or the US base and so forth. That United States wants that, there is a fact that you have the KRG, Turkey, the United States and the Sunnis then, arrayed against the very weak truncated Iraqi Shia government which is very dependent on Iran much so than they would want. And then the question again what happen to the Sunni area. I think there are downside risks that have to be weighed as well. 86 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question BARRY STORICK: I came from the Center for Study of Languages, for which is from University of Maryland. Professor Entassar actually you speaking about some civilian casualties that were killed in Iran and I think I Prof. Romano you asked if you could cite an examples and I believe that Professor Tezcur have asked if there is any Islamic Kurdish groups in Iran and you said there wasn’t any. That’s actually incorrect, there’s a Ansar alIslam, Ansar Sunnah and Mr. Wahab can actually attest that. They are highly active in Iraqi Kurdistan following invasion that killed a lots of people and actually fled to Iran. They are actually in Iran right now and trained by the IRGC and the IRGC funds them and they protect them because the Iranian military and the political hierarchies is believed that PJAK is a western power and an the )sraeli group were trying to underline the )ranian regime. )’m not… NADER ENTASSAR: They are absolutely there is no Sunni and the AntiShiite group in the area. Iranians are not that stupid as they are, they are portrayed to be in the West. BARRY STORICK: If I could retort to that briefly, you’re interrupting. But the Iranian regime does support them. Yes, the Iranian regime is Shiite and Ansar al-)slam is Sunni but you’re presuming the fact that Shiite group and the Sunni group cannot get along that’s false because they share a mutual hatred of the KRG. NADER ENTASSAR: I am not presuming that but the West presumes that all the time. You need to get the Washington-centered view this issues broaden. CHASE WINTER: )’m trying keep this uncomplicated as ) can, although it’s a little complicated topic. You go over the role of Turkey’s point of view of the KRG in the Syrian conflict, in particular the Kurdish groups in Syria. I mean you mentioned that Kurds as potential king makers I agree in a certain extent, but there’s so many different Kurdish groups and it is kind of hard for them to be king makers especially when it is not clear who the king in going to be. I just go a little bit on the Turkish role in the Syrian opposition SNC also the KNC and the PYD that is the PKK Syrian offshoot. Given that as we kind of to discuss that the Assad if not directly supporting the PYD as at least looking the other way and utilizing them to control the Syrian Kurdish population in areas in various protest in those areas, that make a lot of complicated acronyms. 87 Rethink Institute GONUL TOL: Sure, well ) think ) don’t need to talk about the Turkey’s role over Syrian opposition. I mean starting from the end of August, Turkey basically joined the anti-Assad camp and Turkey has been hosting the Syrian opposition. And with regard to the Kurds I think Turkey has been pushing, and this was right before the friends of Syria meeting in Tunisia, Turkey has been pushing the SNC to address the Kurdish issue. And you know the Turkish prime minister asked Burhan Ghaliun to grant a certain right or ensure Kurds that their rights will be protected in the post-Assad nation. And that happened to a certain extent and I think Turkey played an important role there, but the SNC basically was clear that the federation is out of question. But of course I mean Turkey again as I said that Turkey is trying to use Syrian Kurds. They play an important role because of the networks and the organic links between the Turkish Kurds and Syrian Kurds. And also they play an important role within the PKK. One third of the PKK members are of Syrian origin, so in that sense they play an important role. But, Turkey again has no leverage and that is why Turkey is trying to use the Kurdish regional government. And Barzani has certainly more clout over the Syrian Kurds but not much. And as you said about the PYD is very strong among Syrian Kurds. The Kurds, especially Kurds in Syria they are so fragmented. There’s a risk of PKKization of the Syrian Kurds. Because PYD plays such an important role and the moderate Kurdish groups within Syria, they are so fragmented. There is that risk and I think Barzani he has some cloud over the Kurds in SNC. But even those, the Kurds within the SNC are skeptical about it Turkey’s role and Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian opposition. So, that really makes things very complicated for Turkey. But, the Kurds are very fragmented not just in Syria, in )raq and even in Turkey. And ) think it’s in the long run, that’s just going to weaken their hand both in Syria and also in Turkey. NADER ENTASSAR: Yeah, I just wanted to say I mean with respect to Turkish or Kurdish groups in Iran that are a factor have been in the regional politics really. PJAK is really a footnote; it had always been linked with the PKK, it is a very small entity. Kurdish democratic party of Iran is the oldest one over 55 years of continues existence of large political entity. But that entity also has become a little bit of you know a minor player in the more recent years, than it used to be, in particular after the death of its one of the leaders- Ghassemlou, and it’s not a factor. )f you don’t talk about groups, that’s the group you have to focus. The groups that are within )ran are not part of any of these things, their mindset is completely different not like our 88 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question old folks so that think you know have something happened to me hundred years ago. They are very educated; they have a very broad view of the world. They understand the world better than they think they do. Basically, and their vision is beyond this from the party politics and chess games have been played in the region. And others trying to get their hands and moving the king here and there. Basically, I think that the dynamics of Kurdistan in general is something that’s beyond that kind of micromanaging. Even in relation of statehoods, if there is a state of Kurdistan not because Turkey wants it or doesn’t want it, or because )ran wants it or doesn’t want it. Nations are formed through their own dynamics and if you look at the history of formation nations. It is not that back door political maneuver, there are some states are formed but they fell apart. Yes, exactly the states formation is interesting discussion obviously. You can talk about what happen in this country oppose that. I mean now two years from now here and were talking about a new state. Kurdish state in the Middle East. STANLEY KOBER: Looking at an article by Azad Amin that appeared in Kurdish Globe, it’s an opinion article a couple of weeks ago. Let me read you a couple of sentences, The Kurdish political elite must understand that intensified regional and global hegemonic struggle over the Middle East, leave only two options for the Kurds. Either to pursue independent Kurdistan and or be satisfied with their existing oppressed status. The Kurds cannot sit and wait for others to permit and present Kurds )t must be fought for . )’d like to stress the last sentence, it must be fought for. SIRWAN KAJJO: My question is to Gonul Tol. There was a inconsistence among Syrian Kurds that Turkish government has the aupper hand on the Syrian scene specifically on the opposition. Basically in terms of backing the SNC, which is dominated by the Muslim Brothers. Now, the same Syrian Turkish delegation that was Washington D.C. two weeks ago had actually met with the adviser of Prime Minister Erdogan, and the conclusion of that meeting was that there are certain thing that Turkey can never accept in the future and the future of Syria. One is the autonomy for Syrian Kurds; two is the political decentralization; and three is secularism. And now my question is why Turkey so afraid of secular decentralization of the state and will Kurds can enjoy a sort of autonomy? Thank you. STEPHEN LARRABEE: Well, I can tell what the fear was and still in certain extent. Before the rapprochement, for years the basic fear was an Kurdish independent state would cause an increase in separatist sentiment in 89 Rethink Institute Turkey. And the military in particular has the kind of the role was stronger for years ago than these days. And for a long while they wouldn’t even allow the government to negotiate or even come into contact officially with the KRG representatives. I mean if you go back when the time when Sezer was president, he refuse to meet the Talibani when Talibani was president of Iraq. So I mean that was the fear when there is deeply ingrained that independent Kurdish state would have major negative consequences for Turkish security and lead to increase in separatist sentiment. BAYRAM BALCI: I think we should exaggerate the role of the Turkish government on the Syrian position. But we should not forget one thing that in the case of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is Syrian reality for example; I think maybe of course the AKP has a real importance of the cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood. But we shouldn’t forget the point that even before this in the Syria position the Muslim Brotherhood is very important. ) don’t think that AKP has decided to represent to give 20-30 percent of their representative in the SNC. I think it is very important. And the second concern is the Kurdish issue in Syria. Turkey is against the Kurdish autonomy in Syria. If you ask Syrian opposition if you ask Burhan Ghalioun and all the opposition there is a small minority in Syria who can give the possibility to give this to Kurdish opposition. It is really impossible it will complicate to the situation of the future in Syria. ) think it’s not from the Turkish point but it’s very Syrian problem. GONUL TOL: And I think that, I have to add one thing with regard to Muslim Brotherhood. No matter who comes to power after Assad, I think it doesn’t matter whether there’s a Muslim Brotherhood government or another government they will have to cooperate with Turkey against the PKK. And with regard to the Muslim brotherhood relations with the AKP it is not just the AKP this dates back to the 1980s. When Syrian Muslim brotherhood members escaped from father Hafez Assad, some of their leaders of Muslim Brotherhood carried Turkish citizenship. So, there is that history, but at the same time ) don’t think that Turkey is trying to give that message to the world that Turkey is supporting Muslim Brotherhood government in a post-Assad Syria. Prime Minister Erdogan asked Assad to step down in the end of August. So, this was months before that in April, we had the Muslim brotherhood leaders in Istanbul. They had a press release condemning the Assad regime and of course it was not done without the approval of most of the AKP and the government. But they were tolerated, so 90 Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Question they ask so ) think that Turkey’s main concern which regard to Syria is first the security threat posses and second is the Kurdish issue. So, in that sense the government is rationalistic enough to understand that whoever comes to power, they are going to need Turkey. I mean Turkey Prime Minister Erdogan and Assad, they were best friends… they are from different sects, yet still they could cultivate a close relationship. So, it is not just the whole, agree with you, it is not just Sunni or Shia thing. I think currently Turkey is following a realist foreign policy. And it has to do so because all of the security threats pose by the Arab Spring against the Turkey. So, in that sense, Turkey knows that whether the Muslim Brotherhood or not, whoever comes to power will have to cooperate with Turkey and primarily because of the economic problem. And before the Arab spring I mean Syria was the test case of Ahmet Davutoglu of the zero problems policy. In Turkey invested heavily in Syria and they lifted the visa requirements, they signed the free trade agreement. And the post-Assad government is going to need Turkey’s investment. And that is the first thing and second, Turkey hosted over 20 thousand Syrian refugees and hosted Syrian opposition. So, a new government after Assad is going to appreciate that and we’ll need Turkey and ) think that the government knows that; so in that sense that Turkey is really not investing in the Muslim Brotherhood. ILHAN TANIR: One comment and one question. Let me ask question first to Nader. Sir about Murat Karayilan case, there were all of talks couple months ago that he was arrested in Iran. And then he was released that was kind of secret agreement between the Iran government and PJAK. Within Iran that PJAK is going to stop attacking in Iran. And I think that it shows that the attacks decreased in )ran, ) don’t know if you have any insight on that, which would be great. My comment is Kurdish national council leader that was just two weeks ago and I was able to seat and talk with him, and when he talk to the Syrian Kurds actually you get a very different about the picture about the Turkish role. First of all they think that Turkey is the biggest and most important player in the Syrian opposition and it is rightly so. And the view is actually Turkey definitely does not want federalism within Syria and actually one of the KNC member quoted one of the adviser of Davutoglu that there will be no reference to the Kurdish identity in the Syrian constitution. So, my final comment is ) think when it comes to Syrian Kurds it’s a very different picture about the Turkish role so far has been playing with regards to the Syrian Kurds in the SNC and I must say it is a very negative role. Thank you. 91 Rethink Institute NADER ENTASSAR: Regarding the reports that you’ve mention, yes, you quite correct, there were brief reports in various Iranian websites inside Iran. )’m talking about some of them well connected to the government and even the revolutionary guard website. Reported the exact same thing in two sentences, they never named Murat Karayilan, they said the number two man in the PKK has been arrested and further reports will be posted. And nothing came out two days later exact same reports on posted that there was a mistake that the person who was arrested was not the number two man in the PKK. It was a low level operative, again without naming other individual. Now, do not quote me on this because I do not have absolute proof on it, but I do have contact with people who are quite well-versed in these issues. And I was told that indeed it was Karayilan that was detained, not inside Iran. He was detained in the clashes of the revolutionary guards in Qandil mountains and whatever the discussions if that report was true, there must have had some discussion over certain issues. And they must have been the satisfactory discussions for both sides to pretty much end it at that level. Beyond that, you’re quite correct that the reports were widely distributed and then changed to a different story in a couple of days. 92