ABSENT GOT LEADERSHIP, TURKISH MILITARY LAUNCHES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 002837

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/18/2029
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS MOPS PHUM TU
SUBJECT: ABSENT GOT LEADERSHIP, TURKISH MILITARY LAUNCHES
MAJOR ANTI-PKK OPERATIONS

REF: A. ANKARA 02525


B. AFOSI DET 522 INCIRLIK AB

C. IIR 1 663 3629

(U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: E.O.
12958 1.4 (b,d).

(U) This is a joint Adana/Ankara cable.


1. (C) Summary: Contacts report heavy Turkish military
presence in southeastern Turkey. Adana PO reports that,
while rural flows of recruits to the PKK may be occurring,
contacts are not seeing a similar phenomenon from urban
areas. Absent any Erdogan government strategy for dealing
with the Kurds, the PKK or the southeast in general, Turkish
military is countering renewed PKK insurgency with major
field operations. PKK, reportedly trained in much more
sophisticated bomb-making by Ansar al-Islam in n. Iraq,
continues to smuggle not only C-4 and A-4 explosives, but
also RDX, into Turkey for expected urban operations. A
leading Kurdish politician and long-standing contact notes
widespread conviction among Kurds that deeper elements of the
Turkish State are using the PKK and jailed leader Ocalan to
disrupt formation of viable Kurdish political alternatives
and to put the Erdogan government under pressure. End
summary.

Continuing Attraction of the PKK
--------------


2. (C) Consulate officers met with Hakkari attorney Rojbin
Tugan on May 6 in Adana. Tugan was pessimistic about the
chances of a moderate Kurdish political force counteracting
the political "hegemony" of the PKK among the Kurdish
population in the Southeast, and even in neighboring Iran,
any time in the near future. The PKK represents most of the
people in southeastern Turkey, she claimed; she has heard
reports from towns in Hakkari, Sirnak and Mardin about dozens
of young people leaving to join the PKK in the Qandil
mountains. Many go out of Kurdish solidarity in the face of
GOT inattention to more moderate Kurdish demands for cultural
recognition, she believes, rather than due to identification
with PKK ideology. Embassy Ankara contacts in the southeast
and leading Kurdish politician Hasim Hasimi have made the
same point to us.


3. (C) While Tugan has heard of strong support for the PKK in
provinces bordering Iraq, contacts in Diyarbakir on May 9-10
had different perceptions of the PKK,s recruiting ability.
Contacts there who work regionally did not rule out rural
flows of recruits in provinces near the Iraqi border, such as
Hakkari and Sirnak, but did not think the organization was
getting people from urban areas in the numbers it had in the
past. (Note: They also pointed out a slow, but steady
village return process in some areas of southeastern Turkey
which are distant from traditional conflict areas.
Government officials in Diyarbakir, Van and Dogubeyazit noted
this slowly progressing trend as well, but did not overstate
it to PO. End note.)


4. (C) Seymus Diken, an advisor to the Mayor of Diyarbakir,
along with Sahismael Bedirhangoglu, President of the
Southeast Businessman,s Association, recalled times in the
1990s when "whole classrooms" from Dicle University would
head south to join the PKK. "That just doesn't happen
anymore," they claimed. Additionally, they are hearing less
about people giving financial and material support to the
organization, they said, and when they do hear about, less
financial support is flowing than in the past.

Come on, people, there's a problem here
--------------


5. (C) Tugan, while at pains personally not to endorse the
idea of amnesty, legitimately pointed out that many people
convicted in the past by the now-abolished State Security
Courts, which did not meet EU standards, have lost their
right to appeal their cases to the ECHR, as Ocalan did,
because too much time has passed. In the absence of an
amnesty, she said, the state must at least acknowledge a
problem. "Erdogan can't even bring himself to utter the word
'Kurd'," she claimed, adding, "Come on, people, there is a
problem here."

Bolu Brigade Back in Hakkari?
--------------

6. (C) Tugan stated that the current military presence in
Hakkari is higher than it has ever been, despite the fact
that so far she has not heard of a corresponding PKK
mobilization into Hakkari province from Qandil mountain. The
Bolu commando brigade, accused of gross human rights
violations in the 1990s, and the Kayseri Jandarma brigade,
have reportedly been deployed in the region, and she said
there has been a return of checkpoints, at which troops treat
the local population "rudely", in places and numbers that
have not been seen since the state of emergency (OHAL)
period. Tugan claimed that even EU Ambassador Kretschmer was
advised by the military not to travel from Diyarbakir to
Hakkari recently, due to a lack of security in the region.


7. (C) In a May 11 conversation with Adana PO in Van, the
representative of UNHCR,s Van field office (strictly
protect) corroborated Tugan's observations about the
increased military presence in Hakkari province. Upon the
recommendation of security officials, UNHCR staff recently
called off a fact-finding trip to Yuksekova, where they had
hoped to check upon the conditions of recent returnees from
the Makhmour camp in northern Iraq. They reported seeing
frequent aircraft activity overhead heading south, and also
noted frequent cuts to the mobile phone network in the area,
beyond what might be considered normal disruptions in
coverage, when forces were reportedly undertaking activities.
PO experienced one of the cuts to the network himself on the
morning of May 12.

Military Deployments
--------------


8. (C) PKK attacks and GOT operations continued apace during
PO,s May 9-12 visit to the region. On May 13, just the day
after PO,s departure from Dogubeyazit, three security forces
were wounded in a "gun and bomb" attack there. On May 13,
two Jandarma members were killed and three injured in a PKK
attack in Bingol apparently as Consulate LES transited the
province.


9. (C) While PO was traveling in the region, larger than
usual Turkish rotary lift was observed in Diyarbakir, where
four UH-60 and two UH-1 helicopters were in clear view at a
Diyarbakir military airport. In Van, a single UH-60 was
observed at the Van civil-military airfield, but there were
clearly visible support arrangements in place for a larger
number of tactical helicopters which at that time of day may
have been active elsewhere nearby. Contacts consistently
spoke of brigade sized deployments of Turkish Army forces in
Hakkari and eastern Sirnak. Some mentioned that Bolu Brigade
by name. There have been press reports of additional
Jandarma units in battalion strength brought into the Bingol
area from elsewhere in Turkey. Additionally, during the
evening of May 9, there were several hours of heavy Turkish
F-16 flight activity at the Diyarbakir civil-military airport.


10. (C) An Embassy Ankara source with deep contacts in the
military and intelligence agencies told polcounselor May 16
that the Turkish military has launched a two-part operation
involving 28,000 troops. One v-shaped movement is sweeping
southward through Tunceli, the other v-shaped deployment is
sweeping westward in the Tatvan-Bitlis-Bingol area. Our
source reported that, as of May 15, twenty security forces
and forty insurgents had been killed and a number of
insurgents had been taken prisoner "in condition to be
interrogated." Six more security forces were reported killed
May 17.


11. (C) Once the snows at higher elevations have melted, the
military plans a major sweep through Hakkari and Sirnak
provinces parallel to the border with Iraq, our source
reported. He noted that the PKK and another leftist
terrorist group -- TIKKO -- are collaborating in Tunceli
province. As a result insurgent activity has reached such a
high level that travel between Elazig and Tunceli is now
possible only by escorted convoy and the area around Ovacik
district in northern Tunceli province, the scene of
prolonged, bitter fighting in the 1990's, is no longer under
Turkish authorities' control after dark. Given that (1) the
current government has transferred or exiled the national
police's (TNP) most experienced anti-PKK officers; (2) other,
uncoordinated police arrests have disrupted the authorities'
ability to keep track of the PKK courier network among bomber
cells; and (3) Erdogan ordered the break-up of the
interagency anti-terrorism operations coordination group in
the National Security Council, the Turkish authorities are
currently overwhelmed, especially in trying to track or break
up PKK urban operations planning, our source said.


12. (C) Our source also alerted us that, in addition to
intensified smuggling of C-4 and A-4 into Turkey, the PKK is
continuing to bring in RDX. He says that use of A-4 in bomb
attacks will lead to further leaks to the Turkish press by
anti-U.S. elements in the security services that the U.S. is
tacitly or more directly aiding the PKK. Our source added
that PKK bomb-making has increased significantly in
sophistication owing in part to PKK insurgents' training by
Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq. The bomb which recently
killed a police officer in the Aegean tourist center of
Kusadasi was an example of highly sophisticated manufacture,
he said: the bomb was wired to go off when the music player
automatically shut itself off, breaking the circuit, at the
end of a song.

Comment
--------------


13. (C) Amidst the PKK's renewed aggressiveness questions
linger about the PKK's connections to deeper parts of the
Turkish State. It is common knowledge among our contacts who
have been involved in, or followed, counter-insurgency
activity that at the PKK's founding meeting in the Ankara
squatter district of Mamak in 1978, "every institution of the
deep State was represented at the table." It has also been
reported in the press that Ocalan worked for the Turkish
National Intelligence Organization while a student in the
1970's. In unguarded moments Turks will ask how it is that
since at least the early 1990's the PKK has been able to run
such significant amounts of narcotics through the
heavily-monitored southeast to Istanbul and Western Europe.
Good contacts -- and Cabinet ministers -- have asked us how
it is that PKK terrorist leader Ocalan, incarcerated in the
maximum security prison on the island of Imrali, was able to
write a letter in May 2004 directly threatening the AKP
government and have it delivered. Many contacts, both Turks
and Kurds, quietly wonder to us whether certain elements in
the Turkish State, benefiting from the PKK's narcotics trade
and the need to keep substantially larger security forces on
active duty than would otherwise be necessary, would prefer
not to have the PKK wiped out.


14. (C) Pointing to Ocalan's statements in praise of the
Turkish State since his capture, Hasim Hasimi and other
right-of-center Kurdish politicians have long asserted that
Ocalan made a deal with the Turkish State. Hasimi points to
Ocalan's recent neo-Marxoid, anti-American jargon about
"confederalism without a state" as an example of
incomprehensible rhetoric designed to keep Kurds in Turkey,
Syria, Iraq and Iran off balance and wary of one another. He
notes to us that village guards in the southeast have told
him they are under orders not to impede the infiltration of
PKK guerrillas. While conceding that the Turkish military
might have wanted to draw guerrillas into Turkey, where
military forces could corral them, Hasimi also thinks the
military wants to use the increased PKK presence to put
pressure on the AKP government.


15. (C) With movements of additional military forces into
areas traditionally associated with seasonal PKK activity, we
expect sustained, intense clashes will continue. In the
absence of an Erdogan government policy toward the Kurds, the
PKK, or the southeast in general, the Turkish military is
left to address the renewed PKK challenge. This failure of
leadership and vision on the part of the Erdogan government
is perpetuating the polarized political atmosphere. End
comment.
EDELMAN