TURKEY'S SOUTHEAST: UPDATE ON PRO-PKK POLITICAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 004182

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2015
TAGS: MOPS PGOV PHUM PREL TU POLITICAL PARTIES
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S SOUTHEAST: UPDATE ON PRO-PKK POLITICAL
PARTY DEHAP


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

1.(U)This is a Consulate Adana cable.


2. (C) Summary: Pro-Kurdish DEHAP party officials profess
to be upbeat about the political development of the
Democratic Society Movement (DSM) and continue to defend
PKK's use of violence in response to what they call "Turkish
state violence against Kurds" and insincere democratization
by the AKP government. End Summary.

Pro-Kurdish DEHAP Leaders Claim Official Hostility
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3. (C) AMCON Adana met with Adana's DEHAP leadership on July
12 to discuss the Democratic Society Movement (DSM) and DEHAP
perceptions of current clashes in southeast Turkey. . The
DEHAP leaders predict an eventual transition of DEHAP into
the DSM, but were fuzzy on the details DEHAP leaders
criticized the Adana governor's office for seeking to block
DEHAP's lending of its provincial offices and staff to DSM
for the new group's balloting on the grounds that the DSM was
not yet an established political party. The DEHAP leaders
said that they "just had been informed" that the Adana Chief
Prosecutor would charge them with illegal political
activities for DEHAP's assistance to the recent DSM
balloting. They said that Turkish state animosity toward
DEHAP on the DSM balloting issue, which they said occurred
elsewhere in SE Turkey, fit a larger pattern. For instance,
governors are denying permission for DEHAP mayors to travel
internationally to attend EU activities (they cited a recent
ban on the international travel of the Dogubeyazit DEHAP
mayor as an example) and blocking DEHAP municipalities from
receiving funding for EU-financed local development projects.
(Note: AMCON Adana asked for corroborating information on
this allegation and the extent of its possible application.
End Note.)

An Impassioned Defense of the PKK
--------------


4. (C) Asked about ongoing conflicts in SE Turkey, Adana
DEHAP leaders embarked on an impassioned defense of what they
said is the restraint PKK is showing in the face of a large
Turkish offensive. They claimed the PKKis only attacking
when attacked and is showing restraint in avoiding mixed
civilian/military targets in urban areas. PO asked how this
perception squared with attacks in tourist areas or trains in
eastern Anatolia. They countered that the train attack had
been focused on a cargo, not troop-carrying train, and said
that the tourist area attacks were intended to make scare
tourists and decrease tourism tax revenue so that the State
could not afford the offensive in SE Turkey.


5. (C) PO noted that the PKK is a terrorist organization and
that violence is not helping democratization in Turkey. The
DEHAP leaders said the AKP government is not interested in
democratization or in satisfying any aspects Kurdish demands.
They pointed to the closing of Egitim-Sen teacher's union (
which championed mother-tongue language instruction in
public schools),state oppositiontot the DSM, a lack of
instruction in Kurdish in state schools, the ten percent
election threshold, and no private Kurdish-language
broadcasts as examples of AKP government insincerity about
democratization. "Kurds are not going to be convinced by a
few minutes of Kurdish language on TV and radio a week about
what the deep state wants us to hear," one DEHAP leader said.


6. (C) " The two DEHAP leaders claimed Kurds think that their
only choices are sniffing glue on back streets or making a
&patriotic8 decision to join the PKK. "As a result," two
leaders said, "they make the 'patriotic choice' to head
toward the mountains."Both leaders said U.S. policy on PKK is
one-sided and does not recognize that Turkish policy offers
only "assimilation and no way for Kurds to peacefully and
honorably express their identity within a Turkish
citizenship."


7. (C) They said that PKK fighters have no incentive to give
up arms and come back to Turkey. To what would they return,
they asked rhetorically: to unemployment, prison, no
dignity? They said the Turkish state) will only change under
great outside pressure, and the PKK is what has pressured
them from outside this long. Without the PKK, nothing would
have changed they argued.


8. (C) Comment: The Adana DEHAP leaders, defense of the
PKK and its terrorism reflect the PKK strategy of using the
current campaign of violence to achieve three goals: (1) free
Ocalan; (2) obtain founding-nation status for "the Kurds";
and (3) a general amnesty that would allow PKK guerrillas to
join society, enter the bureaucracy, and fight for Kurdish
autonomy as a Sinn Fein equivalent. None of these goals is
acceptable to the Turkish State.


9. (C) As for the AKP government, it has made only one or two
feeble gestures toward the Kurds and Southeast in more than
two and one half years in power. AKP has no strategy for
dealing with the PKK (Erdogan learned about one recent
massive army operation from television the following day),
the Kurds in general, or the Southeast. The armed forces,
which for a decade or more have called for a coherent GOT
social, economic, and political policy, are left to fill the
void with military operations; at the same time the TGS is
using the AKP policy failure as one of several instruments to
put increasing pressure on AKP. End Comment.
MCELDOWNEY