TURKEY'S SOUTHEAST: GROWING VIOLENCE THREATENS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 002533

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/15/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S SOUTHEAST: GROWING VIOLENCE THREATENS
(AGAIN) TO CUT OFF PEACEFUL DIALOGUE

REF: ANKARA 2500

Classified By: Adana PO Eric Green for reasons 1.4 (b),(d)

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

2.(C) Summary: Even as PKK attacks on civilian and military
targets in the southeast intensify, the latitude for debate
of Kurdish issues continues to widen. Politicians and civil
society representatives in Diyarbakir welcomed the more
tolerant atmosphere, but expressed disappointment with the
Kurdish nationalist DTP's inability to articulate a
constructive vision since entering parliament in July. The
strengthened AKP has renewed its efforts for EU-friendly
human rights standards, but has thus far avoided any
perception that it is responding to Kurdish demands.
Reactions to a September 29 massacre in Sirnak province that
killed 13 pro-government village guards reveal the continued
depth of distrust between many in the southeast and the
government as some local leaders suspect dark forces within
the Turkish security apparatus were responsible for the
attack. End summary.

Pushing ) and Crossing ) the Boundaries
--------------

3.(C) During a two-day visit to Diyarbakir Oct 1-2, Adana
officers met with a variety of government and party officials
as well as civil society representatives and journalists.
Most interlocutors were enthusiastic about the expanding
opportunities for dialogue about the Kurdish issue, a trend
reinforced by the AKP's July election victory and its
commitment to push more democratic reform. The increasingly
permissive atmosphere was evidenced by an international
conference on September 29-30 in Diyarbakir that featured
representatives from the DTP and other Turkish political
parties, experts on other conflicts such as the Basque,
prominent Turkish commentators and retired diplomats )
people who until recently would not have agreed to meet in
public. In one taboo-breaking presentation, columnist Cengiz
Candar explicitly urged the GOT to negotiate with the DTP
because it is linked with the PKK and is therefore in a good
position to serve as a partner in launching a peace process.
This is a telling reversal as members of the Turkish
establishment typically cite the DTP's PKK connections as a
reason to shun contact with the party.

4.(C) Despite such signs of progress, however, elements of
the GOT remain defensive; police officers visited some of the
conference's foreign participants in their hotel demanding to
see their passports and on October 1, conference speaker
Sertac Bucak, the leader of HakPar, a tiny Kurdish party that
has no ties with violence, was arrested and charged for
remarks he made last year advocating a federal system in
Turkey.

Gul Visit: Nice Gesture, But not a Breakthrough
-------------- --

5.(C) President Gul's early September visit to the southeast,
including Diyarbakir (his first travel as President) was also
welcomed as a signal of his administration's democratic
instincts and possible interest in playing a more proactive
role in the region. Local businessman Sahismail
Bedirhanoglu, one of several civil society leaders who met
with Gul, said he was impressed with Gul's informal,
approachable manner and his willingness to listen.
Diyarbakir mayor Osman Baydemir was also pleased that Gul
visited and said Gul has potential to make great strides on
the Kurdish issue. Baydemir said he urged Gul to rise above
his past as an AKP minister and use the role of president as
a "referee" who can intervene in disputes involving local
parties, the government or the military.

AKP in the SE: Successful and Hungry for More
--------------

6.(C) The unexpectedly strong vote for the AKP in the
southeast coupled with the election of 20 DTP deputies means
that local political landscape is now dominated by rivalry
between these parties. The competition is acute in the DTP's

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main stronghold of Diyarbakir, which PM Erdogan has already
explicitly identified as a top target for the AKP in the 2009
municipal elections. In the weeks following the election
there was speculation that the DTP and AKP would be natural
allies on issues such as amending the constitution to reduce
military influence on the GOT. In reality, the AKP appears
loath to risk nationalist backlash by overtly cooperating
with the DTP or making any declarations on the Kurdish issue.
Newly elected DTP Diyarbakir MP Gultan Kisanak complained to
us that when DTP parliamentarians criticized the AKP program
for government for not addressing the Kurdish issue, PM
Erdogan lashed back, saying he would not engage with the DTP
until it renounces the PKK. She joked that the DTP now
enjoys better relations with the ultra-nationalist MHP than
with the AKP.

7.(C) Diyarbakir mayor Osman Baydemir accused the AKP of
remaining in "campaign mode" when it should tone down its
nationalist rhetoric and build bridges with the DTP, which
can help end the violence and serve as a partner in
democratization efforts. Baydemir said he fears that the
AKP's long-term goal is to push for greater democratization
while ignoring Kurdish-specific demands for more cultural
rights and political autonomy. This approach, he said,
derives from the AKP viewing society through an Islamic lens,
in which Kurds and Turks are all members of a single Muslim
brotherhood. "They want us to remain silent and they think
that after 20 or 30 years the problem will go away."

8.(C) In a separate meeting, Baydemir aide Siyar Ozsoy told
us the AKP's standoffish approach to the DTP and the Kurds is
completely understandable since the AKP faces fierce
opposition to its reform plans from the military,
nationalists and traditional secularists ) all far more
powerful lobbies than the Kurds. In this environment, he
said it makes sense that the AKP is not eager to take on the
Kurdish issue.

DTP: Stumbling Out of the Gates
--------------

9.(C) The AKP's aloofness from the Kurdish issue has been
reinforced by the DTP's own dismal debut, which has
disappointed its own supporters. Baydemir admitted that the
DTP was unprepared for the elections and did a poor job of
candidate selection. He encapsulated the problem, saying "we
need to stop complaining and make some constructive
proposals." Confusion and disorganization reign within the
party, however. Baydemir's aide, Ozsoy, noted that the party
has not yet formulated or articulated positions on core
Kurdish issues, such as cultural/linguistic rights,
administrative reform or policy towards Iraq. When asked
what the party's key priorities were for the coming term of
parliament, DTP MP Kisanak talked for five minutes about the
process of constitutional amendment without addressing the
DTP's goals for the new constitution. She then changed the
subject.

10.(C) Seymus Diken, a prominent Kurdish writer who also
serves as an advisor to Baydemir, told us that the DTP is in
serious difficulties because of internal divisions. "A
statement by one DTP official is often contradicted the same
day by a competing statement," he said. A core problem, he
said, is that the party is still being governed "from the
east" i.e. from PKK camps in the mountains on the
Turkish-Iraq border.

11.(C) NGO and business representatives, meanwhile, are
disappointed that the DTP has not shown any interest in
developing policies on socio-economic development, a glaring
oversight for a party that represents the poorest
constituents in the poorest region of the country.

Sirnak Massacre: PKK Terror or "Mystery Killing"?
-------------- --------------

12.(C) All the political leaders we met condemned the
September 29 murder of 12 people, including several
pro-government village guards, in Sirnak province, though
Kurdish nationalists were quick to voice skepticism about the
government's claim that the PKK was to blame. (The PKK

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denied involvement in the September 29 attack, but did
acknowledge responsibility for the October 7 killing of 13
Turkish soldiers.) Baydemir and other DTP leaders said the
incident was reminiscent of "mystery killings" carried out by
government forces in the 1990s. He added that the memory of
the 2005 Semdinli case, in which military intelligence
officers secretly bombed a Kurdish bookstore, is still fresh
in the southeast. Governor Avni Mutlu claimed that the
guards may have been targeted because the PKK has been trying
unsuccessfully to persuade them to refrain from actively
assisting the military in its anti-PKK operations. Baydemir
aide Ozsoy, however, claimed that some village guards have in
fact retreated from the fighting and that the military
conducted the attack to motivate other guards to rejoin the
fight against the PKK.

13.(C) More neutral observers, such as free-lance journalist
Yilmaz Akinci, profess uncertainty about who is responsible.
Akinci noted that, on one hand the PKK has suffered serious
losses the last six months (175 killed and 120 captured) so
it would be understandable if a PKK unit, or the leadership,
wanted to exact revenge on the village guards, who are a
relatively soft target. According to some media reports, the
military with support from village guards had killed a
prominent PKK leader, Nazan Bayram, a week before the attack.
On the other hand, he said the security forces have tightly
restricted information on the incident and has kept the
survivors incommunicado in a military hospital. Akinci said
that whoever was responsible for the incident, the fact
remains that the continued activities by both the PKK and the
Turkish military, reinforce one another and he lamented the
fact that wide-scale violence often erupts when progress on
the political track starts to gain momentum.

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

14.(C) By ratcheting up violence even as the process of
political dialogue ) which now includes elected DTPers in
parliament ) gains momentum, the PKK appears intent on
playing the role of spoiler. The main losers from this are
DTP politicians interested in dialogue and Kurds in the
southeast caught in the crossfire. While Kurds retain a
healthy suspicion about the GOT, the AKP appears to be
winning the benefit of the doubt by keeping its distance from
the military and focusing on further democratization and
economic development.

15.(C) The DTP is apparently flummoxed by the requirements of
democratic politics and feels safer in its traditional role
as defender and mouthpiece of the PKK. If the DTP continues
to stay absent from debates on Turkey's future constitution
and European aspirations, it risks pushing itself further to
the margins of Turkish politics and squandering an
opportunity to influence Turkey's future.

Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/

WILSON