TURKEY: SOUTHEAST PERSPECTIVE: KURDISH OPENING

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 001749

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SCE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/09/2019
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL PTER TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: SOUTHEAST PERSPECTIVE: KURDISH OPENING
BURIED UNDER SELF-INTEREST AND INSINCERITY

Classified By: Adana Deputy Principal Officer Leyla Ones, for reasons 1
.4(b,d)

This is a Consulate Adana cable.


1. (C) SUMMARY: On a December 1-4 trip to southeast
Turkey, a range of Kurdish contacts representing the
intelligentsia, political elite and civic activists gave
surprisingly similar observations on the ruling Justice and
Development Party's (AKP) "democratic opening," citing
selfishness and insincerity on the part of all actors, in
particular the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) and its leader
Abdullah Ocalan. Interlocutors pointed to the following
factors as sabotaging the nascent democratization movement:
Ocalan's obsession with his own wellbeing; DTP's unwavering
loyalty to Ocalan that trumps the Kurds' greater good; AKP's
perceived hypocrisy and relentless vote-hunting through
political Islam; the legal system's allegiance to protecting
the state over serving justice; and opposition party
intransigence. As the PKK continues to incite street
violence, a struggle that was once chiefly in the military
and political domains threatens to pit community against
community, as friction in western Turkey has a
lready demonstrated. Now all eyes are on the DTP closure
case that begins on December 8, which Kurds view as the
ultimate test of government sincerity in upholding democracy.
END SUMMARY.

NO KURD HAS THE COURAGE TO CONFRONT OCALAN'S SELFISHNESS
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2. (C) Privately in meetings with Adana Deputy Principal
Officer and Ankara PolOff, intellectual, Islamic/conservative
and mainstream Kurds pointed to Ocalan as an intractable
obstacle to progress on the democratic initiative. Ocalan's
former attorney, Hamza Yilmaz, told us the PKK leader's top
concerns were amnesty for himself and using his personal
power to move eventually to a more palatable prison
arrangement such as house arrest. Yilmaz said Ocalan,
realizing the democratic initiative was not working in his
favor, ordered the PKK to begin inciting street violence to
illustrate his influence and to compel the GOT to improve his
confinement conditions. Yahya Munis, conservative Kurdish
leader of Mersin's GOC-DER, an association championing rights
of Kurdish migrants, noted neither the PKK nor the DTP have
an interest in the Kurdish community as a whole; they are
interested only in one person - Ocalan. No Kurd has the
courage to tell Ocalan to bow out of the picture so politics
can focus on the greate
r good, Munis said. He added that most Kurds only grudgingly
support the PKK, whose communist and anti-religious
philosophy is "contrary to their nature," because it is the
only vehicle to "seek revenge" to address decades of torture,
deprivations, harassment and humiliation.

APO'S AMBASSADORS FROM THE MOUNTAINS
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3. (C) According to Diyarbakir human rights attorney Arif
Altunkalem, it is unquestionable that Ocalan is calling the
shots from his cell, and Ocalan's selfishness makes the
democratic opening not about securing Kurdish rights but
about his personal comfort. Altunkalem pointed to the 26
civilians and eight former PKK members who returned to Turkey
among Kurdish fanfare, noting they are now "Apo's
Ambassador's" (Note: Apo is a nickname for Abdullah Ocalan.
End note). The group, now in Diyarbakir, gave a press
conference on November 30 urging immediate improvement in
Ocalan's cell conditions and pushing for his release as
leader of the Kurds.

DTP AND PKK FEAR DEMOCRATIC OPENING
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4. (C) Prominent Diyarbakir human rights attorney Sezgin
Tanrikulu said the PKK is afraid of the democratic opening
and views it as a government tool to weaken or even
annihilate them. The DTP and PKK's encouragement of violent

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street protests, shop closures and rallies is a way to
squeeze AKP between opposition parties' stinging criticisms
that AKP is negotiating with a terrorist and accusations that
AKP is easily manipulated by PKK-orchestrated popular
sentiment. Former Sanliurfa Bar Association president Sabri
Cepik agrees with Tanrikulu, pointing to DTP's insistence
that Ocalan be accepted as the Kurds' primary interlocutor as
evidence of its unwillingness to solve the Kurdish issue.
Cepik said Ocalan as an interlocutor was a nonstarter that
the Turkish public would not accept. Cepik said if the PKK
were truly interested in disarmament, it would not shout the
slogan "Freedom for Ocalan, Peace for the Kurds!" Is
Ocalan's freedom a precondition, Cepik asked rhetorically,
adding "as if the Kurds were f
ree!"

AKP MISCALCULATIONS EAST OF THE EUPHRATES
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5. (C) Tanrikulu said AKP had failed to recognize the
importance of Ocalan east of the Euphrates. The AKP's
populist rhetoric raised expectations in the southeast, but
through a series of missteps - like PM Erdogan's public
statements blaming Kurds on the recent Izmir attack on a DTP
convoy - lost the confidence of Kurds in the southeast.
DTP's Diyarbakir Provincial Chairman Firat Anli said Kurds
view AKP's sincerity in calling for real democratic change
with suspicion. DTP's Adana office went a step further,
calling AKP two-faced and a party of opportunistic
vote-hunters trying to politicize Islam to appeal to
conservative Kurdish voters. Anli noted the DTP was
disappointed to be sidelined by AKP, dismissed as a
legitimate participant in the democratic opening, and not
consulted when major statements were issued to the press.
Anli said even if the message were bad, meeting with DTP
could help soften its interpretation among Kurdish listeners.
He observed the PKK had no problems recruiting hundreds of
new fighters during the four-month democratic opening.
Acting Mayor of Diyarbakir Ali Simsek was angry about AKP
tactics in Northern Iraq - courting Barzani now and
attempting to fracture Kurdish unity. "America, the KRG and
the Turkish state cannot decide the fate of Kurds in Turkey,"
said Simsek.

ERGENEKON AND JUSTICE
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6. (C) Cepik criticized AKP for diluting the legitimate and
serious Ergenekon case with thousands of pages of baseless
accusations and legally dubious detentions. He pointed out
neither DTP nor PKK had made any effort to bring cases to
light - because of what he alleged was their deep involvement
in Ergenekon. Seymus Ulek, former vice president of
Mazlumder, an Islamic human rights organization, said the
biggest impediment to ending Ergenekon is the judiciary
itself, as only "judges brainwashed in state ideology" are
appointed. He and Cepik cited a poll conducted at the
Ministry of Justice in which judges were asked whether the
state or justice had priority. About 75 percent of
respondents said defending the state was more important than
delivering justice. Ulek said constitutional reform was the
vital component of the democratic move, pointing out the DTP
argument for taking Ocalan as an interlocutor was immaterial.
"You don't need Ocalan to change the constitution," he said.

OPPOSITION SABOTAGING PROCESS
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7. (C) The Republican People's Party (CHP),viewed as the
sentinel of Kemalism and the state, has criticized AKP's
democratic opening as a method of boosting terrorism and has
refused to meet with any AKP members to discuss the plan.
National Action Party (MHP) rhetoric has accused AKP of
dividing the country, playing ethnic politics and appeasing
separatists. Anli and others said both opposition parties
have undermined the Turkish-developed plan by claiming
"foreign powers" were involved in the democratic opening.
Cepik called the oppositions' antics "absurd" and said they

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should be working for constitutional change instead of
playing obstructionist politics.

COMMENT
--------------


8. (C) At the end of our December 1 meeting with Anli, he
warned almost presciently "the next ten days will be
critical." The PKK is instigating street violence throughout
the southeast, leading to increasing numbers of Kurd vs. Turk
confrontations. All our Kurdish interlocutors mentioned with
great concern the recent incidents in Izmir (nationalists'
attack on a DTP convoy),Canakkale (a dispute at a bus
terminal resulted in a mob trying to lynch four Kurdish
teenagers),and Balikesir and Bursa (Kurdish-owned stores
were stoned and set on fire). The DTP-led rallies and
protests will likely continue until the government directly
and publicly addresses Ocalan's prison conditions, which have
become a rallying point for Kurdish demonstrators (reftel).
The closure case against the DTP that began December 8 will
be a critical test of the government's commitment to
democracy. At the heart of the issue is a chasm of past
grievances and three decades of violence that have torn the
Turkish and Kurdish communitie
s apart and made them completely unable to understand the
other's point of view. As one Kurdish contact said, the two
communities must construct a "bridge of empathy" between them.
Silliman

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