TURKEY: THE KURDISH ISSUE AND AKP: COURAGEOUS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 000424 SIPDIS DEPT. FOR EUR/SE E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/20/2019 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU SUBJECT: TURKEY: THE KURDISH ISSUE AND AKP: COURAGEOUS MOVES AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES Classified By: Adana Principal Officer Eric Green for reasons 1.4(b,d) This is a Consulate Adana cable. INTRODUCTION AND COMMENT -------------- ¶1. (U) A highly acclaimed report on the Kurdish issue recently published by TESEV, an Istanbul think tank, noted that Turkey's policies of "denial and assimilation" have failed, fueling PKK terrorism and leaving many Kurds profoundly distrustful of the State. The report recommends new policies on several aspects of the issue: political, legal/constitutional, economic and social. On the eve of AKP's biggest political test of 2009, the March 29 local elections, it is worth taking stock of how the current government is dealing with the Kurdish issue. ¶2. (C) Since taking power in 2002, the AKP has changed both the tone and the substance of how the GOT relates to the Kurdish issue and has won about 50 percent of the votes in the Kurdish Southeast. In a 2005 speech in Diyarbakir, PM Erdogan acknowledged the Kurdish issue as "my problem, our collective problem." Since then, other taboos have been broken. In a few short years, Turkey has gone from denying the existence of the Kurdish language, to stigmatizing it by equating it with terrorist separatism, to establishing a state TV channel (TRT-6) to broadcast in it 24/7. Turkey is also making fitful efforts to come to terms with its past. The ongoing Ergenekon investigation -- which centers on the power balance between "deep state" security institutions and the elected government -- is also uncovering secrets of state-sanctioned human rights abuses committed in the name of fighting PKK terrorism in the 1990s. Although the Ergenekon process may very well last for years, the fact that previously untouchable military officials are now facing justice could help restore the trust needed as the basis for an eventual settlement of the Kurdish issue. Progress has been slower on the political side. The government has steadily increased engagement with the Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq, but refuses to meet with members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), reinforcing the perception that the Turkish establishment still cannot accept Kurds' political identity. Constitutional reform has stalled. ¶3. (C) Popular acceptance of Turkey's multicultural composition is spreading. The lack of controversy elicited by the launch of TRT-6 suggests that the government is lagging behind public attitudes rather than leading them. Following the March elections, Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will face another decision point on the Kurdish issue: whether to accept the new status quo in which Kurdish cultural and language rights are normalized while political rights remain stifled or to use the political capital accumulated with the military, the KRG, and Kurds themselves to push for a lasting solution. END INTRODUCTION AND COMMENT. ¶4. (U) Note: Turkish Kurds, about 15-20 percent of the population, are geographically scattered and range on the political spectrum from fully assimilated "Turks with Kurdish parents" to die-hard Kurdish separatists. "Kurds" in this cable refers to opinion leaders in Turkey's Southeast who represent a majority of the population in that region: they are proud of their Kurdish identity and want it respected, an aspiration they believe can be fully achieved within the Turkish state. SUCCESSES: LANGUAGE RIGHTS, CONFRONTING THE PAST -------------- --- ¶5. (C) The AKP government has started to dismantle the Kafkaesque regulations governing use of Kurdish. Under EU ANKARA 00000424 002 OF 004 pressure, in 2005 the government permitted private schools to teach Kurdish and introduced new rules allowing Kurdish TV broadcasting on private channels; restrictions on radio broadcasts of Kurdish music have been steadily relaxed. The launch on January 1 of TRT-6, an all-Kurdish channel on the state-owned television network, has accelerated the transition of Kurdish from being seen as a tool of subversion to a legitimate part of Turkey's multicultural mosaic. TRT-6 has paved the way for "mainstreaming" Kurdish: in Diyarbakir, a state-sanctioned Friday sermon was performed in Kurdish and televised; Bilgi University in Istanbul is now offering Kurdish language courses and full-fledged "Kurdology" departments have been proposed at other universities; newspapers in the Southeast now routinely use Kurdish-language headlines. While the acceleration of Kurdish usage in recent weeks may be timed to boost the AKP's electoral prospects, the changes will be almost impossible to reverse. Turks in other regions of the country, meanwhile, have reacted with equanimity to the changes, reinforcing the perception that these prohibitions are perpetuated by the Kemalist elite with little popular support. ¶6. (C) Many of the changes, however, still have questionable legal status. TRT-6, for example, is violating a still-extant law banning the use of letters such as "w" and "x," which are used in Kurdish but not in Turkish (English-origin words with the offending letters are commonplace, including "Show TV"). The judiciary still frowns on Kurdish when used by DTP politicians, who complain prosecutors apply double standards since AKP politicians now regularly season their speeches to Kurdish audiences with Kurdish phrases while DTPers face charges for the most trivial offenses -- one DTP MP faced charges because he used Kurdish to request a glass of water during a speech. DTP leader Ahmet Turk has not been charged for delivering remarks in Kurdish to his parliamentary group colleagues on February 21. DTP deputy Akin Birdal said he does not expect Turk to face charges, but if he does the trial will be about the rights to speak Kurdish, "a fight the establishment already knows it has lost." (NOTE: For historical perspective, Deputies who spoke Kurdish in Parliament in 1991 were sentenced to ten years in prison. END NOTE) ¶7. (C) In Erdogan's 2005 Diyarbakir speech, he acknowledged mistakes had been made regarding the Kurdish issue, raising hopes the GOT would investigate past human rights abuses and consider apologizing. While for most Turks, the Ergenekon trial is about redefining the power relationship between the elected government and the security services, it also has the potential to increase Kurds' willingness to trust state institutions. The investigation is now putting a spotlight on cases of disappearances and torture committed in the Southeast by elements of the "deep state" during the 1990s. In the past, relatives of people who vanished during that period were given the brush-off by the GOT. Now the state is excavating "death wells" that implicate retired security officials, many of whom are now in custody awaiting trial. Sezgin Tanrikulu, a Diyarbakir human-rights lawyer, told us that "even if there are no convictions, Ergenekon is ending the culture of impunity." ¶8. (C) The Ergenekon investigation's thus far vague insinuations of collusion between state forces and the PKK could also shake up the political landscape by accelerating the rise of movements capable of challenging the PKK's stranglehold on Kurdish politics. ¶9. (U) Popular culture is also showing a willingness to probe the Kurdish issue. A just-released film, "Gunesi Gordum" (I Saw the Sun) depicts numerous aspects of the Kurdish issue: the popular support for the PKK, the forced evacuations of villages in the 1990s and the resultant dislocations faced by the displaced families, and the role of tribal traditions in Kurdish society. A few years ago no one would have dared produce such a film for fear of prosecution (or worse); now it is in wide commercial ANKARA 00000424 003 OF 004 release and politicians from across the spectrum are welcoming it as overdue. POLITICAL PROGRESS SPIKED BY DISTRUST, MISSED OPPORTUNITIES -------------- -------------- ¶10. (C) The election of 21 DTP deputies to Parliament in July 2007, coupled with AKP's landslide victory across Turkey, led many to believe the two parties and the state security structures could start a process of dialogue that would evolve into a cease-fire and perhaps even a comprehensive settlement. PM Erdogan and the AKP refuse to meet officially with DTP unless it denounces the PKK, a demand which the DTP cannot meet and may not ever be able to meet. This boycott is a major grievance among Kurds, including those who do not support the DTP, because it exemplifies Ankara's continued refusal to accept Kurds as equal partners. Siyar Ozsoy, a former advisor to Diyarbakir mayor Osman Baydemir, told us that, while progress on cultural and language rights is welcome, what Kurds really need is recognition of their political identity and that means granting a role to the DTP. ¶11. (C) Rather than engaging with the DTP, AKP chose a less direct approach, joining with the military to gain American support for intensified cross-border strikes on the PKK while simultaneously building bridges with the KRG in northern Iraq. Turkish officials now meet with Iraqi Kurds, including Masoud Barzani, who two years ago was persona non grata because of his anti-Turkish outbursts and seeming tolerance of PKK activities in his territory. The new tone was on full display this week when Iraqi President Talabani, on a visit to Istanbul, met with President Gul and dismissed an independent Kurdistan as "a dream in poems." Meanwhile, Barzani said in an interview that he has no fears of Turkish intervention in northern Iraq given the positive relations that have developed. The KRG contacts also provide a potential back-channel for communicating with the PKK. ¶12. (C) The AKP's stalled constitutional reform is another source of disappointment for Kurds (as well as for liberals elsewhere in Turkey). Many Kurds in the Southeast welcomed AKP's victory in the 2007 elections because they believed the party would fulfill its promise to replace Turkey's 1982 constitution (written during military rule). Kurds believe a new constitution should adopt a notion of citizenship that reflects Turkey's multiethnic composition, allow full freedom of expression and the use of non-Turkish languages, reduce the military's role in politics and create a less centralized system of government (some Kurds advocate federalism, but it is a non-starter among mainstream Turks). The hope for major reforms was replaced by dismay in 2008 when AKP's sole constitutional initiative was the ultimately futile attempt to allow women wearing Islamic headscarves to attend universities. CONCLUSION -------------- ¶13. (C) AKP loyalists note the party is fighting for reform against powerful entrenched interests and should not be blamed for failing to achieve all the goals of Kurds (and other liberals) during its six years in office. Many Kurds, however, question whether Erdogan and the AKP will ever recognize their political aspirations. Instead, they believe Erdogan actually favors a softer form of assimilation which includes more cultural rights but is ultimately grounded in the belief that Kurds' and Turks' shared Muslim faith -- rather than a rights-based social contract -- should be the foundation of their cohabitation. For the foreseeable future the Kurds are stuck with the AKP as the majority party in Turkey and in the Southeast. Since most Kurds are tiring of relying exclusively on protest politics, they need to learn how to successfully influence AKP. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at ANKARA 00000424 004 OF 004 http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey Jeffrey