Identity, narrative and frames: assessing Turkey's Kurdish initiatives.

• Author: Nykanen, Johanna

Since 1984 when the PKK commenced its armed struggle against the Turkish state, Turkish security policies have been framed around the Kurdish question with the PKK presented as the primary security threat to be tackled. Turkey's Kurdish question has its roots in the founding of the republic in 1923, which saw Kurdish ethnicity assimilated with Turkishness. In accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), only three minorities were and continue to be officially recognized in Turkey: Armenians, Jews and Greeks. These three groups were granted minority status on the basis of their religion. Kurdish identity--whether national, racial or ethnic--was not recognized by the republic, resulting in decades of uprisings by the Kurds and oppressive and assimilative politics by the state. For a long time, the Turkish state denied the Kurdish question's ethno-political nature by presenting it as a socio-economic problem. By the early 1990s, the state's perception and methods regarding the Kurdish question began to change as a result of the growing discontent and increased level of armed clashes between the PKK and the military. The ethnic dimension of the question began to be slowly recognized and as the politics of oppression continued throughout the 1990s, the unrest was now viewed as ethnic separatism that required military measures. Therefore, during the 1990s the issue was thoroughly securitized. (1)

Since assuming office in 2003, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hinted that his Justice and Development Party (AKP, Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi) might be willing to address Kurdish political demands for more rights and to hold peace negotiations with the PKK. In a 2005 rally in the Kurdish-populated city of Diyarbakir, Erdogan made an audacious declaration that the answer to the Kurds' long-running grievances is not more repression but more democracy. (2) The declaration was met with anger and skepticism within the opposition and Kurdish circles, with the former accusing Erdogan of giving in to terrorists' demands, and the latter arguing that he is delivering mere rhetoric without action. There was more rhetoric three years later in October 2008 when Erdogan stated that "democratization is considered as the antidote to terrorism, ethnic extremism and all types of discrimination. The main approach here is that no matter where a person lives and from which ethnic origin he/she comes from, they should all feel themselves as equal and liberal citizens of our country". (3)

But it was only in 2009 that the AKP government launched a concrete initiative to tackle the Kurdish question. The launch of the initiative took place exactly ten years after the EU granted candidate status to Turkey. The initiative, initially known as the Kurdish Opening, and later referred to variously as the Democratic Opening, the National Unity Project, and the Democratic Initiative among others, was set to profoundly transform "the basic institutional structure of the post-1980 regime through enlarging the understanding of citizenship, which would lead to re-defining the political community, strengthening association and grassroots participation, and engaging in a relative decentralization of the state with local levels of government carefully integrated into the national centre". (4) Its essential aim was to bring an end to the armed conflict by disarming and disbanding the PKK.

From Hopes to Skepticism

The initiative arguably had its roots in internal politics and external conditions. Five key factors behind the initiative can be distinguished. First, it complemented the Turkish government's "zero problems with neighbors" policy and gave it domestic and international credibility. It also responded to the prevailing domestic insecurity caused by the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq in 2004. Second, with the Democratic Society Party (DTP, closed down in December 2009 by the Constitutional Court of Turkey) gaining an unprecedented increase in its votes in the southeast in the March 2009 local elections, the government attempted to win back its lost seats by appealing to the Kurdish electorate with a new initiative.

Third, with its unsuccessful attempts to destroy the PKK strongholds in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and the looming withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, the government was forced to come up with a new solution to the situation in the southeast which was closely intertwined with changes in the balance of power across the border in Iraq. Fourth, the so-called Ergenekon case, which investigated "deep state" activities within Turkey and neutralized the military that used to act as the final decision maker on the Kurdish question, facilitated the prospects for addressing the Kurdish question through non-military means. Finally, there were significant economic factors that favored a non-military solution to the question. In addition to the dire need to reduce overblown military expenditures, Turkey's role as an energy hub and crossroads for pipelines was part of the equation. Indeed "once Turkey resolves its Kurdish question, it would also be able to secure its environs for the realization of new energy transportation projects including Nabucco". (5)

The policy initiative elicited some hopes and optimism within the moderate Kurdish, liberal, academic and leftist political circles as well as among many European commentators. However, the main opposition parties, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), continued to fiercely oppose the initiative, claiming that Erdogan was dangerously compromising Turkey's security for political gains. Many in the Kurdish lobby remained skeptical throughout, claiming that the opening was not going far enough in reforming Turkey. However, the initial optimism that the Democratic Opening wielded in some circles soon turned into widespread doubt and skepticism. The window of opportunity began to close with many arguing that "for almost a year, Turkey has been discussing the initiative. However, there is no applicable and concrete suggestion for a solution". (6) Or as Alessandri stated: "The "opening" announced by the AKP last year has lost much of its momentum. With growing polarization, it seems unlikely that a new constructive engagement between Turkish political forces can be attempted on the Kurdish question.". (7)

The European Commission's 2010 Progress Report similarly noted that "concrete measures announced within the framework of the democratic opening fell short of the expectations and were not followed through and implemented". Kurdish critics argued that the Kurdish opening had become a Kurds-less opening with the prime minister failing to include Kurdish voices in the initiative. In facing these criticisms, Erdogan insisted that the opening was still in place and that the government stood firmly behind it, arguing that "those who allege that the democratic opening has no content ... can fill it themselves. We are ready for this". (8) But violent confrontations between the PKK and the military had already begun to re-intensify, and were followed by massive waves of arrests and detentions.

A New Opportunity

It was not until towards the end of 2012 and the failure of alleged secret talks between the PKK and the Turkish state in 2009-2011 that a new window of opportunity opened, this time termed the Imrali Process. The political landscape looked very different this time around compared to 2009 when the earlier initiative was launched. The outbreak of violence in neighboring Syria in 2011, which has resulted in a prolonged and bloody civil war between the al-Assad loyalists and the opposition forces, brought the possibility of an autonomous Kurdistan region in Syria. The priorities within the Turkish government began to shift from a regime change in Damascus to preventing a Syrian Kurdistan from forming. An autonomous Kurdistan region in Syria together with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq would mean that two officially recognized Kurdish regions would flank Turkey's Kurdish-inhabited southeast region, providing inspiration, support and resources to Turkey's Kurds to similarly realize their autonomy.

Furthermore, the year 2012 witnessed the heaviest casualty rates since the late 1990s as well as a massive wave of arrests targeting thousands of Kurdish political actors. The government returned to a security-centered approach with Erdogan claiming that the escalation of violence resulted largely from Syria's President Bashar al-Assad's resumed support for the PKK. It soon became apparent to both sides of the conflict that the security approach would once again prove fruitless and costly. Finally, the AKP government was now on its third term after securing almost half the popular vote in the June 2011 general elections. There was pressure to use the strong political mandate granted to the AKP in the elections to finally take concrete measures to end the decades-long conflict that was...