Prospects for resolution of the Kurdish question: a realist perspective.

• Author: Tezcur, Gunes Murat

2012 has been the most violent year in the fighting between the Turkish state and Kurdish insurgency since 1999. Hence, it came as a surprise when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's announcement that his government was talking to Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdish insurgent PKK (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan), in December 2012 was followed by a visit by two parliamentarians from the Kurdish nationalist BDP (Baris ve Demokrasi Partisi) to Ocalan in early January. These developments renewed hopes for a peaceful resolution of the almost thirty years old armed conflict. In this article, I offer a critical evaluation of the prospects for resolution of Turkey's Kurdish question. Going against the conventional wisdom, I argue that neither side has strong incentives to make the necessary concessions to reach an agreement. I suggest that the current status quo characterized by low intensity violence interrupted by periods of negotiations and ceasefires is the most probable outcome in the coming years. I first offer an analytical overview of the insurgency followed by a discussion of the strategic interests of the major political actors. I conclude with skepticism regarding the achievability of peace.

A Mutually Bearable Stalemate

When the PKK started its guerilla warfare against the Turkish state in 1984, it was composed of several hundred poorly armed and inexperienced fighters. By the early 1990s, however, the insurgency mobilized considerable popular support and established itself as the hegemonic force in many parts of Turkey's Kurdish areas. It presented a viable serious military challenge to the state. (1) The 1990s witnessed a vicious fight as the state opted for a variety of harsh means to curtail the growth of the PKK including forced evacuation of thousands of villages, systematic torture, and extrajudicial execution of civilians suspected to be PKK supporters. The PKK also targeted civilians who were perceived to be collaborators or resisted the demands of the insurgency. The state capitalized on its manpower and technological superiority to deny PKK militants safe areas in the countryside and the PKK's fighting capacity was severely limited by the late 1990s. With the capture of Ocalan in 1999, a period of relative calm emerged until 2004. This first phase of the armed conflict that lasted between 1984 and 1999 was characterized by a high level of civilian victims. (2)

Several observations on the armed conflict that was reignited since 2004 can be made on the basis of an original dataset, the Kurdish Insurgency Violent Events (KIVE). (3) First, as shown in Figure 1, the total fatalities in a single year including civilians, security forces, and militants, did not exceed 400 until 2012 when at least 541 people lost their lives. There was a significant decline in the deadliness of the conflict compared to the 1990s when thousands fatalities took place every year. Similarly, large scale and successful PKK attacks targeting security forces were rare. As shown in Table 1, only six such attacks killed more than 10 security forces in a single instance since 1999. Second, political developments strongly affected the temporal pattern of the fighting. 2009 experienced the lowest number of casualties since 2004. It was the same year when the AK Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi) announced its "Kurdish initiative" and the PKK responded with a ceasefire. The failure of the political process contributed to violence that reached its peak in 2012 with an increase in the frequency of clashes. A PKK emboldened by the gains of the Kurds in Syria also increased its attacks in the same year.

Third, the fighting was professionalized as both sides had central commands and typically avoided attacks that may harm civilians. KIVE does not indicate any patterns of categorical terrorism that involve indiscriminate killing of civilians. (4) As Table 1 shows, most deadly attacks typically do not target civilians. (5) Additionally, there is no evidence of spoilers or fragmentation that complicates the dynamics of the conflict despite widespread suspicions about shadowy groups acting autonomously. (6) Furthermore, the violence did not have a strong ethnic or sectarian dimension that beset communal relations in neighboring countries such as Iraq and Syria. Despite occasional flares-up, violence did not spread out among different ethnic groups living together. (7) No year saw more than 100 citizens killed as a result of the armed conflict. The fatalities on both the Turkish state and the insurgency side were comparable. With the exception of 2012 when more than 300 PKK militants lost their lives, neither side had more than 200 fatalities in a year. Power asymmetries did not directly translate into significant differences in fatality rates.

Finally, the conflict had a strong temporal and geographical pattern typical to guerilla warfare. Most fighting took place in inaccessible border zones far from major population centers in warmer months. It is mostly concentrated in the mountainous zone north of the border with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). This zone, which is also called Botan, is primarily composed of the provinces of Hakkari and Sirnak, just across the permanent PKK camps in Behdinan, across the border. Around 42 percent of all fatalities, as well as 35 percent of all events with fatalities between 2002 and 2012 took place in these provinces. (8) Around of 74 percent of all fatalities occurred in six provinces: BingOl, Diyarbakir, Hakkari, Siirt, Sirnak, and Tunceli. The violence slowly decreased from early December to late March, and reached its peak from July to October. In fact, October is the deadliest month overall as PKK militants engaged in large scale attacks before they retreat to their winter sanctuaries.

These patterns suggest that there is a stalemate. While the militants are in no position to dislodge the Turkish state from the territory they contest with the exception of some mountainous border zones, the Turkish state also seems incapable of defeating the insurgency. However, this is not necessarily a "mutually hurting stalemate" that is "ripe for peace." (9) The characteristics of the conflict (limited civilian and security force causalities, geographically contained, seasonably constrained) suggest that it has limited costs for the both sides. The current military situation does not necessarily lead to optimism regarding the eventual dismantling of the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey.

As Figure 1 shows, the security forces' fatalities modestly increased in 2012 over past years, but there is no indication that the AK Party's peace initiative in early 2013 was due to military loses. There were no large street demonstrations critical of the government's inability to contain political violence. In fact, the military operations in 2012 killed significantly more PKK militants than past years. While the PKK suffered heavier causalities than the previous years, it also engaged in ambitious operations challenging the state's control in rugged border zones such as Semdinli with some success. There is no indication that the PKK lost its resoluteness to fight and experience problems in recruiting new fighters and motivating its existing cadres. Both sides are very much capable and willing to fight. Consequently, neither side has strong incentives to reach a settlement or significantly escalate the fighting on the basis of purely strategic concerns. One should seek for alternative dynamics other than the ones in the battlefield to understand the timing of the government's 2013 initiative.

The AK Party: Electoral Calculations & Geopolitical Concerns

It's a widespread argument that the Kurdish problem undermines Turkey's economic growth, democratic achievements, and regional aspirations. (10) The ongoing insurgency contributes to regional inequalities, worsen Turkey's human rights records, and limit its foreign policy initiatives. Yet, it is not that clear if Turkey's Kurdish problem actually overwhelms the Turkish government. The AK Party came to power in 2002 when the Kurdish insurgency was mostly dormant. In the following years, the renewal of violence did little to prevent the party from consolidating its power and achieving sustainable rates of economic growth. The party managed to significantly diminish the political autonomy of the military despite the ongoing fight. Overall, the human, military, foreign and economic costs of the fighting have not affected the party's ability to stay in power for more than a decade, which is unprecedented in Turkish politics since the 1950s. In fact, the AK Party has managed to flourish in parallel with the Kurdish insurgency.

If so, then how can we make sense of the AK Party's most recent attempt to resolve the conflict? First, electoral and political considerations are central to the party's decision making. The party won three consecutive parliamentary and two consecutive local elections, and two referenda on constitutional amendments with wide margins since 2002. These electoral victories ensured the party's survival and enabled it to dismantle military and judicial autonomous forces that periodically intervened in politics. The party also gained widespread support from the Kurdish citizens in the 2004 and 2007 elections. However, it saw significant declines in its electoral fortunes in the Kurdish areas in the 2009 local and 2011 parliamentary elections. (11) The AK Party's increasing flirtation with Turkish nationalism, pursuit of aggressive law-and-order tactics to contain Kurdish nationalists, and impunity associated with the Uludere bombing (12) have accelerated this downward trend. The party's increasing religious discourse that emphasizes common Muslim identity shared by most ethnic Turks and Kurds and distribution of economic benefits...