This announcement, of course, came too late taking into consideration the almost 23-year-long battle against PKK terrorism. Turkey has been a NATO member for almost 55 years and, consequently, it should have vast experience of how democratically governed nations in the alliance tackle their own terror problems. Thus the decision to fight terrorism with professionals should have been taken long ago. Turkish Land Forces Commander Gen. İlker Başbuğ chose to announce this rather tardy move following a press tour of the Eğirdir Mountain Commando School in southern Turkey, where conscripts go through intense training to combat terrorist maneuvers.
Complaints over the military's use of drafted troops to take on the PKK have become increasingly vocal; such a fight requires several skills and continuity that conscripts by nature cannot meet as they are soon discharged on completion of their tour of duty with the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
However none can complain that the Eğirdir announcement did not constitute a positive step.
What we do not yet know is how the psychological aspect of the problem will be addressed once the military start using professionals, a practice slated to start at the end of 2009 and to be applied mostly in rural areas. Meanwhile conscripts will still be used in the counter-PKK struggle in urban areas.
A Western diplomat told me recently that Turkey has one of the best treatment centers -- the Ankara-based Gülhane Hospital -- for those injured in combat with the PKK. But he noted that what Turkey was really lacking was psychiatric care for those badly wounded in military operations.
He then recalled the Abu Ghraib Prison abuse scandal perpetrated by US soldiers, some of whom have been sentenced or are still awaiting trial for the brutal treatment -- including alleged torture, and even rape, in some cases -- of prisoners held there.
Those Abu Ghraib incidents took place despite the fact that US soldiers -- all professionals -- had received adequate training in the fight against insurgents and terrorists, as well as psychological training, the same diplomat stressed.
"Those professionals who are fighting against mainly irregular groups are, in other words, assassins. They kill people. This has a serious psychological impact on those soldiers. For example, when they get leave and see the world and are no longer killing people, they wonder what they were doing as assassins," said the diplomat.
I am sure, based on such experience, the TSK will consider a psychological training program for their professionals in the fight against terror.
But the real question is how much longer Turkish people can live with the PKK terror problem and its impact on their daily existence instead of enjoying a more normal life.
In 2000 the State Planning Organization (DPT) revealed that in the 16 years leading up to that year Turkey had spent $200 billion in the fight against terror. Unfortunately there are no such reliable figures for the anti-terrorist struggle from 2000 onwards
A diplomat friend of mine also told me recently that with the money spent on manufacturing a bomb to use against the PKK Turkey could build a school in the Southeast.
The essence of the PKK problem is Turkey's inability to create an atmosphere where mature action is taken to solve the Kurdish problem through creating jobs and providing better education. As one Western diplomat said to me, the Kurdish problem is the subset of the bigger problem of the absence of the rule of law in Turkey.
If we learn to respect the rule of law and enforce it as such, then we will not need to discuss PKK terrorism and measures to be taken against it so intensely.
Kemal Derviş, head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), said during the conference of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), held in İstanbul last week, that those countries facing serious poverty should work on ending internal strife and concentrate on building democracy in their countries.
Thus the magic word is the restoration of the rule of law if we are genuine in our wish to minimize the effects of the internal fight against terrorism and, instead, spend our resources on economic and social development.
