This will be a probe of the organization, to see what the officials do to their comrades. The government has announced that if the surrendering PKK militants do not have criminal records, they will be released after an initial interrogation. The tactical move by the PKK seems to be both reciprocating the government's initiative for normalization and at the same time testing to see how Kurds and Turks alike respond to their move, not to mention the security apparatus against which they fought for decades.
Is the decision of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK who is serving a life sentence, a surprise move or were there earlier preparations towards this end within the PKK?
There are clues to this effect in an interview (by Wladimir van Wilgenburg) in August with Murat Karayılan, the acting commander of the PKK, who lives and runs his outfit from the Kandil Mountains of northern Iraq. (The interview was published in Terrorism Monitor, Volume 7, Issue 29 in September.)
Karayılan had joined the PKK in 1979, 30 years ago. This may be considered an anomaly for an armed organization. It would either have accomplished its end by now or dissolved due to failure. Neither is true for the PKK and the country that carries this burden. During the interview, Karayilan said he would like to return to his home country. He said his forces number around 8,000, spread almost equally through northern Iraq and Turkey, and that the movement can easily increase its number of militants, but at the moment they are following a self-defense strategy. Karayılan claims that “the biggest part of this strategy is a political struggle.” This means the organization is preparing to transform itself into a political organ.
What is the merit of carrying on a costly armed campaign when things can be accomplished politically? Karayilan voices the opinion of many Kurds, even those who do not condone violence: “When there is no guerrilla force, Turkey will say there is no Kurdish question at all. Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on record saying in Moscow in 2004, ‘If you do not think there is a Kurdish question, there is no Kurdish question,' and that is only five years ago.”
As to what the modus operandi of solving the Kurdish problem would be, Karayılan said the PKK is still waiting for the release of the “roadmap” of conditions necessary for the PKK to lay down its arms. Although Öcalan has handed his version of a roadmap to the authorities, it has been kept secret since August. Karayilan says the PKK is prepared for peace but also for a continuation of “the resistance if the Turkish state insists on old-style approaches...”
Karayılan realizes that becoming a a political organ is increasingly becoming a necessity:
“Currently America is pulling back from Iraq and wants to redesign the region. They think that Turkey's importance for energy is growing as Turkey and Kurdistan become an energy corridor. An example is the Nabucco pipeline project. ... For this reason, it is more important to solve the Kurdish issue both internationally and regionally, because there is a need for stability...” He believes that the Turkish government made its move towards this end with the Kurdish, or democratic, initiative, and it is now the PKK's turn to reciprocate.
His preference is the roadmap that was adopted during the initial years of the Republic of Turkey: “The roadmap will take the constitution of the first Turkish Republic into consideration. This constitution does not say that everyone [in Turkey] is Turkish, but only a citizen of the Republic of Turkey. At that time [1921] there were no assimilation policies...”
Given these statements, the PKK seems to be ready to lay down arms if the Turkish government adopts or promises to adopt a more pluralistic approach to citizenship and make the administrative system more flexible to accommodate local political participation and respectful of cultural diversity. Is this hard? Yes, very hard for those who believe that there are only ethnic Turks in this country or it is their right and privilege to run it and that Ankara should continue being the only decision-making center no matter how remote and ignorant its is to local needs and realities. They think this will guarantee the unity of the nation and the integrity of the country. If only they knew that this mentality is the root cause of the problem that has been draining the country for so long.
