Speculation mounts over Kurdish initiatives

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced this week that the government had begun working on the Kurdish question under the coordination of the Ministry of the Interior.

Meanwhile Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence on İmrali Island in the Marmara Sea, is planning to announce his own “roadmap” on Aug. 15, the anniversary of the PKK's first armed attack in 1984. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by both the US and the European Union.

The opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have already started to press the government to follow up on the PKK.

CHP Chairman Deniz Baykal said on Thursday that since the government has already given the impression that it is ready to negotiate with “terrorists,” “the ‘there will be a statement from İmralı soon, so before this, we should do something' attitude is wrong.”

MHP parliamentary group chairman Oktay Vural also suggested that they have doubts as to whether the government is planning to negotiate with the PKK, asking, “In their opening, will they underline their commitment to fight against terror, or is their priority to negotiate with the terrorists?”

Recently several deputies from the ruling Justice and Development (AK Party) presented an independent proposal to accept Öcalan either directly or indirectly as a counterpart in the Kurdish engagement process, to grant jobs to PKK members who lay down their arms and to pay compensation to the families of deceased PKK members, but Prime Minister Erdoğan, while announcing the AK Party's plan to work on a new Kurdish dialogue, harshly criticized his party's deputies and asked them to present a unified front with the AK Party.

Cultural improvements are expected

But speculation about the government's plan suggests it will not contain “bold” elements, as some AK Party deputies suggest, but that it might be restricted, with just some cultural outreach.  All the speculation regarding the government's plan agrees that the plan will include reversing the names of places, villages and geographic locations, if the inhabitants of those places want, to their former, Kurdish names. The government plan may include Kurdish sermons in the mostly Kurdish-populated areas.

It is also expected that the government will open up Kurdish language departments at some state universities.

Meanwhile, it is unclear if the government will consider appointing Kurdish-speaking civil servants to the region, especially in positions related to health services. Other speculation centers on the possibility of elective Kurdish courses in secondary and primary education.

But even the most far-reaching guesses about the government's Kurdish plan do not include the possibility of a general and unconditional amnesty for PKK members, at least for the time being, but perhaps some change to the existing law allowing for reduced or no punishment if militants who supply strategically significant information about the terror organization.

Meanwhile, there are still some suggestions that PKK members will gather first in the Makhmour refugee camp in northern Iraq and then be transferred to Turkey. But the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Ankara has downplayed these reports.

Öcalan expected to suggest general amnesty

Öcalan's “roadmap” is expected to ask the government to engage with the PKK as a counterpart of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP). Öcalan recently told his lawyers that in his plan he would also mention “wise men” who could help with communication between state officials and the PKK.

It is assumed that one of these wise men will be the famous writer Yaşar Kemal, but he himself said that democratization is the only way to solve the Kurdish problem and that when the solution is that clear, there is no need for mediators.

Öcalan might ask also for some constitutional amendments regarding the definition of citizenship and the Kurdish language. It is expected that he will demand an unconditional amnesty and a strengthening of local administrations.

Some commentators argue that Öcalan will not ask the PKK to lay down arms immediately, but might ask them to withdraw to northern Iraq if some of his demands are met.