PKK, Turkey and European Union a triangular relationship
by
FAİK SAĞKOL*

Turkey and the EU began flirting in the late 1950s and the early 1960s with the signing of the Agreement Establishing an Association between the European Economic Community and Turkey (the Ankara Agreement). But Turkey's first knock-on-the-door application for membership came when Prime Minister Turgut Özal applied for membership into the European Community in 1987. Özal was no less vigorous than current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in elevating Turkey to new heights along the Westernization process fueled by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

In roughly the same period, the Turkish military began to engage in warfare with the PKK on the mountains and around isolated villages of east and southeast Turkey. As the scale of warfare mounted and news of casualties on both sides subsequently started to be aired on radio and broadcasted on television and as a displaced and troubled population of these villages migrated to western Turkey, mainly to İstanbul, or further west to European countries, foremost to Germany, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria, the PKK's fight with the Turkish military became a seriously debated political and human rights issue both in the national political arena and in political circles of the European Union.

In the notorious multi-party period of the 1990s, where coalition governments of two or more parties were created and dissolved one after another and none was able to hold the helm for more than two years, the EU used this fragile political environment to pressure Turkey, which was eager to kick-start long-awaited accession negotiations, to bow to the political demands of an officially recognized terrorist group, the PKK, if she was to enter the accession negotiation period and then join the EU in the future.

One very important reason for the EU's sympathy for the PKK and its cause was the fact that for a long time, the EU did not label the PKK as a terrorist organization, let alone a terrorist threat. In a period when Turkey was struggling to stabilize its political system and get its shattered economy back on its feet again to normalize its political and economic standards in line with the Copenhagen Criteria, not to mention that these political and economic efforts amounted to nothing more than languid and awkward policies, and when heartbreaking pictures and clips of Turkish soldiers being killed by PKK terrorists covered news reports in national and private Turkish TV channels daily, this EU stance was very unwelcoming and created outrage and feelings of anger against the EU among both the populace and political circles.

Hence, in the 1990s, when the PKK openly posed a threat to the Turkish state and while Turkey was dealing with political and economic problems, the country neither showed genuine efforts with spot-on policies to improve its political and economic problems in line with the Copenhagen Criteria, nor did the EU side with Turkey in its fight against an officially recognized terrorist group, the PKK, or treat Turkey on equal terms with other candidate countries of Eastern Europe, which joined the EU in 2004 (Turkey was left out of this eastern enlargement of the EU). So the 1990s were troubling for Turkey, both in terms of its internal concerns, including the PKK issue, and also in its near-frozen relationship with the EU.

But with the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and his subsequent imprisonment toward the end of the 1990s and with the change of the Turkish political landscape by the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) ascendance to power in 2002, though the PKK issue was not over and done with, the prolonged relationship between Turkey and the EU entered into a new era.

Thanks to the AK Party's single-party government, the first to successfully be established in nearly two decades, long-awaited political reforms in line with the Copenhagen Criteria were completed at an unprecedented speed, the torn apart economy started beating and producing favorable results and thereby the relationship between Turkey and the EU started warming up. With a lobbying tour of EU member countries by Prime Minister Erdoğan, the EU recognized the PKK as a terrorist group and therewith put it into its official list of recognized terrorist organizations. But because of differences of opinion in member countries toward the PKK, it provided Turkey with only mild support in its fight against the PKK.

Moreover, the EU got first-hand knowledge of the AK Party's intentions toward meeting the Copenhagen Criteria and its goal of starting the accession negotiation process and finally moving Turkey toward EU membership. When Turkey finally got on with the accession negotiations toward the end of 2005, the PKK still posed a serious problem for Turkey both internally and externally in its relationship with the EU. In a European Commission report on Turkey's progress toward meeting conditions for EU membership, apart from other points which had to be tackled, the PKK problem and its sub-contents were made explicit as issues yet to be resolved.

Today the PKK problem is still very real and continues to make problems on Turkey's road to EU membership. But recently Prime Minister Erdoğan and the AK Party Cabinet initiated a fresh new process with many new packages, ranging from encouraging the PKK to lay down its weapons and come down from the mountains to resolving the issue of Kurdish rights. As part of this new process Erdoğan sat for the first time with Democratic Society Party (DTP) leader Ahmet Türk to talk about the newly initiated process and on the PKK and Kurdish rights in the AK Party headquarters in Ankara. Before that, the interior minister met with journalists and academics to gather opinions on the matter at hand.

Many people are fed up with initiatives regarding the PKK and Kurdish rights due to scores of unsuccessful past attempts, but there are others who welcome such an initiative as a positive sign and a good attempt to do what past governments have been unable to until now.

The triangular relationship between the PKK, Turkey and the EU, which has stretched over two decades, has cost Turkey thousands of lives, years in time, billions in money and scores of wasted efforts, and it has troubled -- and at times threatened -- its relationship with the EU. What is now in store is a fresh new effort to turn this triangular relationship in Turkey's full favor. If Prime Minister Erdoğan and his AK Party government handle this issue successfully, it will not only mark a milestone in Turkish politics but also leave a big positive mark on Turkey's road to EU membership.