Gov’t faces opposition’s Cold War rhetoric on Kurdish initiative

Almost three decades after the latest coup d'état in this country, which took place during the Cold War era, a conservative government ruled by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is in a way being accused of “having roots outside of the country.”

For the past few weeks, the AK Party government has been engaged in efforts to settle the decades-old Kurdish question through democratic means. The full content of the planned Kurdish initiative has not yet been made public, but the government hinted that it would bring broader cultural and political rights to Kurds.

This week, criticism of the government's initiative by the two main opposition parties, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), amounted to alleging that a meeting held in the United States provided inspiration for the government's initiative. They were referring to a report drafted during a meeting held in April at Washington-based think tank the Atlantic Council.

CHP leader Deniz Baykal, meanwhile, also suggested that the Turkish Foreign Ministry was also involved in this “plan-made-in-the-US.”

“Implying that Turkey's foreign policy ‘has been driven and managed by leading external elements' has deeply wounded members of our ministry who have been working diligently and making great sacrifices defending Turkey's supreme interests in every field and which has a deeply rooted tradition. Turkey's fundamental foreign policy principles are nonpartisan. We expect our political parties to act in a more responsible manner, while exercising their right to criticize, and to avoid behavior and statements which will harm our country's prestige and national interests,” the Foreign Ministry responded in a statement which had a somewhat bitter tone.

At some stage, Bahçeli accused Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's ruling AK Party of committing treason over efforts to settle the Kurdish problem, while Baykal claimed that the democratization package for the resolution of the Kurdish issue would totally damage the national unity and political identity of the Republic of Turkey.

Easy way of posing opposition

Retired Ambassador İlter Türkmen, who served as foreign minister between 1980 and 1983 right after the 1980 coup d'état, is a highly experienced diplomat who was in charge of controversial issues during the Cold War era.

“Posing opposition in such a way is an extremely easy way. We do also have think tanks, some of which sometimes release reports which are not in line with the establishment's view,” Türkmen told Sunday's Zaman.

Touching upon the same point as Türkmen, Sedat Laçiner, head of the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization (ISRO/USAK), speaking with Sunday's Zaman, underlined that people do also ignore that similar reports are being drafted in Turkey and that reports drawn up in Turkey are inspiring think tanks abroad as well. Since 2004, USAK has been regularly publishing reports on the Kurdish issue as well as on the issue of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

“Every week, 10-15 people from diplomatic missions come to our headquarters in order to listen to our views. The entire circulation of different views eventually becomes a grand plan in the hands of a government,” Laçiner said.

Türkmen, meanwhile, stressed that one has to admit that the government's business is very difficult because the materialization of such an assertive plan or initiative without the support or understanding of the opposition is very difficult.

“The CHP is particularly acting in a contradictory way. I remember very well that a short while ago, Baykal said that amnesty might even be an option for members of the PKK for resolving the Kurdish issue -- he has now closed all the doors to discussion,” Türkmen added.

Apparently aware of the difficulty pointed out by Türkmen, Erdoğan earlier this week called on every individual in society to support the government's efforts to solve the country's problems, including the Kurdish problem.

“As an opposition party, when you blame the United States for everything, you increase your popularity, while you also make life harder for the government in a cheap way. These statements by the two opposition parties are solely propaganda which have no essence,” Türkmen suggested.

According Laçiner, claims by the opposition parties are “first of all an insult to the people of Turkey,” since those claims suggest that Turkey is not capable at all of even intending to resolve a significant problem of its own which is directly linked to social peace. “Recalling one particular incident becomes legitimate because of the opposition parties' stance: When PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured in Kenya in 1999, the US handed him over to Turkey conditionally, receiving the promise that he would not be executed. Bahçeli was a coalition partner at the time. Now, it is odd that Bahçeli is firmly attacking the government's initiative without any essential grounds,” Laçiner continued.

“There is also a contradiction here. The opposition complains that the government does not actually have a proper initiative. Then how come this initiative can be US-marked if there is no content? How can people easily label the government as a traitor? Then, where is their proposal for resolving the Kurdish issue?” he asked.

Mehmet Altan, chief columnist for the Star daily, first of all noted that there are two fundamental slogans in the new era of globalization: The first one is that “people are more important than borders now” and the second one is that “it doesn't matter who governs me, but what matters is the way I'm governed.”

“Those who fail to embrace these two slogans cannot be ‘global,' they are destined to remain local,” Altan told Sunday's Zaman, in apparent reference to the stance recently displayed by the CHP and MHP. “A state or government which claims to be national while torturing its own citizens has no place in today's world. Turkey needs governance in line with global standards, and this is the essence of the EU as well as of Turkey's journey towards the EU,” he said, adding that it was completely wrong to argue that something which is national is absolutely righteous.

In order to illustrate his argument, Altan gave the example of the implementation of apartheid, the social and political policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by white minority governments in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. “South Africa did not give black people their rights through implementing apartheid but apartheid was a national policy. So, can we say that it was still defendable just because it was a national policy?” Altan said.

With regard to the opposition parties' stance, which apparently doesn't consider making any contribution to the government's efforts other than severely criticizing it, Altan argued that this was an understanding inherited from the İttihat ve Terakki [Committee of Union and Progress], the sole goal of which is being in power at any cost.

“In Turkey, we don't have the culture of competition, but we have this habit of denigrating the other one. This culture is a tool of making politics in this country,” he said.

Political genuineness and main route

According to Ali Bayramoğlu, the language used by the opposition parties is reminiscent of the Cold War era, an era of polarization based on policies in need of an external enemy. These policies are basically a self-isolated nationalism and populism aimed at keeping society in a reclusive situation.

“These two political parties today are displaying different versions of such a mentality. The MHP is actually more genuine and is more like itself, although its understanding of nationalism is a separatist nationalism supporting the idea of a superior race, which is dangerous,” Bayramoğlu, a social scientist who writes a regular column for Turkish daily Yeni Şafak, told Sunday's Zaman.

“However, the main problem lies in the politics of the CHP because it is not genuine and it is not as it is supposed to be. Any opposition party has the right to have certain objections to government policies. Yet, the language used by the CHP is the language of the Cold War era in the literal sense. This party is assuming a crisis politics, which doesn't serve the resolution of any issue at all,” Bayramoğlu continued.

“Both the CHP and MHP leaders remind me of politicians such as Necmettin Erbakan [a former prime minister], Süleyman Demirel [a former prime minister and president] and also Soviet Union politicians who led the country before Mikhail Gorbachev,” he suggested.

In remarks sounding more optimistic, Bayramoğlu concluded: “This is politics-making and building a political identity via being nourished by crisis. I believe that both Baykal and Bahçeli will eventually become history due to this kind of politics-making. This terrorizing language based on fears and threats may confuse the minds of citizens to a certain extent, but at the end of the day this doesn't change the main route we have already been on regarding the resolution of the Kurdish issue. And this main route is essentially built on eliminating these fears within the society.”