Democratic initiative will have profound effect on region, experts say

However, experts differ on the content and strength of this impact. To solve the decades-old Kurdish problem the government has launched an initiative aimed at democratization. For the work-in-progress initiative the government has been conducting talks with various segments of society but has also embarked on diplomatic efforts.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoğlu was recently in Iraq and Syria to mediate a row that emerged after Baghdad held Damascus responsible for the bombings last month of some official buildings in Baghdad, including Iraq's Foreign Ministry.

Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, who is also the coordinator of the government's democratization initiative, announced at a press conference last week that in addition to his mediation efforts Davutoğlu was also having talks regarding the initiative.

Although the content of the government's plan is not yet clear, experts are indicating that the situation of non-Turkish members of the PKK, namely those from Syria, is one of the questions which will have to be addressed at some point. The number of Syrian Kurds who joined the PKK is not known, but estimates vary. Hüsnü Mahalli from the Akşam newspaper is a Syrian journalist who also reports on Turkey for a wide range of Arab media organizations. He claims that this number is no more than a couple of hundred, which conflicts with Turkish experts' suggestions of almost 30 percent of the PKK, meaning around 1,500. But according to Mahalli, regardless of their numbers, the PKK has a very big “sentimental” influence over the Syrian Kurds.

Mahalli says the Kurds in Syria are the least recognized Kurds in the entire region compared to their situation in Turkey, Iraq and Iran. He adds that until recently the Syrian government's idea was to give them ID cards and citizenship.

“The plan was to grant them citizenship gradually. However, when the discussions about the initiative in Turkey started, the Damascus government stepped back and adopted a ‘wait and see' policy,” he said.

Turkey and Syria came to the brink of war in 1991 because the latter was a safe haven for the PKK, including its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, who has been serving a life sentence in prison on İmrali Island in the Marmara Sea since he was forced to leave Syria and was captured. Mahalli thinks that like the other countries in the Arab world Syria is also trying to understand the aim and possible consequences of the initiative. He underlines that the memory of former leader of Iraq Saddam Hussein granting autonomy to the Kurdish region in the north is still fresg in the minds of the Arab countries:

“No one was expecting that the result would almost be separation. The conditions in Turkey are different, it is true, but most of the Arab countries are not able to ignore the possibility of granting autonomy to the Kurds in Turkey even if its name were to be ‘strengthened local administrations',” he says, referring to the frequent demand of pro-Kurdish circles in Turkey.

Mahalli also underlined that in some parts of the Arab world there are suspicions regarding the real initiator of the process, whether it is Turkey or whether it is the US administration.

“The ideas might be different, but there is one thing which is very clear; the future of the Kurds, and this means the future of the region, will be determined by Turkey, not northern Iraq. Not only because the population of Kurds in Turkey is the largest but also because Turkey is a member of NATO and a future member of the European Union,” he said.

According to Mahalli the Kurds in the region, firstly in Syria and after that in Iran, will demand the same rights as their counterparts in Turkey, and such a move will destabilize the region.

Another expert, Cengiz Çandar from the Radikal daily, agrees with Mahalli that the initiative's impact on Iran will be limited, but he puts forward a different idea about the future possibilities.

“The Iran branch of the PKK, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan [PJAK], will remain, because there is not that much interaction between them and Turkey due to different dialects and cultural conditions. But the situation is different for Iraqi Kurds and Syrian Kurds. Iraqi Kurds will certainly be pleased about the initiative if it succeeds, but Syria will be a different story, and I think in the long run, although it is difficult to guess, there will be positive effects from it for the Syrian Kurds,” he said.

Çandar added that the initiative will automatically open the situation of the Kurds up to discussion: “When the talks start about the Syrian Kurds who are PKK members, the situation of the others will also have to be handled.”

Another analyst, Sedat Laçiner from the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization (ISRO/USAK), thinks that although the content of the initiative is not clear, making it difficult to guess its impact, if the initiative achieves its aim, the whole region will be affected. Syria, however, will be particularly pleased. 

“Syria will be relieved if the PKK is no longer an armed terrorist organization since there is no Kurdish organization like the PKK in the region,” he suggested.

According to him the initiative will also positively contribute to the Syrian economy as the borders between two countries will be less controlled and trade will increase further.

Laçiner underlines that the possibility of future instability in the region is there, too, if the Kurds of the other regional countries demand the same rights the Turkish Kurds will be given under the initiative, but Turkey's soft power will come into effect under this future circumstance.

“Even the Kurds of northern Iraq, if the initiative achieves its aim, will look to Turkey. İstanbul will be the city in which Kurds will live most easily.

The cultural, economic and also political center for the Kurds will be Turkey, and such a situation will have a determining effect on the region,” Laçiner said.

Just as the EU is monitoring Turkey and raising its concerns over democracy in Turkey, a Turkey which solves its own Kurdish problem will be in the position of the EU for the other countries: “Then it might demand more democracy and respect for the rule of law,” he added.