PKK’s strategic calculation in killing 7 soldiers
by
EMRE USLU

 It is time to analyze the PKK’s strategy in the Tokat attack and in its terror strategy since 2004. In this regard, one should admit that the survival of the PKK is strongly related to its ability to make strategic calculations according to the changing circumstances in domestic and international politics. The PKK’s capacity to understand and adapt to the changing circumstances and erratic nature of regional politics is much better than the intellectual capacity of the many political observers and experts on terrorism in this country.

Before analyzing the Tokat incident, we need to analyze the main pillars of the PKK’s strategy since 2004. The PKK, during the period of peace between 1999 and 2004, had recognized that it is impossible to maintain the existence of the organization without terrorist activity, especially when its leader is in prison on İmrali Island. Thus, since then, the first pillar of the PKK has been to maintain its organizational structure and its overarching position in Kurdish politics. Second, the PKK considers itself to be the only remaining tool to push the Turkish state apparatus to ease Abdullah Öcalan’s prison conditions, and if possible, free him from prison. To implement such a strategy, since 2004, the PKK has considered the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government as their number one enemy. In addition, they consider the European Union reform process a target because reform policies are stripping away the necessary tools that help the PKK develop arguments in the international political arena.

 In an analysis which appeared on Aug. 9, 2005, I underlined the following points: “The PKK cares neither about the EU bid nor the Kurds’ prosperity and rights in the region. It only cares about the organization’s power and its leader Abdullah Ocalan’s future in prison.

“Ocalan and his associates feel that they’re responsible for Kurdish nationalism and they watered it with their militants’ blood. They feel they should be at the table to talk about the Kurdish issue with Turkey during the EU talks. Therefore, any organization which flourishes in the region and claims to be a defendant of Kurdish rights threatens the PKK more than anything else does. For that reason, the PKK forced other local organizations not to become obstacles in their way and eliminated the opposition through force or by scaring them off.

“The only remaining threat to the PKK is the AK Party. They can’t eliminate the AK Party in the region firstly because the AK Party has the power in the government and secondly because the EU membership bid will eventually help the AK Party win the support of the pro-EU Kurds who constitute 85 percent of the population in the region.

PKK more critical of AK Party than military

“A brief analysis of the pro-PKK daily Özgür Politika and the pro-PKK monthly Serxwebun indicates that the PKK criticizes the AK Party government more than it criticizes the Turkish military (which, until recently, had always been the number one enemy of the organization). In this May’s issue Serxwebun analyzed the March 2004 elections, and it painted the AK Party as a pillar of the Greater Middle East Initiative (GME). ‘In the region, the AK Party’s victory in that election was based on external support from the EU and the US,’ it argues. ‘There was an effective use of tools of communication. The forces of democracy’s [DEHAP] failure to understand and provide alternative policies on the dynamics involved in changes both globally and in Turkey also helped.’ In addition to these factors, the analysis says that the AK Party won the election in the region because it used state resources in favor of its own candidates. The government, bureaucrats, military personnel and all other parties made a pact to support the AK Party against DEHAP.

“According to the analysis: ‘In order to overcome this failure it’s necessary to understand what Öcalan said about a new model called the “Democratic Society Movement”: “We need to create a model which should be inclusive, not exclusive”.’

“Yet the Democratic Society Movement failed to become an inclusive party. Henceforward, under these circumstances, the only way for the PKK to regain its public support, or at least prevent it from lessening, is to target the AK Party in the region. Özgür Politika has become one of the biggest critics of the AK Party government and, along the same lines, the PKK’s leading figures have started to vocally criticize, and sometimes threaten, the AK Party government. For one, Murat Karayılan last Wednesday called on people in Diyarbakır to protest when Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan visits Diyarbakır. Then later, on Saturday, Özgür Politika reported that Karayılan warned the prime minister not to isolate Öcalan. Karayılan told reporters, ‘Erdoğan and the AK Party government shouldn’t isolate Öcalan. Erdoğan is the only person responsible for this isolation. He wants to secure his government by pitting the Kurds against the Turkish military and playing bloody politics.’ Ironically, he called on President Necdet Sezer and Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Özkök to end the AK Party government’s isolation of Öcalan.”

In light of this overall policy, since 2004 the PKK adopted a strategy to harm the AK Party government in the eyes of both Kurdish and Turkish voters. When we analyze the relationship between voters’ preferences in the region and PKK violence, we can see a significant relationship.

For instance, in the 2002 election in Diyarbakır, the pro-PKK party, DEHAP, gained 56 percent of the vote and the AK Party 15 percent. In the March 2004 municipality election, however, the AK Party’s vote increased to 35 percent while the pro-Kurdish coalition with the Turkish leftists only gained by two points and got 58 percent of the vote. In the 2007 election, while the pro-PKK politicians got 47 percent of the vote, the AK Party gained 41 percent of the vote in Diyarbakır, which alarmed the PKK and therefore intensified its violence. In the 2009 election, the pro-PKK DTP increased its votes significantly to 64 percent, but the AK Party’s vote declined significantly to the level of 31 percent. In relation to this outcome, the PKK extended its unilateral cease-fire, which was declared a month before the local election in March. However, when the AK Party government launched its Kurdish initiative, the AK Party’s vote in the region rocketed while the DTP’s vote was in decline. The terror attack in Tokat came as the AK Party was gaining a significant vote in the region while the pro-PKK politicians were losing their ground. Thus, the DTP’s “peace group” show in the region and the Tokat incident should be understood in the context of severe political competition between the AK Party and the DTP in the region. The former was the DTP’s attempt to steal the positive results of the AK Party’s Kurdish initiative; the latter indicated that the DTP’s attempt to steal the AK Party’s victory would not help the Kurdish nationalist movement in the region.

The irony here is that while the PKK has declared the AK Party to be the number one enemy of the Turkish public, with the successful campaigning of opposition parties, the AK Party is considered to be helping the PKK through its Kurdish initiative. The AK Party government should first understand this dilemma and explain to the Turkish public that the truth is that they are the number one enemy of the PKK simply because of their democratic reform projects.

The international dimension of the PKK’s strategy is related to the harshening of the international community’s attitudes toward Iran, and I will try to analyze it in the next article.