Secret recording interpreted as attempt to sway opinion against gov’t

It is not known exactly when and where the recording was made or who is responsible for it, but it allegedly reveals details of secret talks between the two parties under the mediation of a third party, who remains unidentified in the recording. The voice recording was posted online on the video sharing website vimeo.com late Monday night.

Yasin Aktay, director of the Institute of Strategic Thinking (SDE), indicated that it would be quite a normal procedure to conduct secret talks with PKK representatives if the government is sincere about seeking an end to the bloodshed. “Some say this would finish the government, but I do not agree with that. This is quite normal. You would not expect intelligence officials to act like diplomats. They are after a solution and the Turkish government is sincere [in its desire] to find a solution to this long-running problem,” he told Today's Zaman.

It was speculated that the PKK, faced with an onslaught by Turkish security forces on all fronts -- in Turkey as well as northern Iraq, where terrorist PKK hideouts remain -- wanted to damage the credibility the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government in the eyes of the public by disclosing the secret talks.

An unknown mediator at the beginning of the recording stresses that the idea to bring together the two sides was solely his country's idea and he had not been requested by either side to assume such a role. “This initiative is taken on our responsibility,” an unidentified male was recorded as saying in English. He also warned of the dangers of holding the talks secretly, stating, “Imagine what would happen if the Nationalist Movement Party [MHP] and Republican People's Party [CHP] [found out and what they] would do when somebody found out representatives of [the Turkish] state are meeting with representatives of [the] Kurdish Diaspora and [the] PKK .”

The meeting is believed to be the fifth in a series of secret talks between Turkish intelligence officials and PKK representatives. As identified by his voice, Hakan Fidan, the undersecretary of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), attended the fifth session for the first time as a representative of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He was serving as a deputy-undersecretary at the Prime Ministry at the time meeting was believed to have taken place. Afet Güneş, deputy-undersecretary of the MİT, represented the Turkish intelligence organization.

Representing the PKK at the meeting was Sabri Ok, the individual in charge of the PKK's European operations and alleged leader of the terrorist Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), an umbrella organization of the PKK. Head of the KCK legislature and a PKK leader, Zübeyir Aydar, also attended the meeting, along with PKK commanders Mustafa Karasu and Adem Uzun.

Controversy erupted before the June 12 national elections over government talks with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. The nationalist MHP alleged that the government had met with Öcalan. However, government officials said the Turkish state has for a long time continued talks with Öcalan, who is serving a life prison sentence on İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara. Commenting on the state's communication with him, main opposition CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said he would not oppose such talks if they were for the benefit of the country.

“Why should we oppose this if it is for the benefit of the country?” Kılıçdaroğlu asked during a TV interview as part of his election campaign. However, he also indicated that he wants the government to share what is being discussed with the PKK leader during these meetings.

The details of the new voice recording allegedly confirm that such meetings were conducted between intelligence officials and Öcalan at his cell in İmralı. The recording also reveals, however, that secret talks have been held in the Norwegian capital for some time as is indicated in the conversations. The parties discussed what went wrong in the “Habur Affair,” which occurred in October 2010 when a group of Kurdish refugees originally from Turkey but who had previously moved to northern Iraq, including PKK militants, returned to Turkey as part of the AK Party government's Kurdish initiative. The militants were clad in PKK uniforms and were greeted in Turkey with a huge pro-PKK demonstration, which drew widespread frustration and anger from the general public.

Turkey's Kurdish question has existed since the first years of the Turkish Republic, but turned violent in 1984, a few years after the establishment of the terrorist PKK. More than 40,000 civilians and security forces have been killed in clashes so far. The AK Party government believes that military measures will not be enough to solve the Kurdish question and thus launched a democratization initiative in 2009. The government hopes to solve the question through peaceful and democratic means.

But violent attacks by the PKK have continued, and the government has stepped up anti-PKK operations to crack down on militants. Turkey has conducted aerial attacks against the organization since Aug. 17, following the PKK's killing of dozens of soldiers in southeastern Turkey, and many expect a land operation by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) is imminent. The speculation, then, is that the recording may have been released by the PKK representatives in attendance at the meeting in order to damage the image of AK Party.

Others have speculated that the leak may have come from within the Turkish intelligence community. It was no secret that a faction within the MİT opposed the nomination of Fidan as head of the organization. As part of an ongoing investigation into Ergenekon -- a clandestine criminal group accused of working to overthrow the government -- former MİT official Kaşif Kozinoğlu had kept tabs on MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan and his family and shared the information he collected with neo-nationalist Odatv owner Soner Yalçın, who is currently under arrest. The İstanbul 10th High Criminal Court issued a detention warrant earlier this year for Kozinoğlu, who was accused of membership in Ergenekon.

Others pointed at Israel as the source of the leak. Ankara has downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel and suspended defense trade following the Jewish state's refusal to apologize for its deadly 2010 assault on a civilian ship challenging its Gaza blockade in which nine Turks were killed. Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and other senior diplomats and wowed to take further measures against Israel. When Fidan was appointed as head of the MİT, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak described Fidan as a “friend of Iran.” Ankara's reaction to Barak's remarks was swift, with Israeli former Ambassador to Turkey Gabby Levy being summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for notice.