As a matter of fact, various Turkish human rights organizations have stated that neither a "repentance law" nor an amnesty alone would be enough to encourage the PKK terrorists to come down from the mountains where they find safe haven.
Both the Human Rights Association (İHD) and the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER) said on the weekend that democratization efforts should accompany any kind of new law to bring the PKK members down from the mountains.
Hüsnü Öndül, head of the İHD, argued that Turkey needs a comprehensive amnesty, also pardoning those involved in attacks, complemented by economic, social, cultural, political and legal measures.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's recent call on the weekend on his way back from Lisbon, where he attended an EU-African summit, for those PKK members not involved in terrorist attacks to return to their homes has come soon after Turkey's operations launched inside northern Iraq to track and destroy PKK hideouts, traced through the real-time intelligence supplied recently by the US.
Erdoğan stated that the new initiative -- the government avoids calling this new initiative an amnesty -- was launched jointly with the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) in an attempt to pre-empt rumors that there has been a rift between the political authority and the politically powerful military, this time, over the PKK.
But Erdoğan himself also admitted to the journalists accompanying him on his visit to Portugal that under the earlier law passed (A repentance law was adopted in 2003 under Article 221 of the Turkish Penal Code which guarantees no punishment for militants who have not been involved in attacks) a number of PKK members benefited from it but it did not reach the desired level.
The government is considering a new law to encourage members of the PKK to leave the organization and cease recruiting new terrorists, Erdoğan was quoted as saying on Sunday. "With a new initiative we can minimize the number of people going to the mountains [i.e., joining the PKK]; we can eradicate that. Then we can encourage people to come down from the mountains," he added. He also reiterated that the government has no intention of carrying out talks with the PKK. "We're not negotiating with anyone. We will say, 'This is the law, come turn yourselves in'."
So far, this is the information we have on the government's new plans for the PKK. Turkey has previously passed six separate laws for the PKK since 1985 under the name of "repentance law," with the latest one introduced in 2003. At the time Cemil Çiçek, who is now deputy prime minister and government spokesman, told the press on May 12, 2003, in his then-post as minister of justice that Ankara wants "to open a new page [ending PKK terrorism] with the introduction of the new 'repentance law'. The contents of this law will differ from the previous ones and so could yield positive results."
But that law did not yield any result either as the PKK terrorist activities have persisted and even increased since then.
Whether we like it or not, the latest attempts to convince PKK members not involved in attacks to come down from the mountains will likely remain ineffective as long as it does not involve a comprehensive amnesty, covering the senior members of the PKK who have taken part in the deaths of thousands of civilians and military personnel.
Since it does not seem possible to allow the criminals to benefit from a pardon, the best recipe for minimizing PKK terrorism will be through the improvement of democratic rights in general in Turkey and in the terror-stricken Southeast in particular.
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