Perhaps the stance that both the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) as well as the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) have taken, which has the nature of sabotaging the reform initiative instead of facilitating it, has had a more negative effect on the process than the reluctant policy of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
The return of 34 people, some of whom are Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members, from northern Iraq to Turkey last Tuesday and the fact that none of them were arrested following an interrogation has raised hopes that more will agree to come down from the mountains. That may eventually lead to the liquidation of the outlawed PKK although there is a long way to go because of the nature of the problem which has been neglected for decades. Added to this problem are the policies pursued by the leading political actors such as the CHP and the MHP over the reforms. The return of the group of people from both the Kandil Mountains, where the PKK is based, as well as from the Makhmour refugee camp, again in northern Iraq, has been portrayed by both opposition party leaders as a defeat of the Turkish state by the PKK terrorist organization.
In reference to the return of the group, CHP leader Deniz Baykal claimed on Tuesday that the state has surrendered to the PKK instead of the PKK surrendering to Turkey. Devlet Bahçeli, whose policy and tone used towards the initiative from the very beginning has been worse than anyone else's in Turkey, claimed last Monday's return of 34 people, four of whom are children, is a portrayal of vicious behavior. “The PKK did not surrender to Turkey, but the AKP [Justice and Development Party] surrendered to the PKK,” he said.
Sönmez Köksal, former head of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MİT), who months ago envisaged the return of a group of people, including some PKK members, as part of the Kurdish initiative, described the Kurdish reform efforts as a national project that requires a consensus among the state and the political actors. He indicated the absence of a consensus among the political actors as a problem facing the reform process.
The day on which a group of Turkey's Kurds returned home in the midst of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's calls for more PKK members to come down from the mountains, the National Security Council (MGK) held a seven-and-a-half-hour meeting. The MGK statement did not refer to the return and made no comment on the event except that it reaffirmed Turkey's readiness to fight against terror. Referring to the Parliament decree adopted on Oct. 6 allowing the military to stage cross-border operations into PKK camps in northern Iraq for another year, the statement added that the decree constituted an important element of the fight against terrorism.
There is no problem for any state to stress its determination in the fight against armed groups. The problem is the absence of any word at all on the return of some PKK members together with some children and old women (from the Makhmour camp), even though it has been seen as a positive move by the ruling authority, hoping that it might pave the way for the others to follow suit. On the contrary, the statement stresses the virtues of cross-border operations that will have the effect of sabotaging the reform process if not handled carefully.
Bearing in mind the TSK's stance of distancing itself from the reform process, the wording of the MGK statement was not surprising. This is despite the fact that seven members of the government, including the prime minister himself, who pioneered the initiative, were present at the meeting. That has indicated an ongoing rift among the state institutions over the reform package as well as with the ruling AK Party.
Over the role of the TSK towards the Kurdish reform process, a source close to the government recently told me that they (the TSK) do not want to stop the operations while agreeing for the PKK members to come down from the mountains. “The TSK does not want to give the impression that it has not succeeded in the fight against terror,” stressed the same source.
Turkey is at a very critical conjuncture. If a consensus is not achieved among a majority of the actors over the reform process, it carries the risk of failure. If the process fails, it will be Turkey that will lose.
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