Kurdish reform and the military

One of the underlying reasons for Erdoğan’s rather cautious stance in his treatment of the TSK is his fear that sacking or retiring top generals will further complicate the Kurdish reform process intended to end the country’s decades-old problem and which stands as a major obstacle to the improvement of Turkish democracy and the supremacy of the rule of law.

A senior official from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) recently told me that if top generals are sacked or retired, there is a big possibility that the TSK may publicly announce its withdrawal of the support it has extended to the Kurdish reform process. Such action will further play into the hands of the two main opposition parties who have already pursued policies to sabotage the process rather than allowing it to move forward.

It is also a known fact that the TSK’s support of the process is already weak and can be broken at any time. Government fear over such an above-mentioned development is understandable to a certain extent under Turkish realities. But the AK Party’s rather cautious stance in the face of the abortive coup plots against its democratically elected party and power carry the danger of repetition for such unconstitutional acts to be designed by the TSK in the future.

The Kurdish reform process itself has already faced a break due to the public outrage against the welcoming ceremonies held in the Kurdish-dominated Southeast during the return of 34 people including 8 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members from the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq to Turkey late last month. The return of unarmed PKK members to Turkey from the mountains constitutes an important aspect of the continuation of the reform process. But due to the public outrage in reaction to the highly publicized welcoming ceremonies, there has emerged a tendency within the government to give priority to the return of those Turks of Kurdish origin that have been living in Makhmour camp in northern Iraq for the past 16 years or more. Numbering about 12,000 together with women and children, those citizens fled to northern Iraq in the early 1990s during the peak years of the fight against the outlawed PKK when their villages were evacuated by the state.

Though the occupants of Makhmour are civilians and the camp is under the responsibility of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it is controlled by members of the PKK and used as a logistics center. The occupants are regularly given lectures by PKK members that Ankara sees as a brainwashing process.

Despite this, occupants of the camp are civilians and they should not return home as they did last month together with members of the PKK.

The return of PKK members living in Europe has also been suspended indefinitely with the priority being given to those in Makhmour. Either before or following the religious holiday later this month, an unidentified number of people from Makhmour are to be persuaded to return to Turkey.

Today, Parliament is scheduled to have a preliminary debate over the Kurdish reform process, which the government named the democratic initiative as it covers a general democratization move.