The roots of the ‘Kurdish Issue’, which has become the most important domestic issue in Turkey today, date back to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. The Turkish nation-state policy pursued by the state since its inception has attempted to assimilate all ethnicities within the country under a single supra-ethnic identity. This policy has generally succeeded in assimilating ethnicities with little influence, although it has not been able to fully assimilate the Kurds, who hold significant sway across the Middle East. During this period, Kurds' cultures and languages were banned, their ethnic existence was denied, and they were subjected to forced migration from their lands to the western provinces of Turkey on security grounds. In addition, many Kurds who followed the path of democratic politics during this period were sent to prisons for various reasons, which constituted the basic elements in the emergence of the ‘Kurdish Issue’, the most important domestic political issue in Turkey today.
Kurds sent to prisons were radicalised from civilian politics into political struggle and then into armed struggle. This process led to the emergence of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Although the PKK is indirectly a party to the Kurdish Issue, the Kurdish Issue is beyond the PKK, it is an issue of the lack of constitutional rights in Turkey on the basis of human rights. For years, Turkey has not addressed the Kurdish Issue as a democratisation issue through the provision of constitutional rights, but rather as a security issue through the PKK, which has led to the problem not being solved and continuing to fester over the years. The political mistakes made in the fight against the PKK have led to the oppression of the civilian population and have been the most important factor enabling the PKK to gain ground among the population. This situation has made the PKK a party to the Kurdish issue, albeit indirectly.
The Kurdish problem, which had been ignored for nearly 80 years until the Justice and Development (AK) Party came to government, has been openly and loudly discussed in Turkey during the AK’s rule. The ‘‘Oslo Talks’’ with the PKK and the subsequent ‘‘Kurdish Initiative’’ and ‘‘Solution Process’’ are considered the AK Party’s search for a solution to the Kurdish problem. The most important development in this process was the negotiations between Turkey and PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, which resulted in Öcalan's letter being read to the Kurdish people in Diyarbakır in both Turkish and Kurdish and the declaration that the PKK would lay down its arms and leave Turkey. In this process, after clashes between the state security forces and the PKK and bomb attacks on HDP (‘Kurdish’ political party) political offices and rallies, the PKK blamed the AK Party government for these incidents and declared that it would not lay down its arms in such an environment. Furthermore, the ‘Kurdish Initiative’ and the ‘Solution Process’ were de facto terminated when President Erdoğan declared that he did not accept the meeting held between the HDP İmralı delegation and the government delegation at the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul and the text of the agreement.
Although this period, seen as the First Peace Process, ended in such ignominy, the main reason is that the government and the state read this process differently. The AK Party government's negotiations with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in order to overthrow Assad in the Syrian Civil War and the PYD's rejection of Turkey have caused discomfort within Turkey. The PYD is the political arm of the PKK in Syria, so the formation of an authority vacuum in the south of Turkey due to the Syrian Civil War will directly affect Turkey's safety. A security problem has already been created by inter alia the PYD’s non-cooperation with Turkey, the PKK’s armed Syria branch (YPG) growing in power thanks to Western support, and the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria slowly gaining de facto recognition. This is because the Turkish state considers the establishment of a Kurdistan region in Syria and the control of this region by the PKK as a direct threat to its national security. Driven by this logic, the state officially ended the First Peace Process by launching land and air operations against the PKK-YPG camps in Iraq and Syria in order to prevent the PKK, which the state sees as an existential threat, from becoming ready to run a state.
The change of circumstances in the Syrian Civil War has brought Turkey into a period known as the Second Peace Process. This time, however, it was brought up not by the AK Party but by its coalition partner, the MHP, Turkey's main nationalist party. The MHP leader's offer for PKK leader Öcalan to be paroled from prison, to speak in the Turkish Grand National Assembly and for the PKK to declare that it had laid down arms and terminated itself opened the doors to a new peace process. However, unlike the first one, the fact that the second peace process was initiated not by the ruling party but by the nationalist MHP, known as the state party, reveals that this process was initiated by the state. The reactions of the Republic of Turkey are changing and have to change; at a time when the Republic of Turkey is entering its second century, the changing dynamics in the Middle East necessitates a shift in the state's deep-rooted Kurdish policies. At a time when first Iraq and then Syria have fractured, the possibility of Kurds becoming neighbours (as an independent state) to the south of Turkey has come to light. And at a time when Iran is rumoured to be next in line, Turkey has to change in order to keep its hand strong and have a say in the region. With this understanding, Turkey aims to control the PYD-YPG in Syria through Öcalan or to meet on common ground. A Syrian Kurdistan region under the control of the PYD-YPG, which is not under the control of Turkey, is a candidate to become Turkey's most important state security problem in the second century.
A new constitution should be prioritised for the success of the Second Peace Process. Because for the first time, the state has separated the granting of certain rights to Kurds under constitutional guarantee separately from the PKK problem, and is making a move through Öcalan and the PKK to remove the Kurds in the region from the axis of different countries and bring them under its control. In this process, the constitutional recognition of rights such as education in the mother tongue, legal status for the Kurdish language, and constitutional status for Kurds on the basis of equal citizenship will be important steps in solving the Kurdish problem. A Turkey that has solved the Kurdish problem on a constitutional basis can become the protector and supporter of all Kurds in the Middle East; Turkey, together with a regional Kurdish power, is likely to be the biggest quarterback in the region. At present, although this may seem contrary to the unitary structure of the Republic of Turkey and the Turkish nation-state policy, Turkey has to make the PKK lay down its arms (within the country) and ensure that the Kurds are granted constitutionally-enshrined rights. Doing this will enable Turkey to take its place in the process of Iran's disintegration in the right way and be the sole protector and supporter of a possible Kurdish state in the region. These imperatives, while pushing the state into the Second Peace Process, will show that the state, as it enters its second century, has made a change of axis in its Kurdish policy by addressing the Kurdish problem and the Kurds in a regional dimension rather than as a national issue.
Image: Wikimedia Commons/Astro medya Org. Ltd. ŞTİ.
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