What a coincidence that the PKK ending the cease-fire to cancel the reconciliation process, despite having found political representation in Parliament with the HDP, and the ongoing political uncertainty are happening in tandem
News from southeastern Turkey is positively alarming. Since the outbreak of hostilities instigated by the PKK in the aftermath of the June 7 elections, a very dangerous spiral of violence has gradually taken an entire region hostage. First, there was an unnamable suicide bombing in Suruç, just on the other side of the Syrian border facing Kobani in which 34 people died. They were exclusively volunteers from different parts of Turkey. This attack looked and sounded very much like an Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) criminal deed. The next day, two young police officers were executed in cold blood in their apartment in Ceylanpınar while sleeping. The assassination was claimed by the PKK, which, because of the huge outcry it has created among Turks as well as Kurds, withdrew its responsibility claim a few days later, arguing that "uncontrolled elements" were responsible for the assassination. The whole crime looked so professional that nobody bought this new argument. Ultimately, different PKK spokesmen gave varying and more and more abject reasons about why their organization claimed the crime in the first place, establishing a sound idea that the organization was turning into a crime syndicate rather than a liberation movement.
The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) launched a massive air attack in the aftermath of these criminal events, carpet bombing PKK headquarters and different training camps in northern Iraq. The air operation involved some 70 aircraft at once, which is basically the whole operational striking capacity of the Turkish Air Force. Although the real results of this air raid are not fully known, it is possible that heavy casualties were inflicted on the PKK. As retaliation, the PKK has attacked and ambushed security forces in Turkey as often as it can. There are heavy losses on both sides. Forgotten scenes of funerals with desperate parents barely standing up and crying have again become a daily occurrence.
This time, though, there is a difference. The population rejects this spiral of violence, Kurds and Turks alike, because for almost 30 years, between 1983 and 2012, the PKK's armed struggle took place, claiming maybe 40,000 victims without any tangible result. Kurds, meaning citizens of Turkey claiming a "Kurdish" identity, have obtained an important number of rights. It is more than likely that the extent of democratic, cultural and political rights for "Kurdishness" in Turkey does not cover the extent of what the Kurds will ask for. However, there is not a single reason anyone can give to explain, let alone justify, the resuming of killings and armed strife.
There is no perspective in Turkey for a military solution to the Kurdish issue. There was none, there will not be any. And this is not specific to Turkey. Wherever there is an ethnic, cultural or nationalist armed uprising, it is virtually impossible to make it disappear through military means without an incredible number of civilians being killed. The number of civilians killed creates a vicious cycle in which the insurgency gets continuously increasing numbers of volunteers, and so on.
In 1956 when the Fellaghas in Algerian started their fight for independence, the French military was ready to fight a long war on the opposite shore of the Mediterranean. They did so, French military officers were extremely angry with the French political class responsible for their defeat in Southeast Asia. So the battle was conducted by the military exclusively.
And they did very thorough business, militarily speaking. It is largely forgotten or untold, but the French military won practically all the battles in Algeria during the war of independence. Up to 600,000 French troops were sent, military success followed military success. In the absence of civilian administrative control in the Aures, the French military had all the latitude to inflict inhumane treatment on prisoners in order to get information. At the end, there was such an impasse that the regime in Paris had to change, with Charles de Gaulle becoming an executive president and halting the war in Algeria, accepting its independence after a few years.
The solution found was political, not military. One of the greatest successes of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in government had been to stop the bloodshed in eastern Turkey. The PKK is a criminal organization, and like every other criminal organization it gets its reason of existence from violence. It will continue to worship violence until the very end, like the Basque Country and Freedom (ETA) before totally disappearing because of public disaffection. But there will be no military solution to the Kurdish problem, and responsibility not only falls is on the AK Party, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and all the other political movements should unite their efforts to say no to the violence and hatred. For the time being, unfortunately, no real steps are being taken in this direction.
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