PKK, HDP drag Kurds into bloody adventure
The outlawed PKK, which has been clashing with the Turkish state for over 30 years, has revised its target many times. Despite wanting an independent Kurdistan in 1978, it revised its target to a federation" or regional autonomy since 1993. As of 1999, it turned toward systemic demands and consecutively announced its targets as a democratic republic, democratic confederalism, democratic ecological community and democratic autonomy.
I advise you not to rack your brains over the meaning of the abovementioned descriptions. This is what the PKK does as well, and it just pulls the trigger without elucidating the content of these targets it routinely announces every year.
Since the PKK first appeared, more than 50,000 people, most of whom civilians, have lost their lives in clashes. Do you not think that this is a very high cost to establish an ecological administration? After its legal wing, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), emerged victorious from the June 7 general elections, securing 80 seats in Parliament, the PKK had recourse to arms once again. Following a two-and-a-half year cease-fire that accompanied the reconciliation process, the organization chose an indefinable target for itself and again announced that it demanded autonomy.
Turkish democrats supporting peace could not make sense of this step, as all political channels were open to the Kurds, and in addition to securing seats in Parliament, the HDP's regional affiliate Democratic Regions Party (DBP), which voices the most radical demands of the PKK, managed to administrate nearly 100 municipalities. However, the ongoing clashes between the PKK and state security forces since June 7 indicate that they prepared for war while Turkey's community was expecting that the reconciliation process would bring peace. They dug tunnels, stored up ammunition and deployed militants in Kurdish-populated cities to be able to clash with the state for six months. When the HDP received a high percentage of the vote in the elections, they decided that it was time to expand their target and broke the cease-fire.
From that day onward, the PKK has established liberated zones in eastern and southeastern Turkey that are densely populated by Kurds and have been clashing with security forces. Following these developments, HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş delivered a press statement in which he said that a Kurdistan appeared on the horizon. He called on people to resist the state in Kurdish-populated provinces and wanted Western countries to support this dirty war. Certainly, a legal political party can uphold methods such as division, separation and federation as a perspective. Indeed, there are also Kurdish parties in Turkey that advocate federative solutions, such as the Rights and Freedoms Party (HAK-PAR). Do you not think that a political party with this ideal should at least include that target in its party program? However, the HDP neither made the slightest mention of independence in its party program nor in its election promises. Despite this, it presents the vote that it received by proposing systemic solutions as if it were its supporters' decision for independence.
Meanwhile, Kurds are leaving areas that the PKK has declared liberated since June 7. So far, 300,000 Kurds have escaped the clashes with their families and belongings that they could save to safer areas irrespective of the PKK's call for resistance. The population in the Sur district of Diyarbakır has dropped to 1,000 from 24,000, and it is still experiencing intense clashes.
The HDP and PKK's sophisticated descriptions and discourse present them as if they are the sole powers that can democratize Turkey. However, only a feudal system can tolerate killing and bullying in the streets for the sake of a desired administration model instead of upholding this desire by convincing the public and Parliament.
Certainly it is utterly nonsensical to impose the state of a terrorist organization, which uses medieval methods, on Kurds in a period when the legitimacy of nation-states is questionable. When do you think they will escape the magic of Western guerilla romanticism, which Demirtaş asks to support the state that he plans to found through terror?
We will wait and see, but I must say that I am not that hopeful. This is because even European states, which applied a state of emergency for months following the Paris attacks, think that it is a luxury for the Turkish state to take security measures, even though it experiences similar incidents every day.
I advise you not to rack your brains over the meaning of the abovementioned descriptions. This is what the PKK does as well, and it just pulls the trigger without elucidating the content of these targets it routinely announces every year.
Since the PKK first appeared, more than 50,000 people, most of whom civilians, have lost their lives in clashes. Do you not think that this is a very high cost to establish an ecological administration? After its legal wing, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), emerged victorious from the June 7 general elections, securing 80 seats in Parliament, the PKK had recourse to arms once again. Following a two-and-a-half year cease-fire that accompanied the reconciliation process, the organization chose an indefinable target for itself and again announced that it demanded autonomy.
Turkish democrats supporting peace could not make sense of this step, as all political channels were open to the Kurds, and in addition to securing seats in Parliament, the HDP's regional affiliate Democratic Regions Party (DBP), which voices the most radical demands of the PKK, managed to administrate nearly 100 municipalities. However, the ongoing clashes between the PKK and state security forces since June 7 indicate that they prepared for war while Turkey's community was expecting that the reconciliation process would bring peace. They dug tunnels, stored up ammunition and deployed militants in Kurdish-populated cities to be able to clash with the state for six months. When the HDP received a high percentage of the vote in the elections, they decided that it was time to expand their target and broke the cease-fire.
From that day onward, the PKK has established liberated zones in eastern and southeastern Turkey that are densely populated by Kurds and have been clashing with security forces. Following these developments, HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş delivered a press statement in which he said that a Kurdistan appeared on the horizon. He called on people to resist the state in Kurdish-populated provinces and wanted Western countries to support this dirty war. Certainly, a legal political party can uphold methods such as division, separation and federation as a perspective. Indeed, there are also Kurdish parties in Turkey that advocate federative solutions, such as the Rights and Freedoms Party (HAK-PAR). Do you not think that a political party with this ideal should at least include that target in its party program? However, the HDP neither made the slightest mention of independence in its party program nor in its election promises. Despite this, it presents the vote that it received by proposing systemic solutions as if it were its supporters' decision for independence.
Meanwhile, Kurds are leaving areas that the PKK has declared liberated since June 7. So far, 300,000 Kurds have escaped the clashes with their families and belongings that they could save to safer areas irrespective of the PKK's call for resistance. The population in the Sur district of Diyarbakır has dropped to 1,000 from 24,000, and it is still experiencing intense clashes.
The HDP and PKK's sophisticated descriptions and discourse present them as if they are the sole powers that can democratize Turkey. However, only a feudal system can tolerate killing and bullying in the streets for the sake of a desired administration model instead of upholding this desire by convincing the public and Parliament.
Certainly it is utterly nonsensical to impose the state of a terrorist organization, which uses medieval methods, on Kurds in a period when the legitimacy of nation-states is questionable. When do you think they will escape the magic of Western guerilla romanticism, which Demirtaş asks to support the state that he plans to found through terror?
We will wait and see, but I must say that I am not that hopeful. This is because even European states, which applied a state of emergency for months following the Paris attacks, think that it is a luxury for the Turkish state to take security measures, even though it experiences similar incidents every day.