What does the PKK want? What does Barzani want? What does the US want?
A European embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara brings together diplomats, politicians, academics and media members over luncheons. And these gatherings are organized as key developments occur. Everyone speaks freely in these hot and lively discussions. But speeches are off the record, the cost of speaking freely… So I will neither give the ambassador’s name nor will say who said what. However, conveying what we talked about is beneficial. The subject of the meeting Tuesday was in fact suggested as constitutional amendments previously. But evidently nobody talked about the Constitution due to the latest developments in Turkey and the region. So everyone pitched in with what they think of escalating tension on the Turkey-Iraq border after the latest attacks of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Will Turkey chase down the PKK in Iraq? If Turkey will do so, what will the consequences be? During conversations, some questions became clearer. In fact the answers to these simple questions formed the heart of the matter: What does the PKK want? What does Barzani want? What does the U.S. want? And the question in the minds of others, rather than Turks, is question number four: What does Turkey want? Answers flying around were many: Obviously Massoud Barzani is keeping the PKK in hand as a bargaining tool for making Turkey recognize him, namely the “Kurdish Regional Administration” as he told Milliyet’s Hasan Cemal.
Turkey would have perhaps lived with Barzani but as he continues to protect the PKK and to insist on Kirkuk, talks are going nowhere. Besides, isn’t Barzani playing with fire while he tries to bargain by using such a terror organization? After all whether or not the PKK is the right trump card for Barzani is debatable. Does the U.S. see the PKK deal as part of the Iranian equation? At this point, the ambassador shared his opinion referring to Turkey, “I think the U.S. prefers Kurds over you.” If this is the case really and if the U.S. is uttering about “strategic ally” for nothing and regarding Kurds as a more serious ally than Turkey, then why is the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice going to come to Ankara on Nov. 2?
Who would benefit from these developments? Ahead of a Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentary group meeting Tuesday, I asked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan if he received any phone calls from the U.S. He said, “no.” And I insisted, “do you expect one?” He answered, “we are going there now.” Does this mean hopes have already died on the Rice visit? But I didn’t have a change to ask this question. However, Erdoğan’s speech to his group in Parliament sent sufficient amount of signals that if his meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House on Nov. 5 bares no fruit, the rope will get thinner quickly. If we go back to our meeting at the embassy, a colleague asked the question backwards to freshen up the inside of our heads already filled with new questions and answers flying around: Who would benefit from these developments? Counting them one by one gives a clear picture as a matter of fact: Before the PKK’s latest attacks, both the U.S. and Turkey and Barzani could tolerate the situation, even though it was not pleasing entirely.
However, the developments such as reforms in Turkey reducing the tension, the U.S. completely leaving northern Iraq to Barzani and concentrating on the chaos in central and southern Iraq, Barzani’s publicizing himself more everyday as the sole and legitimate leader of Kurds, pushed the PKK aside, left in desolation. Perhaps, alarm bells rang for the PKK when the AKP stole away the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) votes in southeastern Turkey during the July 22 elections. Perhaps for this reason only, terrorists, thinking, “this is the day,” attempted raids in crowded groups consisting of let’s say 150 militants.
They wanted to drag Turkey into a quagmire set on their terms. Neither Turkey nor the U.S. nor Barzani is content at the point we have come to, but only the PKK is after finding a place on the international agenda. After the meeting, I found two news stories on my desk: In his parliamentary speech the DTP leader Ahmet Türk was requesting a redefinition of the republic, in a way to not appropriate it to a single nation only. In Diyarbakir, he had announced the decisions reached in the “Democratic Society Convention” who had gathered with the desire to imitate the Erzurum Congress, of the days of Independence. Abdullah Öcalan was the leader of the Kurds and this convention asked for Kurdish autonomy from Turkey. What the PKK does want is clear. Apparently terrorists succeeded in making other actors in the region tag along with the agenda that has changed entirely with its latest attacks. What needs to be stopped is this tagging along.