Turkey celebrates peace with the PKK but tightens its grip on the CHP with hundreds of arrests
A ceremony is scheduled today in Iraqi Kurdistan to mark the movement's farewell to arms. Its leader Öcalan recently praised “politics and social peace,” while delinking his personal fate from the peace process. Meanwhile, the crackdown on the main anti-Erdoğan party continues, with over 500 people jailed in just a few months.
Istanbul (AsiaNews) – For Kurds in Turkey and northern Iraq, today is a day of potentially historic significance, with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas preparing to lay down their arms, closing one of the bloodiest and most troubled chapters in recent history.
A ceremony, whose details are still unclear, is scheduled for this very day near Sulaymaniyah (Iraqi Kurdistan), where several fighters from the movement have taken refuge. It is expected to mark the end of the 40-year war of independence from Turkey.
Initially announced as open to the public, the event is expected to be held with a "limited" number of guests, officially for security reasons.
A delegation from the pro-Kurdish party, the People's Democratic Party (HDP), is expected to participate. The party has mediated in recent years between the Turkish government and the PKK’s jailed historic leader, Abdullah Öcalan, who was the first to call for an end to the armed struggle.
HDP leaders were crucial for talks between the PKK leader and Turkish leaders, visiting Öcalan in prison and breaking down the walls of isolation that have surrounded him for years, laying the grounds for ending a conflict that has caused at least 40,000 deaths.
Paradoxically, one of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's closest allies, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), backed the talks with the Kurdish leader, even offering him the opportunity to "come and speak before parliament”.
Founded in 1978, the PKK initially fought for an independent Kurdistan, then shifted the fight to autonomy.
The group is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and its Western allies, starting with the United States; since 2024, the Iraqi government too has placed it on its list of banned organisations.
In 2010 and in 2013, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) government initiated peace talks, showing some openness that did not, however, lead to actual peace process.
Talks derailed in 2015, giving way to intense fighting in the southeast, as well as a series of attacks blamed on the PKK in the capital and Istanbul, leaving a long trail of blood.
The 76-year-old Öcalan has been in prison since 1999 in the maximum-security prison on Imrali Island, in the Sea of Marmara south of Istanbul, where he is serving life in prison after his death sentence was commuted.
In a video message in Turkish released on Wednesday, "Apo" (uncle) Öcalan, as he is known to his followers, confirmed that disarmament is imminent.
“I believe not in the arms, but in the power of politics and social peace and call on you to put this principle into practice," he insisted in his lengthy speech.
Recently Erdoğan too expressed confidence in the goal of creating a “Turkey free of terrorism,” hoping that this “promising process will be successfully concluded as soon as possible, without obstacles or risks of sabotage.”
Despite uncertainties, the presence at today’s ceremony of a certain number of former guerrilla fighters appears confirmed. “As a gesture of goodwill, a number of PKK fighters, who had taken part in fighting Turkish forces in recent years, will destroy or burn their weapons in a ceremony in the coming days,” one commander told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
For now, Öcalan remains in prison on Imrali Island and has not asked for his release, even though his commanders have made this a condition for ending the armed struggle.
The Kurdish leader himself has rejected such a request since he does not intend to bind his personal fate and future to the ongoing peace process.
Finally, various analysts note that mistrust persists between the Turkish state and many PKK members, partly due to the Turkish army's ongoing bombing of the group's positions in Iraq.
The attempt at peace talks with the Kurds is compounded by the Turkisj government’s expanding crackdown against members and elected officials from the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), dozens of whom have been jailed recently in a new wave of arrests.
Since the arrest last March of Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul's mayor and the president's main rival, there has been a surge in incarcerations under the pretext of fighting corruption.
According to an investigation by Reuters, more than 500 people have been detained in just nine months, with a further acceleration in recent days.
For Erdoğan, a corrupt network is operating like "an octopus whose arms stretch to other parts of Turkey and abroad."
Yet, the courts and prosecutors have so far targeted only municipalities and towns administered by the CHP, the party of modern Turkey's secular founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which denies all charges and calls it an “attempt to eliminate a democratic alternative for Turks.”
What is certain is that the crackdown strengthens Erdoğan's grip on the country’s political life at a time when Turkey’s influence in the Middle East and Europe has grown, which is why the "sultan's" repression is unfolding amid the silence of the international community.
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26/06/2019 16:28
