Crisis Group: Ankara Should Not Link Kurdish Reforms to PKK

[Aslan]

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) says that the peace process in Turkey hangs by a thread as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Ankara fail to make major conciliatory moves toward an agreeable resolution.

The report titled Crying Wolf: Why Turkish Fears Need Not Block Kurdish Reform, says, “PKK leaders and the Kurdish movement, including the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), need to stop issuing threats that fuel the Turkish public’s concerns about secession or a resurgence in violence.”

The report, released on Monday, also says that the Turkish government has a critical responsibility to address the longstanding democratic grievances of the country’s Kurds.

It suggests that Kurdish groups “denounce parallel state formations inside Turkey, including local militias,” and that Ankara commits to constitutional changes “that eliminate ethnic bias.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been often criticized by nationalist leaders for what they call talking to terrorists, and the ICG report says that Ankara must show that peace negotiations and democratic reform are two separate things.

“Ankara shouldn’t link Kurdish reform steps to the negotiations with the PKK,” reads the report.

Didem Collinsworth, Crisis Group’s Turkey Analyst, says in the report that if the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) fails at this process, there is a risk that the conflict may resume.

“The greatest risk for the AKP is not a possible loss of marginal votes, but that the process fails and the fighting rolls on into a fourth decade,” he says.

Until recently, the PKK and the Turkish military were locked in armed conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives.

However, the group’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, agreed to withdraw his fighters to their bases in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan as the first step toward a lasting peaceful solution.

But most recently, PKK and BDP leaders have accused Turkey of not fulfilling its part of the bargain by failing to free Kurdish prisoners, and warned that the Turkish military is being deployed in areas left by the PKK.

Erdogan announced a democratization package that promised more educational and cultural rights to the Kurds, which still failed to satisfy PKK and BDP leaders, calling it “insufficient.”

According to the Crisis Group, Kurds want the Turkish government to address five grievances: the use of mother language in education and public life; decentralized local government; removal of ethnic discrimination in the constitution; lowering the national election threshold for political parties; and amending anti-terrorism laws.

“Most Kurds want a settlement inside Turkey as equal citizens, and the government must take urgent steps to get the majority on its side,” Collinsworth said.

According to the report Erdogan “shied away from the easiest reform to make, a lowering of the 10 percent national election threshold for parties to enter into parliament.

This law, known as Law 2839 on Election Deputies, was implemented to keep small political parties out of Turkish parliament following instability in the 1970s, the report states.

“But its main effect now is to make it harder for the Kurdish movement’s legal political party, the BDP – which polls 6 to 7 percent,” of the national vote to represent itself in the Turkish parliament, the report also said.