The results of the Turkish elections of Jun. 7 have put an end to the suspense that has dominated national politics in the past three months. For the first time in this Asian republic’s history, a Kurdish party has succeeded in being elected to the legislature, with an impressive 15 percent of the seats available.

The breakthrough of the People’s Democracy Party (HDP) has radically changed the political landscape of Turkey, as it has come at the expense of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been in power since 2002. AKP has regressed in the latest contest by nine percentage points, from 49.8 percent in the 2011 elections to 40.86 percent.

The other two main contenders, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have retained their electorate, with MHP making a small gain over the previous general elections.

Of the 54.8 million qualified voters, 47.5 million cast their ballots, representing a participation level of 86.6 percent. AKP received 40.86 percent of the votes, CHP 24.9, MHP 16.29 and HDP 13.12 percent.The ceasefire [between the PKK and the Turkish government in 2013] disposed the Turkish civil population more favourably towards the Kurds than in past decades. This gave the opportunity for the creation in 2014 of a Kurdish political party, HDP, whose aim is to enter national politics through the main door – the Parliament.

AKP remains the largest political formation, but the loss of parliamentary seats to the newcomer HDP steals its privilege of legislative majority.

The Turkish Grand General Assembly is composed of 550 deputies. Pending the final official results, due to be announced in 11 days, AKP will have 258 seats, CHP 132 and MHP and HDP 80 each.

HDP’s performance is quite remarkable, considering that it won 6.1 million votes out of an estimated 9 million total Kurdish voters.

Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey, with 15 million people out of a total of 77 million Turkish citizens. Their past, under the Turkish republic formed in 1923, has been turbulent, as they have not been recognised as a minority by the Constitution. Their attempts to obtain civic rights, including the use of their own language, were violently oppressed, intermittently, in the 1930s and from the 1970s onwards.

As a reaction, in 1978, the more combative elements of their society formed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an activist organisation which, together with its People’s Defence Forces (HPG) paramilitary wing, engaged in armed conflict with the country’s security forces from 1984 until 2013, when a ceasefire was agreed on the basis of a negotiated peace process with the government.

The peace process has had ups and downs, but no agreement has been reached so far. Over the past 30 years, the conflict has cost 40,000 lives among security forces and PKK fighters. PKK is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

But the ceasefire disposed the Turkish civil population more favourably towards the Kurds than in past decades. This gave the opportunity for the creation in 2014 of a Kurdish political party, HDP, whose aim is to enter national politics through the main door – the Parliament.

Salahattin Demirtas, co-leader along with Figen Yüksekdağis of the Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), set up in 2014. Credit: ©J.N. Couvas

Its co-leader along with Figen Yüksekdağis, is a 42-year-old lawyer, Salahattin Demirtas, who participated in the presidential elections of August 2014, just weeks after creation of the party.

Although he only received 9.76 percent of the votes, he won the hearts and minds not only of Kurds, but also of many of the underprivileged of the country – women, unemployed, homosexuals, artists, Yazidis,  Rom, Syriacs, Christians and Jews – and of those who have been disappointed with either the AKP or the opposition CHP.

HDP presented 268 women candidates in the elections, while AKP only listed 90.

So the clear winner of these elections is Demirtas, whom The Guardian has labelled the “Obama of Turkey”, and who has been seen in the past weeks by many as the “Tsipras of Anatolia”, in reference to the equally young and unconventional winner of the Greek elections earlier this year, Alexis Tsipras.

The verdict of the Jun. 7 polls indicates that the campaign of the ruling AKP did not convince a large part of its own electorate, because 9 percentage points lost represent an 18 percent voter decline in comparison with 2011. The absolute number of losses nears 3 million votes. These have grossed the gains of both MHP and HDP.

The campaign, which mobilised huge masses of AKP followers, considerable funds and the support of public agencies and government resources, such as state television, was led simultaneously by incumbent prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in person. Erdogan is considered the most charismatic and energetic leader modern Turkey has had since its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

In principle, such a heavy artillery should have guaranteed a resounding triumph for AKP. In his numerous rallies, Erdogan had exhorted the population to “give him 400 seats” in the parliament, an extremely optimistic expectation. But Erdogan had been elected president in the 2014 elections with 52 percent of the votes, and overconfidence prevailed within the party. This probably backfired at the last moment among moderate Islamists who resent exuberant and over-assertive leadership behaviour.

Erdogan’s objective in these elections was to secure at least 367 MPs. This would have given him a free hand to have the Constitution changed by AKP representatives alone. The line of retreat was 330 seats, which would have still enabled Erdogan to call a referendum for the change. The 258 seats now obtained fall even short of the 276 threshold for having a majority in order to run the government.

The scope of a new Constitution was to approve the adoption of an Executive Presidential regime, which would grant Erdogan full control over state affairs on a daily basis. The current Constitution, introduced after a military coup in 1980, limits the presidency to a ceremonial role.

Erdogan’s vision for a presidential system has certainly been frustrated, but a careful study of his personality leads to the belief that he will pursue his aspirations, albeit with their achievement being somewhat postponed.

AKP, having obtained the highest number of votes, will be asked to form either a coalition or a minority government, provided that at least one of the opposition parties commit to supporting it in the parliament. The only likely candidate for this is MHP, an ultra-nationalist formation with strong Islamic membership, which grants it a common denominator with AKP. But MHP has repeatedly affirmed that it will never concede to a presidential system. However, in Turkish politics ‘never’ does not always imply what it appears to mean.

An alternative to the above scenario is a coalition among CHP, MHP and HDP, totalling 292 MPs. This is rather unlikely, especially because of the anti-Kurdish ideology of MHP’s constituency. Moreover, coalitions have historically failed in Turkey, so a new one would be a recipe for instability.

In either case, the president will be the sole judge for accepting or rejecting the solution proposed by the parties. If there is no successful proposal within 45 days, a new election will be held in the following two months. If a coalition or minority government is formed, its life span will be short, considering Turkey’s present realities.

The economy is in decline, foreign direct investment and exports have dropped sharply since the beginning of the year, and foreign relations with Middle Eastern neighbours, the European Union and the United States are problematic.

The Istanbul Stock Exchange opened on Monday with a 6 percent loss, while the Turkish lira declined by 4.5 percent, bringing the total depreciation of the currency in respect to the U.S. dollar to 19 percent since January 2015 and to 45 percent in 18 months.

In spite of Sunday’s results, which came as music to the ears of 60 percent of Turks and proved a good degree of democratic maturity, no one seems to be euphoric. Officials from the different parties consulted confirmed that their respective headquarters are already working on preparations for the replay of the electoral match – to be held most likely in October.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Open market in the southeastern Turkish city of Dyarbakir, capital of the Kurds in Turkey. The city has been a focal point for conflicts between the government and Kurdish movements. December 2014. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz /IPS

By Fabíola Ortiz
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Jan 29 2015 (IPS)

A rupture inside the movement for the creation of an independent state of Kurdistan has given new impetus to the voices of those condemning the use of weapons as the way to autonomy.

The 40 million Kurds represent the world’s largest ethnic group without a permanent nation state or rights guaranteed under a constitution.

“We are the only nationality with a great population without land,” Murat Aba, a member and one of the founders of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), told IPS. “We’ve been split since after the First World War and we’ve never been allowed to rule ourselves. We are not a minority, we’re a huge number of people and we defend the independence of the four Kurdish groups living in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.”“The peace talks between the PKK and the [Turkish] government should take a different direction. They are being done in secrecy without any transparency at all. We are against the use of firearms in our struggle for independence” - Sabehattin Korkmaz Avukat, lawyer for human right causes involving Kurds.

PAK, which was formally launched towards the end of 2014, is the first legally recognised party in Turkey to include the word ‘Kurdistan’ in its name which, until recently, was forbidden for political parties in the country. According to its leader Mustafa Ozcelik, PAK will pursue independence for Kurds ”through political and legal means”.

This distinction is intended to differentiate it clearly from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) – the armed group created in the 1970s to fight for self-determination for the Kurds in Turkey and considered illegal by the Turkish government. So far, the armed struggle for independence has killed over 40,000 people.

Today, around 20,000 PKK soldiers are being trained In the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq, 1,000 kilometres from Diyarbakir, the capital of the Kurds in Turkey. Many of them are now fighting against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.

The financial resources to maintain PKK operations come illegally from Kurds living in Europe, Hatip Dicle of the Democratic Society Congress (DTK) admitted to IPS. The DTK is a political party which also includes members who are sympathetic to PKK ideology.

The Turkish government “does not allow us to collect donations by legal means,” Dicle continued. “There are over two million Kurds in Europe and all donations are sent secretly.” Dicle said that even it is a pro-democracy movement PKK does not give up the armed solution.

However, in recent years, the PKK has been involved in secret “peace talks” with the Turkish government. Through senior members of his cabinet, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been negotiating with Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK leader in jail since 1999 on Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara.

The DTK gained strength when the peace process between Turkish authorities and  Öcalan began and, now, “we want this conflict to be over and we wish to achieve a common solution,” Dicle told IPS.

Nevertheless, the secrecy surrounding the peace talks with Öcalan and the PKK is being strongly criticised by those who call for an open process.

“The peace talks between PKK and government should take a different direction. They are being done in secrecy without any transparency at all. We are against the use of firearms in our struggle for independence”, said Sabehattin Korkmaz Avukat, a lawyer advocating for human right causes involving Kurds.

According to Avukat, deep-rooted reform of the Civil Constitution in Turkey is needed. “We want to follow the path of democracy and not violence. Our fight is totally addressed to achieving our own autonomy in a peaceful way. We wish to have our rights included in the Civil Constitution”, he argued.

For Mohammed Akar, the general secretary and founder of a new Kurd cultural entity called Komeleya Şêx Seîd, an organisation dedicated to cultural and educational activities for the Kurdish community and based in Diyarbakir, the road to autonomy in Turkey should not include armed violence.

“We don’t want to use violence to achieve our independence. It may even spoil our claim for democracy”, said Akar, the grandson of Şêx Seîd.  Also known as Sheikh Said,  Şêx Seîd was a former Kurdish sheikh of the Sunni order and leader of the Kurdish rebellion in 1925 during Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s nationalist regime (1923-38).

Şêx Seîd’s name and image had been banned since then until recently, and this is the first time that a civil society entity has been authorised to use his name.

Famous Kurdish writer and political scientist Îbrahîm Guçlu also criticises the way in which the PKK is promoting its political view. He denounces drug trafficking, forced recruitment and coercion of young Kurds by the outlawed group.

“The PKK is an illegal formation whose leader is in jail and tries to manage his entire community from inside prison. We are different and we promote open discussion within society”, says Guçlu.

Edited by Phil Harris

Balochistan Liberation Army commander Baloch Khan checks his rifle alongside his three escorts, somewhere in the Sarlat Mountains on the Afghan-Pakistani border. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
SARLAT MOUNTAINS, Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Dec 24 2014 (IPS)

The media tend to portray Balochistan as “troubled”, or “restive”, but it would be more accurate to say that there´s actually a war going on in this part of the world.

Balochistan is the land of the Baloch, who today see their land divided by the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is a vast swathe of land the size of France which boasts enormous deposits of gas, gold and copper, untapped sources of oil and uranium, as well as a thousand-kilometre coastline near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

In August 1947, the Baloch from Pakistan declared independence, but nine months later the Pakistani army marched into Balochistan and annexed it, sparking an insurgency that has lasted, intermittently, to this day.

Now senior Baloch rebel commanders say that Islamabad is training Islamic State (IS) fighters in Pakistan´s southern province of Balochistan.

IPS met Baloch fighters at an undisclosed location in the Sarlat Mountains, a rocky massif, right on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and equidistant from two Taliban strongholds: Kandahar in south-eastern Afghanistan and Quetta in southwest Pakistan."Today we speak of seven Baloch armed movements fighting for freedom but all share a common goal: independence for Balochistan" – Baloch Khan, commander of the Balochistan Liberation Army

The fighters claimed to have marched for twelve hours from their camp to meet this IPS reporter.

They are four: Baloch Khan, commander of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and Mama, Hayder and Mohamed, his three escorts, who do not want to disclose their full names.

“This is an area of ​​high Taliban presence but they use their own routes and we stick to ours so we hardly ever come across them,” explains commander Khan, adding that he wants to make it clear from the beginning that the Baloch liberation movement is “at the antipodes of fundamentalism”.

“Today we speak of seven Baloch armed movements fighting for freedom but all share a common goal: independence for Balochistan,” says Khan. At 41, he has spent half of his life as a guerrilla fighter. “I joined as a student,” he recalls.

The senior commander refuses to disclose the number of fighters in the BLA’s ranks but he does say that they are deployed in 25 camps throughout “East Balochistan [under the control of Pakistan]”.

Khan admits parallelisms between his group and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), also a “secular group fighting for their national rights,” as he puts it

“We feel very close to the Kurds. One could say they are our cousins, and their land is also stolen by their neighbours,” says the commander, referring to the common origin of Baloch and Kurds, and the division of the latter into four states: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Historically a nomadic people, the Baloch have had a moderate vision of Islam. However, Khan accuses Islamabad of pushing the conflict into a sectarian one.

The Baloch insurgent groups in Pakistan are markedly secular and share a common agenda focusing on the independence of Balochistan. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

“Until 2000 not a single Shia was killed in Balochistan. Today Pakistan is funnelling all sorts of fundamentalist groups, many of them linked to the Taliban, into Balochistan, to quell the Baloch liberation movement,” claims the guerrilla fighter, adding that target killings and enforced disappearances are a common currency in his homeland.

The Voice for Baloch Missing Persons, a group advocating peaceful protest founded by some of the families of the disappeared, puts the number of people from Balochistan since 2000 at more than 19,000, although exact figures are impossible to verify because no independent investigation has yet been conducted.

However, in August this year, the International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called on Pakistan’s government “to stop the deplorable practice of state agencies abducting hundreds of people throughout the country without providing information about their fate or whereabouts.”

Baloch insurgent groups, however, have also been accused of murdering civilians. In August 2013, the BLA took responsibility for the killing of 13 people after the two buses they were travelling in were stopped by fighters in Mach area, about 50km (31 miles) south-east of the provincial capital, Quetta.

Pakistani officials said they were civilians returning home to Punjab to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Commander Khan shares another version:

“There were 40 people in two buses. We arrested and investigated 25 of them and we finally executed 13, all of whom belonged to the Pakistani Security Forces,” assures Khan, lamenting that a majority of the foreign media “relies solely on Pakistani government official sources.”

Could an independence referendum like the one held in Scotland possibly help to unlock the Baloch conflict? Khan looks sceptical:

“Before such a step, we´d need to settle down both the national and geographic borders as many parts of our land lie in Sindh and Punjab – the neighbouring provinces. Besides, there´s a growing number of settlers and the army is in full control of the country, election processes included,” the commander claims bluntly.

Instead of a consultation, the rebel fighter openly asks for a full intervention, “not just moral support but also a military and economic intervention.”

“The civilised world should support us, not Pakistan. Why help a country that is struggling to feed fundamentalist groups across the world?” asks the guerrilla commander before he and his men resume the long way back to their base.

Balochistan and beyond

The meeting with the BLA leader was only possible via Afghanistan, because Pakistan’s south-western province remains a “no go” area due to a veto enforced by Islamabad.

“The province has the worst record in Pakistan for journalists being killed so local journalists usually censor themselves to avoid being harassed, jailed or worse. Meanwhile, foreigner journalists are deported if they try to access the area,” Ahmed Rashid, a best-selling Pakistani writer and renowned Central Asia commentator, who was an activist on behalf of Balochistan in his youth, told IPS.

The visa ban over this reporter after working undercover in the region was no hurdle to get the viewpoint of Allah Nazar, commander in chief of the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF).

Through a satellite phone, this former medical doctor from Quetta corroborates commander Khan´s statements on a “common goal for the entire Baloch insurgency movement”. He also endorses the BLA commander´s analysis of Islamabad’s alleged backing of fundamentalist groups.

“Pakistan is breeding fundamentalists to counter the Baloch nationalist movement but it has entirely failed. Now they are trying to use the instrument of religion in order to distract attention from the Baloch freedom movement,” Nazar explains from an unspecified location in Makran – southern Balochistan province – where the BLF has its strongholds.

According to the movement´s leader, such threat could well transcend the boundaries of this inhospitable region. Commander Nazar gave the coordinates of “at least four training camps” where members of the Islamic State would reportedly be receiving instruction before being transferred to the Middle East:

“There´s one is in Makran, and another one in Wadh, 990 and 315 km south of Quetta respectively,” says the guerrilla fighter. “A third one is in the Mishk area of Zehri – 200 km south of Quetta – and there are more than 100 armed men there: Arabs, Pashtuns, Punjabis and others who are based there with the help of Sardar Sanaullah Zehri [a local tribal leader]. The fourth camp is near Chiltan, in Quetta.”

Nazar adds that Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) is “both activating and patronising the Islamic State.”

“The Islamic State is overwhelmingly present among us. They even throw pamphlets in our streets to advocate their view of Islam and get new recruits,” denounces Nazar.

In October 2014, six key Pakistani Taliban commanders, including the spokesman of Tehrik-e-Taliban – a Pakistan conglomerate of several Pakistani insurgent groups – announced their allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“IS is simply an upgraded version of the Talibans and finds sympathy with the ruling establishment in Pakistan,” human rights activist Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur told IPS.

Talpur, who has been challenged and attacked repeatedly for writing about such uncomfortable issues for Islamabad, claims that creating the Taliban is “the core of state policy which has not yet given up on this megalomaniacal scheme of Islam ruling the world.”

Despite repeated calls and e-mails, Pakistani officials refused to talk to IPS. However, the issue is seemingly a well-known secret after the Minister of Interior himself, Nisar Ali Khan, recently told Parliament that even in the naval base in Karachi –Pakistan´s main port and commercial city – there is support for the activities of radical religious groups.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Rudi Mohamed Amid gets set before going live at Ronahi, Syrian Kurds´ TV channel. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
QAMISHLI, Syria, Jun 30 2014 (IPS)

Rudi Mohamed Amid gives his script one quick, last glance before he goes live. “Roj bas, Kurdistan (Good morning, Kurdistan),” he greets his audience, with the assuredness of a veteran journalist. However, hardly anyone at Ronahi, Syrian Kurds’ first and only television channel, had any media experience before the war.

After Syria’s uprising began in 2011, local Kurds distanced themselves from both the government and opposition, sticking to what they call a “third way”. In July 2012, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad loosened his grip on Syria’s Kurdish region and that the country’s biggest minority – between 3 and 4 million, depending on the source – claimed those parts in northern Syria where the Kurdish population is primarily located.

The relative stability of the northeast led to a myriad of civil initiatives that were unthinkable for decades. The Kurdish language, long banned under the ruling Assad family – first Hafez and then his son, Bashar – gained momentum: it was taught for the first time in schools, printed in magazines and newspapers, and it is the language spoken on air through the Ronahi (“Light” in Kurdish) TV station.

But despite such significant steps, life in this part of the world remains inevitably linked to the conflict.“250 people work as volunteers at Ronahi TV. Funds come from the people, either here or in the diaspora and our employees get between the equivalent of 30 and 90 dollars per month, depending on each one's needs” – Perwin Legerin, general manager of Ronahi TV

“I was studying oil engineering at the University of Homs, but I returned home, to Qamishli – 600 km northeast of the capital Damascus – when the war started,” recalls Reperin Ramadan, 21, operating one of the three cameras at Ronahi’s studio.

Syria’s northeast is an oil-rich region, so had Ramadan finished his studies, he could have applied for a job at the Rumelan oil field, less than 100 km east of Qamishli. The plant has remained under Kurdish control since March 1, 2013, but it has gradually come to a halt due to the war.

Besides, Ramadan’s former university town has been levelled to the ground after being heavily bombed by Assad´s forces. Unsurprisingly, Ramadan says he has “completely ruled out” becoming an oil engineer.

Once the programme is over, Perwin Legerin, general manager, helps to unwrap boxes of light bulbs, waiting to be hung from atop the TV set. Meanwhile, the 28-year-old briefs IPS on those who make all this happen:

“250 people work as volunteers at Ronahi TV. Funds come from the people, either here or in the diaspora and our employees get between the equivalent of 30 and 90 dollars per month, depending on each one’s needs.”

Legerin added that Qamishli hosts the channel’s main headquarters, and that there are also offices in Kobani and Afrin – the two other Kurdish enclaves in Syria’s north.

Supplying the three centres with the necessary equipment is seemingly one of the biggest challenges.

“We still lack a lot of stuff to be able to work in proper conditions mainly because both Ankara and Erbil – the administrative capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan region – are enforcing a blockade on us, hardly letting in any equipment across their borders,” lamented Legerin.

The young manager admitted that the recent Sunni uprising in the bordering western provinces of Iraq poses “yet another threat to Kurdish aspirations.”

Against all odds, Ronahi still manages to reach its public seven days a week, mainly in Kurdish, but also in Arabic and English. There are interviews with senior political and military representatives, documentaries, funerals of fallen Kurdish soldiers, but also a good dose of traditional music to cope with the war drama. Needless to say, fresh news and updates from the frontlines are constant.

But not every Syrian Kurd supports the station. Several local Kurdish opposition sectors accuse Ronahi of being biased and on the side of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the dominant party among the Syrian Kurds.

“I cannot but disagree with such statements,” said Perwin Legerin. “We show stories from all sides and all peoples in Rojava – that´s the name local Kurds give to their area – and Syria, but there´s little we can do if somebody refuses our invitation to come to our studio and share their point of view.”

Syrian Kurdish politics are, indeed, a thorny issue. A majority of the opposition parties are backed by Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) while around three others are backed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of Jalal Talabani.

The PYD has repeatedly said that it has an agenda akin to that of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Salih Muslim, PYD co-chair with Asia Abdullah – they scrupulously follow gender parity – told IPS that Ronahi is “a mirror of society in Rojava which has already become part of people´s life.”

For the time being, Syrian Kurdish forces keep engaging in clashes with both government and opposition forces. Sozan Cudi knows it well. This young soldier was just a high school student when the war started. Today, she receives video training at the station, two hours a day, three days a week. Ronahi´s management told IPS that their training courses are “open and accessible for anyone willing to participate.”

“Three of us were told by our commanders to come and get training in media for a month,” recalled the 20-year-old Cudi, a member of the YPJ (Kurdish initials for “Women’s Protection Units”). The YPJ is affiliated to the YPG  (People’s Protection Units), a military body of around 45,000 fighters deployed across Syria’s Kurdish regions.

“Journalism in Syria often involves working in the frontlines and not everyone is ready to risk that much,” noted Cudi. “I´m ready to hold a rifle to fight our enemies, or a camera to show their atrocities, whatever is needed to achieve our rights,” she added, just before her lesson.

Serekaniye – Ras al-Ain in Arabic, 570 km northeast of Damascus – is one of those towns which has seen intense violence over the last years. Abas Aisa, a producer at Ronahi, escaped just in time from this village on the Turkish border where Islamic extremists have reportedly been funnelled into the area to quell the Kurdish autonomous project.

“Our small village had a mixed Arab and Kurdish population, but many people have left and the place remains under the control of Jihadist groups,” Aisa, whose family is Arab, told IPS.

The 30-year-old is one among several other non-Kurds working at Ronahi. He said he has always been fluent in Kurdish thanks to his neighbours back home.

“My parents are still in the village, so I’m constantly thinking about them,” admitted Aisa, explaining that he doubts he will go back any time soon. Nonetheless, he believes his parents will feel reassured “as long as Ronahi keeps reaching their living room.”

Turkey’s new democratisation reform package may mark a step forward for civil rights, but it does not go far enough to ease social tension and feelings of mistrust that are afflicting the country, analysts say.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the long-awaited reform package on Sep. 30, saying it ushered in “a new, decisive phase” in Turkey’s democratisation process.

But after a summer during which Erdoğan’s reformist reputation was shredded by a violent police crackdown on anti-government protests, many Turks see the package mostly as an attempt to repair the prime minister’s battered image.

“The fact that this is being marketed as a big reform package is precisely because the government is seeing that they are failing on that front,” said Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, a political columnist at Milliyet newspaper, an influential publication generally critical of the government. “It’s not enough, it’s hardly enough, but it’s a start.”

The measures, to be enacted through a mix of administrative and legislative changes, include the strengthening of minority language rights, the lifting of a ban on Islamic headscarves for women in public institutions, and alterations to the electoral system to benefit smaller political parties.

The package did not include widely anticipated enhancements of cultural and religious rights for Alevis, a Shi’a-Islam-influenced sect whose adherents comprise the country’s largest religious minority.

The bulk of the measures are aimed at addressing the grievances of Turkey’s 15 million ethnic Kurds, who have endured forced assimilation since the early years of the republic. The government currently is engaged in a peace process with the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), whose 30-year-long separatist insurgency has cost 40,000 lives. A ceasefire has held since March, with government officials holding direct talks with the PKK’s imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan.

However, those talks have come to a standstill, with the rebels recently freezing a withdrawal from Turkey after accusing Ankara of failing to deliver on promised reforms.

On Sep. 30, Erdoğan announced that education in mother-tongue languages other than Turkish will be allowed for the first time, but only in private schools.

A ban on the letters q, w, and x, which are found in the Kurdish, but not the Turkish alphabet, will be lifted, allowing for their use in names and official documentation. Kurdish place names that were “Turkified” in the past will be restored to their original spelling.

Meanwhile, a “student oath,” which begins with the words “I am a Turk,” will be abolished in schools.

Erdoğan also proposed a debate on lowering the existing 10-percent threshold that a political party must clear in an election in order to secure seats in parliament. In many Western democracies, such as Germany, the threshold for representation is five percent of the popular vote. The high electoral barrier in Turkey has generally been seen as a means to stymy Kurdish political representation.

Overall, though, the reform measures fell short of several key Kurdish demands, including a loosening of the country’s draconian anti-terror laws. Many observers were also disappointed that Kurdish-language education will be restricted to private schools.

“Was this really a package worth waiting for?” asked Gültan Kışanak, co-chair of the main pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party in a televised statement.

“Kurds wished for the Kurdish problem to be solved, Alevis wished for freedom of religion, and other discriminated groups in Turkey wished for more participatory governance,” Kışanak continued. “It is not a package that responds to Turkey’s need for democratisation.”

Analysts interpreted the cautiousness of the measures as a sign of the government’s sensitivity over a possible Turkish nationalist backlash against Kurdish initiatives, particularly in the context of municipal and presidential elections next year.

“I think there’s been a growing unrest across the country since the peace talks began and the government began speaking to Öcalan directly,” said Ziya Meral, a London-based Turkey researcher, and former human rights advocate.

“It is not so much because of a lack of political will, but because elections are coming and the Turkish public is not necessarily on board with such a speedy resolution of the Kurdish issue.”

Hugh Pope, country director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, expressed a belief that the government’s fears are largely misplaced.

“This imaginary Turkish nationalist resistance to reform is very real in the mind of Ankara, but I don’t think it’s reflected on the ground,” Pope said. “Erdoğan is pushing through an open door, and the better he explains it, the easier this process will go.”

Meral believes that Erdoğan will likely announce further substantial reforms in the coming months as the elections draw nearer — especially on the Alevi issue.

“If you unveil all your major reforms in one go, the public will quickly forget, “ he drily noted, “but if you spread out the love a bit, your actions might be remembered much closer to the election date.”

The generally negative reception of the package from key opposition groups, including the Kurds, highlighted deeper social problems that the reforms did not address, he added.

Editor’s note: Alexander Christie-Miller is a freelance reporter based in Istanbul. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Media (r) with her assistant Daryan (l) in a Kurdish region in the Qandil mountains. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By Karlos Zurutuza
QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq, Jul 26 2013 (IPS)

“I witnessed a Turkish tank made in Germany destroying a Kurdish village. Civilians, children included, were wounded, and many were taking shelter inside a besieged church,” said Media, the German nurse who has become legendary in the Kurdish mountains of northern Iraq and is known here only by this name.

She left both her name and her native Hamburg behind in 1992 when she witnessed the fighting in the Kurdish region of Midyat, 800 km southeast of Ankara, Turkey’s capital.

She has not been back to Europe since and instead has committed herself to providing medical care for the Kurdish people. And here, there is hardly a Kurd who has not heard of her.

Media – which is a popular name among local Kurds – runs a small hospital in the Qandil mountains, a group of steep hills and valleys clustered between the borders of Iran, Iraq and Turkey.

Down the valley, which is often isolated in winter due to heavy snowfall, there are several medical centres and hospitals run by the Kurdish administration from Iraq. But the Kurds in Qandil cannot afford the cost of this highly-privatised health care or cope with the rampant corruption at these places.

So they come to Media’s medical centre as she is able to provide free health care thanks to the private contributions from European, Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan donors.

“We receive no support at an institutional level whatsoever, but we will be able to keep operating as long as the Turks don’t bomb us again,” Media told IPS from her small consulting room.

She had a lucky escape in 2008 when Turkish aircraft bombed a hospital, in the small town Lewzha, where she was training paramedic personnel.

But here, at her medical centre, the 49-year-old German has an average of 30 medical consultations a day, but numbers diminish during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims.

The strategic position and the rugged terrain have turned this region into the main stronghold of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an insurgent movement fighting the Turkish government for rights and constitutional recognition for Kurds.

Between 30 and 40 million Kurds are divided across Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. About half live on Turkish soil, where a three-decade-long war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands and led to the destruction of more than 4,000 Kurdish villages.

A peace process is under way between the PKK and the Ankara government. Talks began after Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, declared a unilateral ceasefire in March – it is the ninth one since 1993. Ocalan also ordered the withdrawal of his fighters to their Qandil bases.

Kurds, Media said, are fighting for their rights “in the worst possible scenario, but without losing their hope.” She has attended to countless guerrillas, as well as villagers caught in the crossfire.

Drawings and pictures on the wall at the medical centre are dramatic testimony to her work – and the need for it.

These include drawings of Aisha Ali, a farmer who was bombed while she was waving a white sheet to convey they were unarmed; and of 12-year-old Beijal, who lost her life to a land mine; and of Sozan, who lost her leg the day the Turkish army bombed the former hospital in Lewzha.

“This is a cruel war to which the international community has closed its eyes while succulent weapons contracts were signed with Turkey,” said Media. She confessed she does not feel “too optimistic” about the ongoing peace process between Turks and Kurds.

“There’s a part that always makes a move towards dialogue while the other is determined to boycott any attempt to achieve the long-awaited peace.”

There has been no shelling since the announcement of the ceasefire in March, and Media said that “only drones fly overhead following the withdrawal of Kurdish guerrillas arriving from Turkey.”

A 37-year-old dentist, known only as Daryan, has assisted Media for the past five years. As a child, Daryan fled the Turkish town of Mardin, which lies some 300 km southeast of Ankara.

It was Media who introduced Daryan to medicine and she later qualified also as a dentist in the Iraqi Kurdistan region thanks to the support from several organisations.

The Kurdish volunteer underlines the key role their small hospital plays in the region. “There are six employees in the hospital raised by the Iraqi Kurdish government in Lewzha, but it’s always closed. So local villagers keep coming up here for medical treatment,” Daryan told IPS.

Many patients come from as far as Rania, 50 km down the valley, or even Sulaymaniyah, 260 km northeast of Baghdad, because of the “several irregularities in the Iraqi Kurdish health system.”

“Corruption is rife in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, and many health personnel only seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the sick.”

But Media’s work over the last two decades has gone beyond mere medical care.

“Moves like hers help us feel the warmth and solidarity from the outside that we need for keeping our spirits high,” PKK fighter and former teacher at an Iranian high school, Hiwa Zagros, told IPS. “We feel reassured and determined to follow the path towards the recognition of our rights.”

The Mar. 21 ceasefire in the battle between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Turkish state offers Turkey not only the hope of peace after decades of bloodshed, but poses profound implications for the region at large.

“If this [peace] process is successful, Turkey will be in a position to overcome its most strategic vulnerability” – its roughly 30-year-long fight with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) over greater rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority – claimed Sinan Ulgen, head of the Istanbul-based research institute Edam.

Under the proposal, announced by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, the group would pull thousands of its fighters out of Turkey and start disarmament.

Ending the conflict with the PKK, which has cost tens of thousands of lives, “would put Turkey strategically on a very different level and would imply that Turkey is becoming a more assertive, influential and confident player regionally,” Ulgen said.

Any such newfound confidence could help temper not only Turkey’s suspicions of its ethnic minorities, but of its neighbours as well.

Ultimately, the diplomatic peace dividend could extend from Cyprus to the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, pointed out Attila Yesilada, a political analyst at Global Source Partners, an Istanbul-based research firm.

“If we solve our Kurdish problem, it will serve as a role model,” predicted Yesilada. “If we finally deliver in deeds rather than words.”

Ankara’s European and U.S. allies have often touted Turkey as a model of democratic and economic success for conflict-strewn countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

But the consequences of a more assertive Turkey no longer at war with itself may not only be benign, analysts caution. If Kurdish nationalism is no longer seen as a threat to Turkey’s territorial integrity, it also opens the door to a reconfiguration of its stance toward the large Kurdish populations in neighbouring Iran, Iraq and Syria.

“Ankara would naturally be more disposed to establishing alliances with Kurds in the region, be it in Iraq or Syria,” predicted analyst Ulgen. “In a way, there will be implications for the region, especially if we take into consideration the future of nation states like Iraq and Syria, which is very much uncertain.”

With Ankara’s backing, Turkish companies have been signing direct energy deals with Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government and circumventing Baghdad. For months, a massive energy deal involving the construction of gas and oil pipelines has been in the offing between the Turkish government and the Iraqi Kurds.

Washington fears such deals fuel Iraqi Kurdish aspirations for independence, but the Turkish government has rejected these misgivings.

The pipeline agreement is expected to be ratified shortly.

The energy deal not only offers potentially billions of dollars in transit fees to Turkey, along with the prospect of discounted energy prices, but also could solve one of its most pressing economic and diplomatic headaches – more secure energy supplies.

“Currently, we are almost completely reliant on Russia and Iran, which are, to say the least, volatile neighbours, if not hostile,” elaborated expert Yesilada. “And both are bound to use gas delivery as a negotiation [tool] in diplomacy.”

But the success of the deal with the Iraqi Kurds is dependent on peace with the PKK, he cautioned. “Unless the current ‘peace process’ reaches fruition, such pipelines would be lame ducks” for PKK attacks, Yesilada said.

In a televised Mar. 27 interview, Turkish Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said the PKK is expected to leave Turkey “before the end of summer”, Hürriyet Daily News reported. The PKK, though, has asked for legal guarantees for its fighters’ safe passage into northern Iraq and for the Turkish parliament’s inclusion in the peace process – proposals so far rejected by Ankara.

But if the ceasefire holds, and ends Turkey’s “paranoia” about the Kurds and tensions over their relationship to the Turkish state, “it will help the resolution of other remaining age-old problems,” predicted Cengiz Aktar, a professor of political science at Istanbul’s Bahçeşehir University.

One of the beneficiaries could be neighbouring Armenia, Aktar argues. Diplomatic relations between the two countries broke off in 1993 amidst the war between Turkish ally Azerbaijan and Armenia over the breakaway territory of Nagorno Karabakh. A recent attempt at reconciliation between Ankara and Yerevan has stalled, with both sides blaming the other.

Nonetheless, even with the centenary of Ottoman Turkey’s 1915 massacre of ethnic Armenians approaching, “a Turkey at peace with itself . . . might be tempted to go ahead with Armenia,” Aktar reasoned. As yet, Yerevan has not commented on the PKK ceasefire.

And while the potential fruits of peace with the PKK are undoubtedly considerable for Ankara, neighbouring rivals may interpret them differently, warns analyst Ulgen.

“If Turkey becomes a stronger and assertive player in the region, it will be a serious disadvantage for the countries that are at odds with Turkey in terms of regional objectives,” he said. “That can be Syria, that can be Iraq, that can be Iran. [T]hese countries might want to prevent this rapprochement from happening.”

Whether that prediction will prove to be the case remains to be seen in the months to come.

*Editor’s note: Dorian Jones is a freelance reporter based in Istanbul.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

A PKK soldier stands in front of a crowd gathered in the Qandil mountains to hear the long-awaited message of peace from Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq, Mar 22 2013 (IPS)

It was only seven in the morning when Mohamed Abdi spread out a rug a few metres away from an artillery crater, up in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq. This Iraqi Kurd from Suleimaniyah, 260 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, was ready to celebrate the Newroz – the Kurdish and Persian New Year – along with his family.

They had travelled here for what promised to be the most special Newroz festival in years — not only for its setting in these imposing snow-capped mountains but for bringing a long-awaited message from Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

“Last year there were much less people here, probably because of a fear of bombs. Maybe it’s crowded because we are talking about peace this time,” this former ‘peshmerga’, an Iraqi Kurdish soldier, told IPS.

The Abdis were far from the only family who had risen so early. In fact, over a hundred PKK guerrillas were struggling to manage the unusually busy traffic as thousands of Kurds in hundreds of vans and minibuses crawled along the winding road up to this PKK stronghold.

For almost three decades, the PKK has been fighting the Turkish government in Ankara, in a deadly struggle for language rights and constitutional recognition for the country’s 15 million Kurds that has claimed over 40,000 lives and destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi border.

Between 30 and 40 million Kurds are today divided by the borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. But on Thursday, those borders seemed to melt away as Kurds from various regions converged here, prepared to wait several hours to hear news of a ceasefire.

Starred PKK flags mingled with the yellow and green flags of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the dominant coalitions in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.

The stage set up for musical performances, speeches, and even small theatre sketches attracted most of the attention. Blown-up images of the most prominent deceased PKK fighters – including the three Kurdish female activists murdered in Paris in January — stood out starkly against the snowy peaks, rising above a sea of heads and thousands of waving flags.

People lined up to have their pictures taken next to huge portraits of the Kurdish leader, imprisoned since 1999; food and tea was served and books were sold from makeshift stalls. Many also took the chance to greet long-lost friends and relatives.

Having driven up here from Van, 920 kilometres east of Ankara, Gulistan hugged her younger brother for the first time since he joined the PKK four years ago.

“We have seven family members in the PKK and we are all very proud of them,” claimed their father Muhamed.

Three Kurds queued next to them to get a picture with the young fighter, a request that was made of each and every guerrilla present that day.

“We have driven from Erbil (the administrative capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, 320 kilometres away from Baghdad) to celebrate Newroz with our brothers from the north,” Nashuan, a young Iraqi Kurd, told IPS.

Ayub Salahadin, a taxi driver from Suleimaniya, echoed his sentiments.

“The PKK today reminds us Iraqi Kurds of what we were just twenty years ago. We all feel some kind of nostalgia when we see these young guys,” he told IPS, referring to the decades-long guerrilla war that Iraqi Kurds fought against Saddam Hussein’s regime. That conflict ended only after the Kurds started building up their own autonomous region in 1991, after the First Gulf War.

Uncertain future

Ocalan’s message was officially read out by leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Diyarbakir, Turkey’s biggest Kurdish city, located about 670 kilometres southeast of Ankara. At two o’clock the message reached the roughly 8,000 people gathered in Qandil.

According to the ceasefire declaration, “The stage has been reached where our armed forces should withdraw beyond the borders…It’s not the end. It’s the start of a new era.”

PKK Chief Leader Murat Karayilan confirmed the statement in a broadcasted message late Thursday afternoon.

Although the mood in the mountains was joyful, many of the older generation struck a wary tone when discussing the future.

“It’s not just us who need to make a move towards peace — Turkey should do her part too,” explained Saharestan, a veteran fighter from Afrin, a Kurdish town in the north of Syria.

Years of struggle in the mountains have already turned this middle-aged woman’s hair completely white; a seasoned fighter, she is hesitant to express optimism, claiming that Turkey has fooled the Kurds  “too often” in the past.

If negotiations remain on track, Saharestan and her comrades will cease armed activities in Turkey and withdraw definitively to these mountains.

In a clear move toward dialogue, the PKK handed over eight prisoners – six soldiers, a policeman and a civil servant – to Ankara on Mar. 13.

But unsettled issues and simmering tensions suggest the road to peace will not be smooth.

“I don’t feel too optimistic,” confessed Mahmud, an Iranian Kurdish fighter. “It’s mandatory that Apo (a popular nickname for Ocalan) is released from prison, in order to finally reach a peace agreement between the two parties,” he stressed.

In fact, prudence seemed to be the most popular sentiment among the guerrillas.

“We cannot comment on anything until we have examined in depth Ocalan’s message,” PKK Press Liaison Roj Welat told IPS from a tent adjacent to the stage.

“Nonetheless, it is obvious to everybody that Turkish policy in the Middle East has failed. Besides, the whole region has been shaken by a wave of revolts and unrest for the last two years — these two factors shall definitely play a key role in Ankara’s will for peace.”

(END)