DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, 30 May 2004 — Turkey’s southeast, once the theater of a 15-year bloody insurgency for Kurdish self-rule, is under risk of being pulled into renewed violence amid an increase in fighting between Kurdish rebels and security forces, according to observers in the mainly Kurdish region.
“Twenty-six people, both rebels and members of the security forces, have been killed in the past two months. This points to an increase,” Selahattin Demirtas, the head of the Diyarbakir branch of the Turkish Human Rights Association, said.
The new incidents of fighting follow a five-year lull which began after rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — now known as KONGRA-GEL — declared a unilateral cease-fire and withdrew from Turkey in 1999.
The rebels said then that the truce was aimed at a peaceful resolution of the conflict — which claimed some 37,000 lives — and to allow Turkey time and opportunity to improve rights for its Kurdish minority.
Turkish officials have categorically rejected the rebels’ truce, but Ankara has since then made some concessions toward its Kurdish population, allowing private institutions to teach Kurdish and permitting limited Kurdish-language broadcasts in a bid to boost its chances of joining the European Union.
However the reforms have not been enough to satisfy the rebels, according to Diyarbakir Mayor Osman Baydemir, who hails from the country’s main Kurdish party, the Democratic People’s Party.
“In the past five years Turkey has failed to respond to expectations. Democracy reforms have come very slowly,” he said.
Demirtas, meanwhile, linked the increased fighting to the war in neighboring Iraq. Up to 5,000 Kurdish rebels from Turkey are believed to be in hiding in mountainous northern Iraq since pulling back from Turkish territory in 1999.
“The Unites States wants KONGRA-GEL militants to leave Iraq. They come to Turkey and clashes erupt,” Demirtas said.
The United States, a key Turkish ally, considers KONGRA-GEL to be a terrorist organization and last year reached agreement with Ankara on an “action plan”, including military measures, against the group.
Turkey has since complained of US reluctance to purge northern Iraq of the rebels.
“We continue to repeat our demands... and they (the United States) reiterate their determination to get rid of the terrorist organization... But no progress has been made,” Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in a television interview on Thursday.
But Baydemir said the road to peace lay not in military operations but in granting full amnesty to the rebels, paving the way for them to lay their arms and come back to Turkey.
Sucessive Turkish governments have offered limited amnesty — mainly in the form of sentence reductions — to Kurdish rebels on several occasions but only on strict conditions.
Senior leaders of the group were left out of the scope of the amnesties — commonly known as repentance laws — and those who wanted to benefit from it had to first provide information on rebel positions and movements. The last such amnesty was announced last year in a bid to lure rebels in northern Iraq to turn themselves in, but it attracted little interest.
“I do not think any repentance law has reached its aim. The last one is also unrealistic and a total fiasco,” Baydemir said.
“You cannot expect to be successful if you leave out the leaders, those who coordinate the group,” he added. But Turkey is unlikely, at least in the near future, to fully forgive the rebels whom it calls “bloody terrorists”.
“Terrorism was never over. As long as there are terrorists, our fight will never end,” Diyarbakir Governor Nusret Miroglu said. Rights activists meanwhile, fear that possible renewed conflict will greatly harm hard-earned freedoms after 15 years of gross human rights violations.
“If the violence starts again, it will not be an intense as before, but we could see the state introduce new security measures that could restrict freedoms,” Demirtas said.
