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In clashes between security forces and the PKK, and in suicide bombings since last July, the most recent of which took place in Ankara on Wednesday, thousands of soldiers, policemen, civilians and PKK militants have lost their lives and the numbers are growing.
Due to the clashes and curfews imposed in the towns of the predominantly Kurdish Southeast, over 200,000 people have fled their homes. Turkey is drowning in grief just as it was during the terrible years of the 1990s. The condition in which the country finds itself must make everyone question whether the strategy to fight terrorism pursued by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government unofficially led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is delivering.
According to Erdoğan, the strategy his government adopted last summer is simply “to fight against all the different terrorist organizations at once until there are no terrorists left.” The list of terrorist organizations to be defeated include Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL]), the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the pro-Kurdish Democratic Union Party of Syria (PYD) and the radical left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), and the fight against them is pursued simultaneously with the policy of assisting the “moderate opposition” against the Assad regime in Syria. This strategy has led to confrontation, alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, with Russia, and is in partial collision with NATO allies, with the United States at the top.
It is quite clear by now that this strategy is backfiring and driving the country into chaos and war. Any fighting strategy based on logic and reason necessitates that the main enemy is identified, isolated, and made the focus of the fighting effort. The AKP government's strategy is, however, exactly the opposite. Even the Hizmet civil society movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, whose only “sin” is to preach mutual understanding and respect, is declared an “armed terrorist organization” without any evidence whatsoever. The claim that the country is being targeted by “cocktail terrorism,” meaning that two or more terrorist organizations are staging terrorist attacks in cahoots, only serves to obfuscate the real culprits.
If Turkey is to pursue a sound strategy against terrorism, the fight has to focus on Daesh, that aims at nothing less than the domination of the entire Muslim world by the caliphate it claims to represent, and speaks with no other tongue than sheer violence and atrocity. Daesh is defeatable because almost the entire international community, including Turkey's NATO allies, is opposed to it.
If the PKK and PYD are fighting against Daesh, it is not logical that they cooperate with it against Turkey. NATO allies differentiate between the PKK and the PYD. In contrast to Daesh, it is possible to negotiate with both the PKK and the PYD, as witnessed by the peace talks that broke down last summer. It is possible to revive the peace process and get the PKK to lay down arms against Turkey through democratic reforms that meet the democratic demands of the Kurds. This is possible because the vast majority of Turkey's Kurds, including those who vote for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), are against violence and in favor of the country's territorial integrity. This must be possible because it is clear that pushing the PKK and the PYD towards seeking other allies does not serve Turkey's interests. And this must be possible mainly because achieving peace with the Kurds at home and gaining the respect and friendship of the Kurds abroad is a strategic imperative for Turkey, if it is to achieve stability and preserve its territorial integrity. Retired Ambassador Ünal Çeviköz recently expressed this strategic imperative with the following words: “As soon as Turkey is able to seek a solution to the Kurdish problem through dialogue, problems arising from Kurds in neighboring countries will dissolve. This is the strongest trump card Turkey has.”
In the general election held last November, the AKP regained single-handed power by threatening the electorate with instability and chaos unless it held the reins of power. Within less than four months since, it has, however, become crystal clear that rule by the AKP means nothing but chaos and war.