Kurds, Iraq & Turkey

[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
As you would have known, “insulting Turkishness” has long been a criminal offence in the Turkish Republic. But this lovely republic, which is so eager to uphold the honor of Turkish identity, hardly cares about other groups. “Armenianness” or “Greekness,” if you will, has often been humiliated by officials and the civil likeminded. And so has Kurdishness. This ethnic identity, to which 12 to 15 percent of Turkish citizens subscribe, has been not just banned but, also, repeatedly insulted by the official ideology. The Kurdish people were denigrated as “a bunch of tribes,” their language was defined as “primitive,” and their history was mocked. The only good Kurd, in this mindset, was the Turkified one.

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
What strikes me these days is not the bold effort the Turkish military is taking against the terrorists of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in the mountains of northern Iraq. From a Turkish perspective, it is a necessary case of a the-best-defense-is-offense type of operation – something that we are used to. What I find really striking is what took place within our own borders: While our armed forces were cracking down Kurdish separatists, thousands of sympathizers of those separatists demonstrated in the streets or Diyarbakır and Van to denounce “the Turkish onslaught.”

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
When U.S. President George W. Bush announced his “surge” strategy in Iraq, which was based on an increase in the number of American troops deployed in Baghdad and Anbar provinces, on January 10, 2007, very few people were optimistic about its success. Well, I was among that minority. I had never been a supporter of the war, but had also believed that, once it started, the United States should not “go home” without leaving behind a stable Iraq.

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
If you are driving in or around Kirkuk, you have to watch around for American troops. If you see them coming in their giant armored hummers, you have to stop your car and wait silently until they pass. This is exactly what Yusuf Ziyauddin, 47, a Turkmen who works as an engineer in Kirkuk’s oil industry, did two weeks ago when a convoy of Uncle Sam’s humvees showed up on the other side of Kirkuk’s main highway. After waiting for the end of their parade, he expressed his personal disillusion with the American dream. “I used to love Hollywood movies before 2003,” he said, “now I can’t stand them.”

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
The most well kept spot in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil is probably “Freedom Park,” which looks like a green oasis amid the otherwise dusty and rusty streets.
Freedom Park is home to a sizeable pool, a play garden, and, most important of all, the “Freedom Monument” which praises the memory of “98 patriots who gave their lives for the freedom of Kurdistan.” These “martyrs” were members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani respectively. They all died on Feb. 1, 2004, when two suicide bombers joined the religious feast celebrations in the parties’ headquarters, and, as their definition implies, blew themselves up together with dozens of others around.

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
Anybody who follows Turkish politics these days will notice that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government is quite reasonable on matters relating to the Kurdish question. First, Prime Minister Erdoğan has resisted the calls from other parties and the “mainstream media” to launch a massive war against northern Iraq. He, instead, insisted on building an effective cooperation with the United States to crack down on the terrorist PKK — and only the PKK, not Iraqi Kurds. Plus he managed to build that cooperation in his meeting with U.S. President Bush early this month.

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
The Turkish Parliament has given the government authorization to order a military operation into northern Iraq in order to hit the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) terrorists. Thus we might see some “action” in Iraq soon. Yet I don’t expect a massive, full-scale incursion. There rather will be, I guess, pointed attacks to specific PKK camps. Some guerrillas might be killed — and I hope that no civilian will be harmed. But will this “end the PKK terror” as some hot-headed Turkish pundits wishfully think?

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
With the recent killing of 13 young soldiers of the Turkish army, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) once again proved that it is a brutal, monstrous terrorist organization. The nation has every right to hate it, and the government has every right to fight against it. But we should also understand why the PKK carries out such violent attacks, and especially at a time when Turkey’s Kurds have become freer than ever.

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]

In the past five decades of Turkish political history, never has so much been hoped for by so many from so few.
The “so few” I am referring to are the leaders of the AKP government, and the ex-AKP politician, President Abdullah Gül. And the “so many” I am speaking about are the millions of Turkish citizens who have felt that they have been pushed aside and looked down upon by the state. Some of them are practicing Muslims who yearn for wider religious freedom, and some are Kurds who aspire for broader civil liberties.

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[Orgininally published in Turkish Daily News]

Hasan Uğur is a “haci,” a word used to describe pilgrims to the Kaaba, the Muslim holy shrine in Mecca. Like many hacis, he has a nicely trimmed beard and wears a kippa-like cap. After some comments in Kurdish and some prayers in Arabic, he kindly passes loaves of bread and dishes of goat meat to me and a dozen other men, who are all brothers, nephews or grandsons of Uğur, and are all sitting on the same carpet. This is one of the handful of houses in the Dalbudak Mezrası, a mini village tied to Ergani, a province of Diyarbakır.
While enjoying the generous hospitality of this large Kurdish family, in which all fathers have at least seven or eight children, my eyes are caught by a less friendly object hanging on the wall: An AK-47.

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[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
DİYARBAKIR -This town has always been the most prominent city in Turkey’s southeast. In Ottoman times, in fact the whole region was called the “Diyarbekir province.” Today, with its 1.2 million inhabitants, it is not only the most populous of the southeastern towns, but also the most developed one. This explains why the city has also become the center of the Kurdish nationalist movement in Turkey. Since Kurdish nationalism is a modern, not traditional, ideology, it appeals to the urban dwellers of Diyarbakır more then the tribal villagers of, say, Mardin.

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