LONDON, United Kingdom – Recent disagreements between the Turkish government and the powerful Gulen movement over the withdrawal of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels could endanger the peace process.
The Gulen movement is an international Islamic network of schools, businesses, media outlets, and charity organizations led by Fethullah Gülen, 72, who lives in exile in Pennsylvania.
The movement, which is believed to have deep influence in the Turkish judicial system and police, is critical of both the PKK and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkish journalist Rusen Cakır wrote in the Vatan newspaper last month that, “The Gulen Community is quite active within the state among the security and judicial bureaucracy that deals directly with the Kurdish and PKK issues.”
But Gulen said in a recent statement that he supports the peace process, and accused some in Turkey of “laying siege to people and pumping them with ill intentions.”
PKK leaders for their part seem as suspicious of the Gulen movement as Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
PKK’s military commander, Murat Karayilan, has accused the Gulen movement of sabotaging secret peace talks with Turkish intelligence between 2009 and 2011, by leaking details of the talks to the Turkish media.
This move by Gulen was believed to be an attempt against the chief of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), Hakan Fidan, who was handpicked by Erdogan to lead the talks.
Moreover, Cemil Bayik, a senior PKK leader, said that the Gulen movement had tried to publicly name Turkish officials who had held talks with the PKK.
“We do know that Gulenists opposed the previous Oslo meetings between us and the Turkish state,” Bayik wrote on the PKK website. “They were the ones that leaked the Oslo meetings to the press. The Turkish judiciary (a Gulenist stronghold) attempted to investigate those who attended these meetings on behalf of the state.”
Bayik also marked the Gulen movement as the driving force behind the arrest of thousands of Kurdish civil activists and journalists in 2009 for alleged membership in the PKK.
In response to the PKK statements, including one by the group’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, accusing Turkish intelligence officials of becoming the targets of a “colossal movement,” Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt wrote, “They are launching a smear campaign and using tactics to discredit Gulen.”
Henri Barkey, an expert on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, believes that Erdogan, the PKK and Gulen are locked only in a war of words, which will not derail the peace process.
“Mostly it is wild accusations and defenses by the respective parties, all of which are made with some political calculation -- usually tactical -- in mind,” he told Rudaw.
Istanbul-based analyst Gareth Jenkins said that the tension between the Islamic network and the PKK is nothing new and that it is a fight for influence among the Turkish population.
“Although they have intensified over the last 18 months or so, they have grown out of a three-way battle for hearts and minds between the Gulenists, the PKK and Hizbullah in southeast Turkey which has been going on for years,” he said.
Jenkins believes that the PKK is still bitter over an attempt by the Gulen movement to start talks with the group while staging the mass arrest of Kurds behind the scene.
He says that the Gulen movement and its powerful media oppose Erdogan, and are willing to discredit him by any means. He said that could be why the movement has been critical of Erdogan over his handling of the recent protests in Turkey.
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