Who Killed the Peace Process in Turkey?

Ankara’s resumption of its war against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) last week raises some important questions. Ruling AK Party officials and Ankara’s supporters cast the arrests of PKK suspects and the bombardment of PKK bases as an act of self-defense on Turkey’s part, carried out against an organization on the same terror lists as the Islamic State. They cited in particular the PKK’s claim of responsibility for the killing of two Turkish policemen (who the PKK claimed collaborated with the suicide bomber in Suruc a few weeks ago), arguing that the arrests and bombings were in response to this.

Although the PKK quickly retracted its claim of responsibility, saying the attack on the policemen was not authorized and carried out by a local cell without coordination, it still looks like it was the PKK that broke the ceasefire in place since March 2013. What if the Turkish policemen in question really did assist the suicide bomber who killed 32 young Leftists and Kurdish activists in Suruc on July 20th, however? Is the government in Ankara, no matter what it does or allows, the only one to enjoy a right of self-defense or reprisal?

And what of the issue of proportionality? Is it not the current government in Ankara that always calls on Israel to act with proportionality and restraint whenever Hamas launches some rockets over the Gaza border at Israeli civilian centers? Does the killing of two policemen, however tragic to their families, justify the resumption of full-out war between Ankara and the PKK (including the millions of Turkish citizens who voted for political parties seen as close to the PKK)? Or should the issue have been treated more as a criminal matter that involved an investigation to locate and arrest the assailants who attacked the police officers?

Going a little further back in the chain of events, Ankara’s supporters claim the PKK is at fault because it failed to withdraw all its fighters from Turkey as per the terms of the 2013 ceasefire or to disarm as per the terms of the spring of 2015 “Dolmabahçe Agreement.” The Dolmabahçe Agreement, negotiated between Turkish government officials and the HDP (People’s Democracy Party) on behalf of the PKK, was a 10-point list of issues that Ankara and the PKK would agree to in order to turn the 2013 ceasefire into an enduring peace.

In a recent interview with journalist Ezgi Başaran, HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş shed light on what actually happened. Regarding the withdrawal, the PKK withdrew some of its fighters but was awaiting a promised law from Ankara to manage the withdrawal of its last fighters further from the border with Iraq. As Demirtaş explains, the law was absolutely necessary: “There are armed people in the mountains, aren’t there? Withdrawal means that these people will pass through cities, villages and towns to reach other places. Well, what will the security forces that see these people do? What will the judge, prosecutor, district governor or governor do? Will they look the other way; what will happen if they don’t? What if they are questioned in the future, saying, ‘Armed people passed right in front of you; why did you not intervene?’ Exactly for these reasons there should be a law covering the withdrawal. And the state promised that it would make the law.”

We all know that the law never came. Unsure whether or not their fighters would be shot at or arrested, the PKK’s withdrawal came to a halt. It seems Ankara was unwilling to concede even a temporary amnesty for members of the group it was apparently negotiating peace with. When asked about the law, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç went even further than not passing the promised legislation, saying: “They can go to hell. Let them withdraw as far as they want.” According to Demirtaş, “this statement had a shocking effect in Kandil” and effectively put a stop to the withdrawal. At the same time, the state picked up the pace at which it was building dams to flood areas the guerrillas operated in as well as police stations in the Kurdish region. The PKK’s reaction seems to have been prescient: “We are withdrawing but if the state is building those, then they have no intention of peace. We will withdraw and they will start the war.” It was also telling that the state never relaxed its demonizing discourse against the PKK for even a second, as if the PKK really was worse than ISIS or had not long ago stopped its war, its fight for an independent Kurdish state, or its targeting of civilians.

As for the peace terms of the Dolmabahçe Agreement, President Erdogan himself rejected the text shortly after it was negotiated and announced. On July 17, 2015, Mr. Erdogan said, “I do not recognize the phrase ‘Dolmabahçe Agreement.’ There is a government. So there is a political party with its grassroots [from the PKK]. If there is a step to take for the future of our country, this should be made in parliament. There cannot be an agreement with a political party that is being supported by a terrorist organization.” He then claimed not to have been privy to the negotiations or the details of the agreement until they were announced.

Now anyone even remotely familiar with Mr. Erdogan’s tendency to micromanage everything should have trouble with such a claim. HDP negotiators claim the Mr. Erdogan even attended some of the negotiations in person, and that every time there was an impasse with the government it would be resolved by calling him. What were the chances that Mr. Erdogan would leave such important negotiations to others and not keep himself abreast of what was happening?  What led him to renege on the peace agreement was simple: electoral political calculations. Between the time of the negotiations with the PKK/HDP, the ruling AK party’s electoral support amongst Kurds declined and that of the HDP’s increased, which led Mr. Erdogan to exclaim “Why are we engaged in this if there is no benefit in it for us?”

And so the war resumed.

David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He is the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press) and co-editor (with Mehmet Gurses) of Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East (2014, Palgrave Macmillan).