Tweet
How a peace deal with the Kurds could pave the way for a new Turkish
constitution
Turkey's future
Presidential dreaming
Mar 16th 2013 | DIYARBAKIR |From the print edition
ZEHRA CACAN sits on the edge of a fresh grave strewn with flowers and
prays quietly. In it lies her 30-year-old son, whose nom de guerre,
Serxwebun, means insurrection in Kurdish. He died in January in a
clash with the Turkish army on the Iraqi border. Hundreds of his
fellow fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are also
buried in the Yenisehir cemetery in Diyarbakir. Their graves are
distinguished by the red, yellow and green ribbons adorning their
headstones.
A few years ago it would have been unimaginable that rebels' graves
could be marked or that a grieving mother could speak in Kurdish. `We
cannot believe how free Kurds are here. Back in Syria we were afraid
to speak Kurdish even with our relatives,' says Yarin Abi, a newly
arrived Syrian Kurdish refugee.
In the most dramatic turn yet, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime
minister, said in late December that his government was in talks with
the PKK's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in prison since his
capture in 1999. A tentative deal said to have been struck between Mr
Ocalan and Hakan Fidan, the national spy chief, could pave the way for
an historic compact between Turks and Kurds. Mr Erdogan's critics
scream that the unity of the republic is at stake. But for Turkey's
Kurds, whose ancestors fought beside Ataturk, only to see promises of
autonomy broken and their identity brutally suppressed, justice may at
last be served.
The outlines of the pact are contained in letters from Mr Ocalan
relayed by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) to rebel
commanders in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and in Europe. The deal
is ambitious but simple. The PKK will abandon its 29-year-old fight
for self-rule. Mr Ocalan himself says he now favours a unitary state.
In exchange the parliament, dominated by Mr Erdogan's Justice and
Development (AK) Party, will pass reforms enabling the Kurds to pursue
political goals without risking imprisonment and freeing thousands of
activists jailed on the flimsiest of charges.
As part of this, the current constitution, drawn up by the generals
following a coup in 1980, will be replaced by a `fully democratic' one
that addresses the Kurds' demands. An article saying that all Turkish
citizens `are Turks' will be scrapped, as will another proscribing
education in the Kurdish language. Regional autonomy will also be
boosted. Under the existing centralised system `my hands are
completely tied,' complains the BDP's Osman Baydemir, Diyarbakir's
mayor. Facing 24 separate court cases on terror-related charges, he
complains that he was not even permitted to name a local park after a
(Turkish) human-rights activist `because the governor [appointed in
Ankara] said no.'
The conflict in Syria, where a PKK-linked Kurdish group is gaining
ground, is threatening to spill over the border. Peace with the Kurds
is essential if Turkey is to fulfil its dreams of regional leadership.
`The prime minister's political career is at stake, he is utterly
sincere,' says Galip Ensarioglu, an AK deputy from Diyarbakir. Not all
are convinced. Some think a deal with the Kurds is a tactic to help Mr
Erdogan secure his ambition to become Turkey's first elected president
when Abdullah Gul steps down next year. He wants to enhance the powers
of the job à la française, which his critics say could make him a
dictator. With the main opposition parties firmly against, he has
taken to courting the BDP, whose support would win him parliamentary
approval for a new constitution to be put to a referendum.
Président Erdogan
The minutes of a recent meeting between Mr Ocalan and the BDP
confirmed that the presidency is on the table. To ensure that would-be
saboteurs (including Iran and Syria) do not use hundreds of PKK
militants based inside Turkey, Mr Erdogan is insisting that they
withdraw to northern Iraq. In the coming days Mr Ocalan is expected to
call on his men to silence their guns. The chances are that they will;
in a gesture of goodwill they freed eight Turkish captives this week.
If the army in turn halts its attacks, which are still continuing as
part of Mr Erdogan's carrot-and-stick policy, peace may at last ensue.
The tricky bit is getting ordinary Turks and Kurds on board. Recent
opinion polls suggest that most support the talks, and a majority back
AK as well. But where would they draw the line? Far more than his
Islamist rants against alcohol and abortion, it is Mr Erdogan's
unabashed authoritarianism that worries many Turks. Turkey has become
the world's leading jailer of journalists, many of them Kurds, for
example. Yet Mr Erdogan's supporters counter that the progress Turkey
has made in the past decade, including defanging the army and starting
talks on joining the European Union, is down to Mr Erdogan's courage
and uninterrupted AK rule. Only a presidential system can avert the
paralysis that Turkey endured before AK came along.
As one Kurdish politician says, a stronger presidency is not too high
a price to pay for a new constitution that is a stepping stone to
greater devolution. The Kurds' real problem is lack of trust, arising
from decades of repression and betrayal at the hands of what they see
as an unchanged Turkish state. Such distrust is on show at the
Yenisehir cemetery, where Yildiz Capraz, a contractor, performs the
Islamic ritual bathing of corpses. Kurdish families do not consider
officials `to be respectful'. Her charges have included PKK fighters
whose bodies were so horribly mutilated `we could not show them to
their families,' she whispers. Meanwhile Mrs Cacan airs the common
refrain that `guns won us our rights.' Can they be forgone without
ironclad guarantees?
Mr Erdogan's record suggests he has the skill and the courage to heal
Turkey's biggest wound. His bold embrace of the Iraqi Kurds was among
his most successful foreign-policy moves. If Mr Erdogan were now to
settle for a presidency with its present powers, not of a French-style
monarch, it would go a long way towards easing suspicions about his
motives - and clear the way for a constitution embraced not just by
Kurds but by Turks of all political and ethnic stripes.
>From the print edition: Europe
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21573554-how-peace-deal-kurds-could-pave-way-new-turkish-constitution-presidential
constitution
Turkey's future
Presidential dreaming
Mar 16th 2013 | DIYARBAKIR |From the print edition
ZEHRA CACAN sits on the edge of a fresh grave strewn with flowers and
prays quietly. In it lies her 30-year-old son, whose nom de guerre,
Serxwebun, means insurrection in Kurdish. He died in January in a
clash with the Turkish army on the Iraqi border. Hundreds of his
fellow fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are also
buried in the Yenisehir cemetery in Diyarbakir. Their graves are
distinguished by the red, yellow and green ribbons adorning their
headstones.
A few years ago it would have been unimaginable that rebels' graves
could be marked or that a grieving mother could speak in Kurdish. `We
cannot believe how free Kurds are here. Back in Syria we were afraid
to speak Kurdish even with our relatives,' says Yarin Abi, a newly
arrived Syrian Kurdish refugee.
In the most dramatic turn yet, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime
minister, said in late December that his government was in talks with
the PKK's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in prison since his
capture in 1999. A tentative deal said to have been struck between Mr
Ocalan and Hakan Fidan, the national spy chief, could pave the way for
an historic compact between Turks and Kurds. Mr Erdogan's critics
scream that the unity of the republic is at stake. But for Turkey's
Kurds, whose ancestors fought beside Ataturk, only to see promises of
autonomy broken and their identity brutally suppressed, justice may at
last be served.
The outlines of the pact are contained in letters from Mr Ocalan
relayed by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) to rebel
commanders in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and in Europe. The deal
is ambitious but simple. The PKK will abandon its 29-year-old fight
for self-rule. Mr Ocalan himself says he now favours a unitary state.
In exchange the parliament, dominated by Mr Erdogan's Justice and
Development (AK) Party, will pass reforms enabling the Kurds to pursue
political goals without risking imprisonment and freeing thousands of
activists jailed on the flimsiest of charges.
As part of this, the current constitution, drawn up by the generals
following a coup in 1980, will be replaced by a `fully democratic' one
that addresses the Kurds' demands. An article saying that all Turkish
citizens `are Turks' will be scrapped, as will another proscribing
education in the Kurdish language. Regional autonomy will also be
boosted. Under the existing centralised system `my hands are
completely tied,' complains the BDP's Osman Baydemir, Diyarbakir's
mayor. Facing 24 separate court cases on terror-related charges, he
complains that he was not even permitted to name a local park after a
(Turkish) human-rights activist `because the governor [appointed in
Ankara] said no.'
The conflict in Syria, where a PKK-linked Kurdish group is gaining
ground, is threatening to spill over the border. Peace with the Kurds
is essential if Turkey is to fulfil its dreams of regional leadership.
`The prime minister's political career is at stake, he is utterly
sincere,' says Galip Ensarioglu, an AK deputy from Diyarbakir. Not all
are convinced. Some think a deal with the Kurds is a tactic to help Mr
Erdogan secure his ambition to become Turkey's first elected president
when Abdullah Gul steps down next year. He wants to enhance the powers
of the job à la française, which his critics say could make him a
dictator. With the main opposition parties firmly against, he has
taken to courting the BDP, whose support would win him parliamentary
approval for a new constitution to be put to a referendum.
Président Erdogan
The minutes of a recent meeting between Mr Ocalan and the BDP
confirmed that the presidency is on the table. To ensure that would-be
saboteurs (including Iran and Syria) do not use hundreds of PKK
militants based inside Turkey, Mr Erdogan is insisting that they
withdraw to northern Iraq. In the coming days Mr Ocalan is expected to
call on his men to silence their guns. The chances are that they will;
in a gesture of goodwill they freed eight Turkish captives this week.
If the army in turn halts its attacks, which are still continuing as
part of Mr Erdogan's carrot-and-stick policy, peace may at last ensue.
The tricky bit is getting ordinary Turks and Kurds on board. Recent
opinion polls suggest that most support the talks, and a majority back
AK as well. But where would they draw the line? Far more than his
Islamist rants against alcohol and abortion, it is Mr Erdogan's
unabashed authoritarianism that worries many Turks. Turkey has become
the world's leading jailer of journalists, many of them Kurds, for
example. Yet Mr Erdogan's supporters counter that the progress Turkey
has made in the past decade, including defanging the army and starting
talks on joining the European Union, is down to Mr Erdogan's courage
and uninterrupted AK rule. Only a presidential system can avert the
paralysis that Turkey endured before AK came along.
As one Kurdish politician says, a stronger presidency is not too high
a price to pay for a new constitution that is a stepping stone to
greater devolution. The Kurds' real problem is lack of trust, arising
from decades of repression and betrayal at the hands of what they see
as an unchanged Turkish state. Such distrust is on show at the
Yenisehir cemetery, where Yildiz Capraz, a contractor, performs the
Islamic ritual bathing of corpses. Kurdish families do not consider
officials `to be respectful'. Her charges have included PKK fighters
whose bodies were so horribly mutilated `we could not show them to
their families,' she whispers. Meanwhile Mrs Cacan airs the common
refrain that `guns won us our rights.' Can they be forgone without
ironclad guarantees?
Mr Erdogan's record suggests he has the skill and the courage to heal
Turkey's biggest wound. His bold embrace of the Iraqi Kurds was among
his most successful foreign-policy moves. If Mr Erdogan were now to
settle for a presidency with its present powers, not of a French-style
monarch, it would go a long way towards easing suspicions about his
motives - and clear the way for a constitution embraced not just by
Kurds but by Turks of all political and ethnic stripes.
>From the print edition: Europe
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21573554-how-peace-deal-kurds-could-pave-way-new-turkish-constitution-presidential