Banning the DTP Is No Way to Solve Turkey’s Kurdish Question
Posted by jonathanfryer on Saturday, 12th December, 2009
Turkey’s Constitutional Court has banned the country’s leading Kurdish political party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), in a move that is a serious setback for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policy of opening up to Turkey’s Kurdish minority. The DTP elected 21 MPs at the last election, but its co-leader, Ahmed Turk, and 36 other members have now been banned from political activity for five yars. The reason for this is their alleged links to a terrorist organisation, i.e. the PKK guerrillas, whose head, Abdullah Ocalan, is in prison. While the Court’s verdict will doubtless be greeeted with jubiliation by many Turkish nationalists, it is a disaster for Turkey’s community cohesion and its chances of joining the European Union. Prime Minister Erdogan had broken with decades of tradition by not only recognising the Kurds’ cultural rights but also engaging in political dialgoue with them. I was in Diyarbakir in south-east Anatolia at the end of March, when the DTP had sweeping victories in local elections and the local Kurdish population were ecstatic. This year should have ushered in a new beginning, whereas it now seems Turkey may be going back to a situation of confrontation in which a frutrated minority may turn once more to non-democratic means.
Jonathan Fryer 
Akif Wan said
Dear Jonathan
Thank you very much for this statment. We where very saden to see the baning of DTP. We believed that Kurdish issue should be solved with the democratic means. As we speak the path of diolog is closed dawn, as you know we Kurd will continue with an other Party ouir believe in Peace and Democracy. Thank you for your contributions
Best wishes and regards
Akif Wan
Philippos E. said
Dear Jonathan,
my personal views this is a serious precedent that will have some sort of setback to Turkey’s aspirations to join the EU. It seems Turkey is playing a serious imbalanced and doubtful game with its minorities in order to extract extra benefits for itself for extracting returns or concessions from the EU. Unfortunately, the Kurds are in the middle of this, beyond their citizen and human rights being rightfully set (will not mention restored, as this was never the case). This is typical of them being harsh in other matters, so they gain benefits in others. Or where, they use an internal or even external to their territory matter they have been involved in and for which they have probably caused it in the first place, to gain political advantages. i.e. The “bad then good’ (then bad again where necessary) campaign….
Personally, I seriously doubt that Turkey wants nowadays to become a full EU member, and if they do, they are surely taking a very relaxing and arrogant stance, for which the Kurds are being used and ‘footing the bill’. This is sad.
Turkey uses its position & influence to get the best of both worlds by -and not limited to- oppressing its own people, or ethnic people inside and even outside its boundaries.
Sincerely,
Philippos E.
Kivanch K said
Dear Sir,
As a free citizen of democratic and secular Turkish Republic, the recent news of closing down DTP made me uncomfortable and sad. However, one should not rush to come to a quick conclusion on such a controversial issue. First, I’d like to state that the majority of Turkish population (including the Kurdish ethnical group) supports civilian political initiative to achieve a higher level of democracy and a peaceful solution to Kurdish issue. On the other hand, both parties have extremist wings. Closing down political parties is an exceptional application in developed democracies. There are certain criteria for this action which was clearly stated in Venice by EU. In the case of closing DTP, there is not a single violation of this statement. I think DTP made an extra effrot to be closed down. Evidently, DTP has links to PKK (recognized as a terrorist organization by EU and USA and many others) and party officials have many statements pointing PKK as the authority to negotiate on Kurdish issue. DTP announced that “Don’t talk to us. Talk to PKK and its leader Ocalan. PKK is responsible of killing more than 35000 Turkish people both civilians and army officials. I believe that DTP played a political game to be closed down, thus putting themselves in an oppressed position, eliminating themselves so that PKK would be the only body to be negotiated with. Doing this they would also have international support. Because Turkiye took giant steps through a higher standar of democracy in recent years, PKK have lost political ground and international support has gone down. After the reforms of last 10 years Turkish governments adapted European laws and now there is only a couple of issues remaining to be resolved. Today individual rights in TR are the same with those of EU countries. But the seperatist minority (has a support of 2 million people out of 12 million Kurdish demographic group) are not happy with these developments. Besides the recent government started an initiative to solve the Kurdish issue thoroughly. But this small group doesn’t want a solution. Because ongoing war feeds them. One should also take into consideration that a high percentage of drugs traffic in Euro-Asia is controlled by PKK.
What would be the consequence if a so-called democratic party in Europe or US has links with a terrorist organization and drug trafficking? What would Spain do if BATASUNA openly supported ETA and praised its leader? What would US do if a party has links with Al Queda? How many NAZI parties have been closed down in Germany until recently?
We democratic people of Turkiye have started to believe that the western world have double standards when it comes to democracy: We have been banning fundamentalist movements since 1923. We have been accused as being anti-democraticly violating individual right of religious freedom. But today, when I look at the western world, such acts are applied with no hesitation. French ban headscarf (which I believe is correct), Swiss ban building of mosques, racism and islamophobia is rising in Europe.
Europe has democratic standards just as long as they don’t bother them. My point is: not everything is as it seems to be perceived by the average westerner here. We Turks have been suffering from prejudices and misperception by the west since the medieval times. Turkey is on the western media with only mariginal anomalies. I watch Euronews and other channels and whenever there is a news about Turkey they show some selected material such as a woman with headscarf standing in front of a mosque or some childeren throwing stones to police. You can see such things in Paris too. But that doesn’t mean that whole France is like this. What happened to western objectivity?
Also, PKK terrorists are always mentioned as “guerilla” or “freedom fighters” How would an average American react if one calls Al Queda terrorists as freedom fighters?
Turkey is consisted of more than 60 different ethnic and religious groups. All the rest are happy but the Kurds? Kurds as well as other ethnic groups live in fraternity and harmony in Turkey. What you see and percieve is nothing more than a political game. We all know that international players try to create a Kurdish pseudo-state to control the region and its energy reserves. I’m sorry but we are not such fools to ignore that.
I sincerely hope that a peaceful and democratic solution to this issue will be sorted out sooner or later. But not with PKK and its spokespeople.
Thank you.
Kivanch K
Musician