Fréderike Geerdink
After years of relative inactivity, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has made its presence in Turkey known again with an attack in the heart of Turkey’s political power: two PKK members conducted a suicide attack in Ankara, in which two policemen were wounded. A civilian whose car was stolen was murdered. The statement with which the organisation claimed responsibility for the attack spoke of ‘the isolation policies’ of the Turkish state as one of the reasons for it. That points to one person: PKK leader Öcalan.
Strangely enough, in the aftermath of the attack the conversation has revolved mostly around Syria. However, it’s not that strange at all—the Turkish government has used the attack to legitimize the explosion of violence it has unleashed against the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). The PKK and the Kurds who govern AANES consider Abdullah Öcalan to be their ideological leader. According to Erdoğan, they are all terrorists who must be dealt with militarily.
The Turkish government has declared that the perpetrators of the attack came to Turkey via the Syrian border. They showed no evidence for that claim and it is also not very logical. The military leader in North and East Syria, Mazlum Abdi, denied it.
Isolation
It’s more logical to look at the situation in Turkey. That is, after all, where the attack happened and the country the PKK is focused on. In the roaring statement the organisation issued, several reasons for the attack were mentioned, and one phrase was ‘the inhuman practice and policy of isolation that is being implemented in all the jails of Turkey and Kurdistan’. The isolation referred to is that of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been jailed at Imralı prison island since 1999 and has been held in total isolation for 31 months. He doesn’t even have access to his lawyers and family.
That is a violation of basic rights that all prisoners have and to which Turkey should be committed as a member of the Council of Europe. Having said that: Öcalan’s isolation is of course not a judicial matter but a political one. Turkey has once again reduced the Kurdish issue to a military problem instead of treating it as the human rights issue that it is. The isolation of Öcalan, who can and should play a crucial role in negotiations to end the Kurdish issue and with that the violence of the PKK, fits that Turkish approach.
Military coup
Then why is that brought up now, while Öcalan has been jailed since 1999 and has been in isolation for 31 months? The timing is telling: it was 25 years ago, on 9 October 1998, that Öcalan was forced to leave Syria, the country where he mostly stayed after he had fled Turkey not too long before the 1980 military coup. Turkey threatened Syria with war if it were to keep sheltering Öcalan.
Among Kurds, that day, 9 October 1998, is known as the day the ‘conspiracy’ against Öcalan started. The PKK-leader tried to get asylum in several European countries, but failed. Via Moscow he ended up in Nairobi, Kenya. It is there where he was abducted by the Turkish secret service, in cooperation with the secret service of the US and other countries, and taken to Turkey. Initially he was sentenced to death, a sentence that was later commuted to life imprisonment.
For Kurds, the freedom of Öcalan is inextricably connected to their own freedom. They know that the day that their political and ideological leader walks out of prison is the day the Kurdish issue will become resolved. To get to that day, negotiations are necessary. Öcalan and Erdoğan are both leaders with a solid supporter base who attribute virtually subhuman capacities to them, which makes both leaders ideal solvers of the Kurdish issue. For that, Öcalan’s isolation must be broken, so the negotiating table can be dug up from the dungeons of the presidential palace and negotiations about peace can commence.
Tunnels
How does an attack contribute to that goal? Well, Turkish-Kurdish history shows that the Turkish government is more inclined to talk when violence escalates. The Turkish government now makes its population believe that the fight against the PKK is almost won, and it can make that claim because of the armed drones it has been using for the past couple of years. What the population in Turkey doesn’t know, is that the fighters in the mountains have adjusted to drone warfare for years. They resist the invasion of the Turkish army into the north of Iraq, where most of the PKK camps are located, from tunnels.
With this attack, the PKK wants to open the eyes of citizens in Turkey: the organisation has not been beaten and is capable of hitting in the heart of the capital city. That means beyond military action are necessary for peace. That the door of Öcalan’s cell must open. That the blast of this attack can make it happen.
Fréderike Geerdink is an independent journalist. Follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her acclaimed weekly newsletter Expert Kurdistan.
