Al-Ahram Weekly 4 - 10 March 1999 Issue No. 419
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Exit the PKK,
enter the Kurdish problem

By Gareth Jenkins

Last week Ankara bluntly warned Athens that it will take military action unless it withdraws its support for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and closes PKK offices and training facilities in Greece.

"Greece has committed crimes against humanity," declared Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit on Saturday, amid continued anger at Athens for sheltering PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in its Kenya embassy.

"Greece has been caught red-handed supporting terrorism," warned Turkish Chief of Staff General Huseyin Kivrikoglu. "They can make no excuses and have nowhere to hide."

Turkish President Suleyman Demirel was even more blunt: "The reality is that Turkey is in a state of self-defence and it will do whatever is necessary for its self-defence," he said, drawing a parallel between the current warnings to Greece and those delivered to Syria last autumn. The threat to Syria triggered a storm of protest in the Arab world, particularly when it became clear that Israel had supplied Ankara with satellite intelligence on the location of PKK camps in Syria.

"We have no territorial ambitions against Syria," said a source very close to the Turkish military. "But you cannot make that kind of threat without being prepared to carry it out. We would have launched a limited air and land operation against PKK positions in Syria if Damascus had not expelled Ocalan."

Now the most recent round of sabre-rattling threatens to exacerbate Ankara's already strained relationship with the EU. Turkey is demanding that both its NATO allies and the EU condemn Greek support for the PKK.

"Shame on Western Europe and shame on our so-called neighbour," declared Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem on Friday.

"From now on Greece is a terrorist country and should be expelled from the EU," said Yasar Okuyan, deputy chairman of the Motherland Party.

Turkey has also angrily rejected European scepticism about the fairness of Ocalan's forthcoming trial by a state security court on the island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara, where he is currently being held.

Last week Ocalan was formally charged with treason and is likely to face the death penalty. Turkish Justice Ministry officials announced that the trial will start this month and should finish by early April at the latest, even though 14,000 files of charges against Ocalan have been forwarded to Imrali from courts in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir alone. "How are the judges, the prosecutors and the defence lawyers going to be able to get through all that material in such a short time?" asked a Western diplomat.

One of Ocalan's two lawyers resigned on Friday citing death threats and police harassment. "My life is in danger and I am unable to do my job," said Ahmet Zeki Okcuoglu.

There is little doubt that Ocalan will be found guilty and sentenced to death. The only question is whether the sentence, which has to be confirmed by parliament, will be carried out. No one has been executed in Turkey since 1982. Prime Minister Ecevit has already stated that he would like to see the death penalty abolished. But many in parliament, and the majority of the Turkish public, want to see Ocalan hanged. "If the death sentence is confirmed by the Court of Appeal and comes to parliament, it will be approved and Ocalan will hang," said Okuyan.

"He should die," said a military source. "It is as simple as that." But, whether or not Ocalan is executed, there is little doubt that his capture has dealt a crippling blow to the PKK's prestige and operational capabilities. It is also likely to intensify international pressure on Turkey to allow its 12-15 million Kurds greater freedom of expression.

"The PKK is finishing; the Kurdish problem is only just beginning," said Turkish historian Halil Berktay.

Despite the CIA's role in locating Ocalan in Kenya and passing the information to the Turkish authorities, the United States is also expected to step up the pressure on Ankara to allow the expression of a Kurdish identity. On Friday the US State Department released a 36-page report harshly criticising Turkey for its human rights record and suppression of Kurdish culture and language.

"Eighty per cent of the excuses of the Turkish government related to rights abuses disappeared with the capture of Ocalan," the English-language daily The Turkish Daily News quoted an unnamed Ankara-based US official as saying.

"We accuse the West of confusing the PKK with the Kurdish problem, but we do the same," said Professor Dogu Ergil of Ankara University. "Now it is time to respect cultural differences and protect them legally," he said.

But there is little sign of any change in Ankara's policy. On Friday the Turkish Constitutional Court banned the moderate, and anti-PKK, Kurdish political party, the Democratic Mass Party, on the grounds that it was encouraging separatism. The previous day, Turkey's Chief Public Prosecutor Vural Savas had called on the same court to speed up its examination of the case to close down the main Kurdish party, the People's Democracy Party (HADEP), to prevent it from running in next month's general elections.

Such measures are likely to exacerbate further Turkey's increasing international isolation. Significantly, even though it has vigorously denied any involvement in Ocalan's capture, Israel has become Turkey's least critical ally, and Western pressure on the Kurdish issue is likely to strengthen the alliance between Ankara and Tel Aviv, with far-reaching consequences for the region.

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