Internal Kurdish struggle on streets of Turkey

A Turkish citizen, Cengiz Tiryaki, who was injured on 9 October during protests that gripped the streets of major Turkish cities, died on Monday in the eastern province of Bingol, bringing the total death toll from the week-long clashes to 36.

Several south eastern Turkish metropolises and Istanbul’s majority Kurdish districts saw violent riots led by Kurdish groups over perceived government inaction in Kobane. 

The Turkish government reacted with stringent measures against the demonstrators. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters, while the military imposed a curfew - for the first time since the 1990s - in five south eastern provinces including Batman, Diyarbakir, Mardin, Van and Siirt, as means to stifle the protests.

Many media outlets reported on the riots as a struggle between angry Kurdish supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) on one side and Islamic State (IS) supporters on another. The clashes were reflected as a result of confrontations between the two groups as well as skirmishes between the protesters and the Turkish security forces.

However, sources on the ground told MEE that while some confrontations took place between police and the demonstrators, the majority of the violence was among rival Kurdish groups and between nationalist Turks and Kurds.

“On one side there were supporters of HDP and PKK and on the other side there were more religious Kurds,” said Cagri Ozdemir, Istanbul-based journalist and MEE contributor.

“Two people were shot in the head and another was found dead, completely naked and had been tortured. These aren’t measures that could have been taken by the security forces,” he added, signalling the presence of militia.

The reports reflect a more complex image of the clashes with roots in a historical internal Kurdish struggle and a stout Turkish nationalism that never fully accepted Kurds into its folds.

“In the 1970s there were clashes between the secular and religious elements of the Kurdish political movement which is embodied in the Turkish Hezbollah and the political representative of that movement, Huda Par,” explained Ozdemir.

Huda Par or the Free Cause Party is a recently established Islamist Kurdish party which hails from the Kurdish Hezbollah movement, a Sunni group which has a long-founded antagonism with the secularist PKK.  

“The Kurdish Hezbollah was believed to have been supported by the Turkish state as an antagonist force to the PKK,” Seref Kavak, an academic specialising in Kurdish politics explained, referencing that the group was first established in the 1970s, a time when political violence in Turkey was a challenge for the state.

Kavak explains that the divisions are much deeper than the western media has been portraying. “The clash between Huda Par and PKK and HDP supporters cannot be confined to the recent Islamic State crisis. It is much deeper than that,” he said.

The violence between Turkish right-wing ultra-nationalist groups and left-wing groups during the 1970s inflicted some 5,000 casualties and was described as ‘low-level war’.

With opposing Kurdish groups explaining one element of the street conflict, Turkish newspapers also reported clashes between nationalist Turks and Kurdish protesters. Furthermore, analysts said that the Turkish public has generally not been supportive of the protesters.

“Seeing the death of more than 30 people over night and the relative inaction of the secular citizens of Turkey is a sign that what happened was considered a Kurdish and not a nationwide cause,” said Ozdemir referencing “the negative view of Kurds in Turkey.

Some 40,000 people were killed during the PKK-led Kurdish insurgency of the 1980s, a period that has left a bleak spot in Turkey’s national memory.

At the same time, the violence and vandalism which Kurdish protesters allegedly used in the riots repelled the nationalist and secular opposition groups in Turkey which formed the bulk of demonstrations against the government last year.

“While PKK mobilised young people onto the streets, the violence and vandalism has invoked strong reactions from the public,” Burhanettin Duran, professor of political science at Istanbul Sehir University and member of the Turkey-based think tank SETA, told MEE.

Future bearing

Apart from the street protests invoked by the events in Kobane, the crisis has signalled a deeper impact on Turkey’s internal politics.

“Kobane is the most visible case of how domestic politics is becoming so closely intertwined with foreign policy," said Ozdemir. "What happens in Syria, in Kobane or what IS does, somehow affects the calculations of the government.”

A most visible effect has been the jeopardising of the Kurdish-Turkish peace process, initiated in 2012 through talks with jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan, in an effort to end the 30-year-old insurgency.

One of the main reasons behind the protests was the disappointment of the Kurds in Ankara’s stance towards Kobane, specifically in the midst of the peace process, said Zeynep Kaya, international relations fellow at the London School of Economics.

“The protesters said that if Kobane falls, the peace process will fail,” explained Kaya.

Davutoglu said on 13 October that Turkey would not allow the crisis in Kobane to thwart the reconciliation process and called for a separation of the two issues while Ocalan declared that whatever happens in Kobane will be considered of direct impact on the peace process. 

However, on 14 October, Turkish forces targeted suspected Kurdish PKK positions in the southeast of the country, after PKK rebels had allegedly attacked an outpost in Hakkari, prompting the military to retaliate for the first time since the start of the peace process in 2012.

Further to the reconciliation process, the crisis in Kobane is expected to influence the results of the upcoming general elections in Turkey scheduled for the summer of 2015.

The next parliamentary vote is of particular importance for the ruling Justice and Development Party AKP, and specifically to Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan who is looking to establish an executive presidency through changing the constitution.

In order to do so, the ruling AKP must secure more than two thirds of the parliamentary seats in order to vote for the constitutional change, which analysts say may now prove to be difficult.

“In light of the developments, it will be more difficult for AKP to convince HDP to continue its support for a presidential constitution,” said Ozdemir.

Since the peace process increased AKPs voter base among the Kurds, Kurdish Turks have been an important building block in Erdogan’s ascent to presidential victory and in AKPs continuation in government over recent years.

The Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy group head Pervin Buldan had warned in April that Kurds - who previously voted for the government because of the perceived perception that the peace process would move forward after the local elections - would change their stance if the peace process remained at a standstill.

At the same time, a failed peace process may also alienate Turkish supporters of the the ruling party, observers say.

“If the peace process were to end now, the Turkish people will be disappointed that after many concessions made to the Kurds, we are back at square one. This may make it harder for AKP in the elections,” said Ozdemir.