Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

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Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

• Causes, Actors, and Means of Struggle

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Geography of conflict
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Kurds of Turkey

• Kurds make up about 15 of Turkeys population
• About two-thirds of Turkeys Kurds live in the
  countrys southeastern provinces about one-third
  live in western Turkey
• Kurds are distinguished primarily from Turks by
  the fact that they speak Kurdish, but are
  physically indistinguishable from ethnic Turks

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Why is there a conflict?

• State-building nationalism in Turkey
• 1923 foundation of Turkish Republic
• Turkish nationalism integration of Kurds
• Repression of those who resisted

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Response Kurdish peripheral nationalism

• Early uprisings
• Rise of a new counter-elite and the re-creation
  of Kurdish identity, 1960s
• PKK guerrilla activism, 1984-1999, and
  2005-present

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KurdsI can't talk because I don't know my
languageI'd like to tell you about my self but I
don't know my historyI have no education because
there are no schoolsI don't have a brother, he
was a politician, he got killedNo I'm sorry, no
friends either, they are all in prisonI don't
have a village because it's burned downI don't
have a house because tanks destroyed itI
couldn't stay in my land because mines cover itI
have no sister, she was a journalist, she just
disappearedNo I'm sorry, no relatives either,
they fled from the warI don't know any songs,
they are bannedI can't dance, it's forbiddenI
can't tell you any stories because no one ever
told me anyI don't have parents, they were
hangedNo, I'm sorry, no country either, it has
been stolenS.W.Z
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PKK guerrillas, early 1990s.
Boys at a Kurdish New Year celebration in the
early 1990s. Photo Kevin McKiernan.
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Who is involved?

• Turkish Armed Forces
• Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
• Pro-Kurdish politicians in various political
  parties
• Liberal Turkish media and civil society
  organizations
• Kurdish diaspora community and other
  transnational actors
• Ordinary people

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Modes of Conflict

• Guerrilla war
• Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
• Conventional politics
• Pro-Kurdish political parties
• Civil contention and protest
• Kurdish newspapers, cultural organizations
• Human rights organizations

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Effects of the conflict

• 35,000 dead
• New attention to status of Kurds in Turkey on
  domestic and international agenda
• Some political gains
• Human rights abuses

Pro-Kurdish newspapers such as this one are often
closed down for expressing support for PKK leader
Abdullah Ocalan.
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Current status stalemate new conflict

• 1999 capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan PKK
  guerrillas lay down arms
• PKK guerrillas in northern Iraqi mountains
• Some democratic reforms BUT
• Spring 2005-2006 new sets of attacks, and new
  anti-terror bill?

PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan being returned to
Turkey for trial, Feb. 1999.