Abstract
This paper examines the profile of the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) and distinguishes Kurdish issue from terrorism in Turkey. PKK’s profile has changed depending on Turkey’s internal politics under AK Party governments as well as the changing international environment particularly in Syria and demands a federation of Kurds that is independent Kurdistan in southeastern Turkey. The first part of this article addresses the objectives of the PKK and its violence and terrorism in pursuit of Kurdish secession from the Republic of Turkey leading to thousands of military and civilian deaths over the past decades. The second part assesses the problem focusing on whether PKK truly represents Kurds in Turkey. The third section tries to answer the question of who provides the logistical and financial support for PKK since it is still controversial whether the US and the EU both classify the PKK as a terrorist organization ingenuously. The last section evaluates political solution to the PKK problem, which is now being voiced in both Turkey and Western countries particularly in US.
Highlights
In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Kurds of Turkey have agitated for their local rights so many times
It can be argued that the Sheikh Said rebellion was both a religious and tribal and it was a revolt against the secularist new regime and was first steps of a local movement of Kurdish nationalism
The Sheikh Said rebellion of 1925, the Ararat revolt of 1930 and the Dersim rebellion of 1937-38 were significant developments in the history of modern Turkey. Olson claims that these rebellions contributed to the development of Turkey’s air force (TAF) which was to be used as an instrument to control, suppress and eradicate Kurdish nationalism (Olson, 2000: p. 68)
Summary
In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Kurds of Turkey have agitated for their local rights so many times. Because of the international developments including the democratization and human rights, the Kurds of Turkey raise political expectations in the context of a modern world of nation states. Turkey’s Kurds are the largest ethnicgroup in republican Turkey and have repeatedly challenged republican nation-state policies. The Kurds have been divided among the states of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. They don’t have their own states and nearly half of them live in the eastern part of Turkey. It is obvious that the Kurdish problem in Turkey can be solved by political and democratic reforms.
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