Kurdistan Workers Research Articles

Terrorist Organization Proscription as Counterinsurgency in the Kurdish Conflict

ABSTRACTProscription—the designation of non-state actors as terrorist organizations—operates as one technique of counterterrorism listing, whereby individuals and populations associated with armed non-state actors are targeted for disruption, stigmatisation, and prosecution. This article examines the effects of the globalised proscription of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on the Kurdish conflict as a mode of counterinsurgency warfare. It argues that calling proscription a counterinsurgency strategy better connects its preemptive functions and objects with its deleterious effects on targeted populations. Moreover, this article argues that the transnational organization of the ban of the PKK casts light on how proscription extends and deepens colonial practices of counterinsurgency.

The Oslo Talks: Revealing the Turkish Government's Secret Negotiations with the PKK

ABSTRACTThis article explores the extent to which the secret talks influenced the path of official negotiations toward ending Turkey's Kurdish conflict, which the scholarly literature has yet to assess. Utilizing interviews with key political actors, this article aims to close this gap by assessing the Oslo talks (2006–2011) as the most comprehensive secret contact between the Turkish government and Kurdistan Workers' Party. It demonstrates that the secret track is not merely a “pre-negotiation” stage aimed at de-escalating the violent conflict ahead of official talks, but also a crucial part of the negotiation stage aimed at establishing a final political agreement.

Fragile goddesses: moral subjectivity and militarized agencies in female guerrilla diaries and memoirs

ABSTRACTKurdish female guerrillas in the armed political organization Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) established death as the ultimate form of agentive transcendence in the early periods of their participation. This article focuses on the uneasy relation between death and empowerment in female militancy. It explores how female militancy both unsettles and reinforces gendered binaries of militarism. In parallel, it looks at empowerment as a fragile and complex process connected to lived experiences and subject-making mechanisms within insurgent organizations. It analyzes Kurdish female guerrillas’ diaries, memoirs and author’s interview with an ex-guerrilla on the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state in the 1990s. The autobiographical narratives reveal the formation of a transcendental ethos on female empowerment culminated in the goddess image. Yet, the narratives also reveal the dilemmas, contradictions and pain inherent in becoming ideal militant-subjects, particularly for female guerrillas. Through this exploration, I argue that such model of a posthumous empowerment dominates the ways in which women’s militancies are recognized and understood.

From containment and rollback to escalation: Turkey’s Kurdish issue under the AKP

This article will argue that the meetings between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers Party PKK between 2006-2015 were employed by the Turkish state to gain advantage in the conflict they were supposed to be aimed at resolving. This appraisal of the PKK-Turkey talks thus helps to explain the escalation in the summer of 2015 - as the result, that is, not of a failed process of negotiations but of a failed intelligence operation.

The repercussions of the Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum

Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani appears to have overreached in holding a referendum on independence, although almost 93% voted for it. Major powers support Iraq's territorial integrity. The Iraqi government has asserted military control over the region with Iran's help. Facing political and economic isolation, the Kurdistan Regional Government's authority and cohesion has been weakened. Barzani's futility has likely hardened the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK)'s position in Turkey and increased its regional freedom of action.

A spatial perspective on political group formation in Turkey after the 1971 coup: The Kurdistan Workers Party of Turkey (PKK)

The five years preceding the 1978 founding congress of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partîya Karkêren Kurdistan, PKK) are referred to by its members as the party’s “existential period”. In the PKK’s “existential period” public spaces, such as university dormitories and canteens and student associations played an important role as meeting places, yet political formation occurred mainly in private spaces, especially private apartments and houses. This article considers this early history of the PKK from a spatial perspective. The main question addressed is how the Kurdistan Revolutionaries, as the group was known before its formal establishment, sustained itself spatially at a time when political life had been paralysed as a result of martial law and became subject to securitisation politics. Data for this article has been collected by means of interviews and the study of (auto)biographical texts.ABSTRACT IN KURMANJINêrîneke mekanî li ser avabûna komên siyasî li Tirkiyeyê piştî derbeya 1971ê: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan a Tirkiyeyê (PKK)5 salên beriya 1978an, berî kongreya avabûna Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, ji teref endamên wê ve wek qonaxa hebûnî ya partiyê tê nîşankirin. Di ‘qonaxa hebûnî’ ya PKKê de roleke girîng a mekanên giştî yên wek xewgeh û kantîn û komeleyên xwendekaran li zanîngehan hebû lewre ew wek cihên civînê bûn, lê avabûna siyasî esasen li mekanên taybet, bi taybetî jî li mal û xaniyên taybet çêbû. Ev gotar wê dîroka pêşîn a PKKê bi nêrîneke mekanî dinirxîne. Pirsa bingehîn ew e ka Şoreşgerên Kurdistanê, wek ku berî avabûna xwe ya fermî dihatin zanîn, piştî ku jiyana siyasî ji ber qanûnên şer felc bûbû û tûşî siyaseteke rijd a asayîşê dibû, çawa karîn xwe li ser piya bigirin. Daneyên vê gotarê bi rêya hevpeyvînan û xebatên (oto)biyografîk hatine berhevkirin. ABSTRACT IN SORANIRwangeyekî şwênmend sebaret be drûstbûnî grupêkî siyasî le Turkiyay dway kudetay 1971: Partî Kirêkaranî Kurdistan le Turkiya (PKK)Mawey pênc sallî pêş le damezranî kongrey Partî Kirêkaranî Kurdistan le sallî 1978, le layen endamanî em ḧîzbewey wekû “qonaẍî wucûdî” amajey pê dekrê. Lem “qonaẍe wucûdîyey” Partî Kirêkaranî Kurdistan feza giştîyekan, wekû jûre nawxoyîyekanî zankokan, çêştxorîyekan û encûmene xwêndkarîyekan dewrêkî giringyan wek şwênî kobûnewe debînî, le katêkda ta ew qonaẍe riskanî siyasî zortir le feza taybetekan, be taybet apartman û mallî şexsîy hawwillatiyan debînra. Em wutare le rwangeyekî şwênmendewe serincî mêjûy seretayî PKK dedat. Pirsyarî serekîy em twêjînewe bo ewe degerrêtewe ke çon şorrişgêrranî Kurdistan, pêş lewey be resmî wekû grupêk dabimezrên denasran, û herweha le ruwî şwênî çalakîyewe çon ewan twaniyan xoyan rabigirin le katêkda jiyanî siyasî, wek babetî siyasetêkî emnîyewe seyr dekra û le derencamî maddeyekî yasayîyewe îflîc kirabû. Datay em wutare le rêgey wutuwêj û lêkollînewey deqekanî (xo)jiyanînamekanewe ko kirawetewe.

Editorial

The three articles published in this issue cover a wide range of topics. Sociologist Joost Jongerden’s article, “A spatial perspective on political group formation in Turkey after the 1971 coup: The Kurdistan Workers’ Party of Turkey (PKK)”, examines the Kurdistan Revolutionaries, the milieu from which the PKK emerged in 1978. The second article in our October issue shifts focus to the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. Psychologists Ruth Kevers, Peter Rober and Lucia De Haene in their collaborative piece titled “The role of collective identifications in family processes of post-trauma reconstruction: An exploratory study of Kurdish refugee families and their diasporic community”, engage in the study of a group of five families in Belgium. The third article in our issue is titled “Kurds in the USSR, 1917-1956” and penned by J. Otto Pohl, a historian of the Soviet Union.

Turkey’s interests in the Syrian war: from neo-Ottomanism to counterinsurgency

ABSTRACTWith the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011, Turkey quickly embroiled itself in the conflict by supporting, arming and funding armed militants against the Syrian government. The paper contends that the Turkish leadership found the Syrian war was an opportunity to engage in territorial expansionism. What was not envisaged however was the rise of the Kurdish YPG, the Syrian branch of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, who are recognized by Ankara as a terrorist organization. The rise of the YPG directly threatens the sovereignty of Syria and portends to establish a Kurdish state right on the border of Turkey’s Kurdish-majority eastern Anatolia where autonomous and secessionists movements are strong. This has effectively meant that Turkey’s Syria policy went from one of neo-Ottomanism to counterinsurgency as they attempt to defeat the Kurdish secessionist movement in Syria.

Kurdish Women in Rojava: From Resistance to Reconstruction

In 2010, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan, PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, declared, “The freedom of the Kurdish people can be viewed as inseparably bound to women’s freedom.”1 This statement emphasizes a core tenet in the reinvention of the PKK’s ideology as articulated by Öcalan: the understanding that freedom can only be achieved through the defeat of the patriarchal system. The women of the PKK and its sister organization, the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, PYD), represent the embodiment of the PKK’s new ideology, attracting international attention following Kurdish efforts to establish an autonomous region of governance in north-east Syria. This article focuses on a case study of the PYD’s Syrian Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin, YPJ), and their defence of Kurdish-dominated enclaves in Syria. The analysis demonstrates the agency behind their engagement and the ideology that motivates their resistance to patriarchy in the Middle East. In so doing, the article compares the YPJ’s understanding of agency to media representations of YPJ fighters’ engagement, in an effort to see beyond the traditional victim/peacemaker articulation of gendered engagement, arguing instead for the need to recognize the politics behind Kurdish women’s participation as combatants in the Syrian civil war.

Gender equality and radical democracy: Contractions and conflicts in relation to the “new paradigm” within the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)

Introduction In its 1978 manifesto, the PKK declared the establishment of an independent state to be the only correct political goal of a national liberation movement. Around the turn of the millennium, following a critique and self-critique on the character of national liberation struggles and “real existing socialism”, the party started to question whether independence really ought to be conceptualized and practiced in the form of state construction (Jongerden 2016). Taking the concept of s...

Building Legitimacy: Interactional Dynamics and the Popular Evaluation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey

Previous research has identified a variety of general mechanisms to explain how insurgents build legitimacy. Yet, there is often a gap between these mechanisms and the interactional dynamics of insurgencies. This article attempts to bridge this gap through a theoretically informed analysis of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) insurgency in Turkey. I show how the PKK’s efforts to cultivate legitimacy, Turkey’s counterinsurgency strategies, and civilian perceptions of the PKK, all mutually influenced one another. Based on this analysis, I argue that the mechanisms that produce popular legitimacy coevolve with insurgents’ behaviors, states’ interventions, and civilians’ perceptions.

Zones of rebellion: Kurdish insurgents and the Turkish state, by Aysegul Aydin and Cem Emrence, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2015, 208 pp., $39.95 (hardback), ISBN 9780801453540

Zones of Rebellion focuses on Turkey’s ongoing conflict with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). It aims to be “an accessible book that has a powerful narrative and an analytical framework” and see...

A New Track towards Resolving Turkey’s Kurdish Issue

:Turkey’s greatest security threats are connected to its unresolved Kurdish issue. Attempts by the Justice and Development Party goernment of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to end the conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey have so far been unsuccessful. Since the end of direct negotiations in July 2015 which included the jailed leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, war in Turkey’s southeast has caused increased humanitarian tragedy and security costs for Turkey, undermining the good governance required for social stability. It is highly unlikely that military force will eliminate the PKK terrorist attacks or that any international pressure will induce the government to resume negotiations at the government level, the traditional Track I path. A new approach is needed. This article proposes that Turkish civil society organizations engage in Track II diplomacy that can reduce ethnic tensions and develop new ideas that increase the prospects for success over the long term for ending the PKK struggle and resolving the Kurdish Issue in Turkey.

Securitization and De-securitization: Turkey-Syria Relations since the Syrian Crisis

:The article focuses on the nature of the relations between Turkey and Syria during the Syrian crisis. Although the relationship between Turkey and Syria had undergone some ups and downs in the last several years, both countries tried their best to improve their economic, political, cultural, and diplomatic relations. Indeed, Turkey introduced its model, “Moderate Islamic ideologies”, through Syria in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The “Arab Spring” of 2011 was a very good opportunity for Turkey to introduce its democratic Islamic dogmas which were welcomed by the Muslim Brotherhood leaders in some Arab Countries. But, the President of Syria, Bashar Al Assad, and his allies were very critical of Turkey’s policy. Thus, the article mainly explores the role of Turkey in Syria’s internal affairs, in particular, Erdogan’s policy towards Syrian crises. Besides, it examines Turkey’s domestic challenges and how Turkey has presented itself as a big supporter of the Arab Spring in the MENA. However, the article has found out that the current policies of Turkey towards the Syrian crisis are critical within the Middle East region. In other words, the conflicts and the wars against the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) weakened the bilateral relations. The Syrian refugees and the PKK are posing overwhelming challenges to Turkey’s economy and internal security.

Failure of Peace Talks between Turkey and the PKK: Victim of Traditional Turkish Policy or of Geopolitical Shifts in the Middle East?

When the third set of peace negotiations between Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerén Kurdistan, PKK) and the Turkish state were announced on March 21, 2013, there was a hope that they would lead to lasting peace in the Kurdish region of Turkey. However, these peace talks, like previous ones, failed. This article investigates whether traditional Turkish policy toward the Kurdish question impacted the peace process, and to what extent Kurdish autonomy in Syria and its increasing role in Middle East geopolitics contributed to the Turkish state’s unwillingness to pursue resolution for a lasting peace with the PKK. The article suggests that, in order to realize a lasting peace, skepticism must be diminished, and Turkey must consider its historical responsibility toward the Kurds.

Gendering Landscapes of War Through the Narratives of Soldiers’ Mothers

Abstract Despite being exempt from compulsory military service, women have been indispensable in their roles as mothers of conscripted soldiers in the conflict between the Turkish military and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Based on in-depth interviews conducted with twenty women in Istanbul whose sons were deployed to the conflict zone and returned home without any injuries, this article examines how the conflict has impacted the mothers’ perception of national service, of the Kurdish conflict, and of the “East.” I argue that the women start to partly question the obligation to serve once their children are asked to become the potential victims, and perpetrators, of the conflict. But this questioning does not develop into a full-fledged critique of the service and ends up reinforcing the tropes associated with Kurds and the “East” as backward, unruly, and resistant to change. Thus they mostly justify the modernizing mission of the military.

Unity in Rupture

Unity in Rupture

Democratization and New Ethnic Politics in the Mediterranean: Turkey’s Ethnic Groups at Home and Abroad

Turkey’s political scene has been quite active for the last couple of years. Important events include: Two general elections in June and November 2015, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ending of ...

Do Good Borders Make Good Rebels? Territorial Control and Civilian Casualties

How does the location of rebel-held territory shape insurgent relations with civilians? We argue that when rebel groups control territory domestically, they are strongly incentivized to cultivate mutually beneficial relations with civilians living in their territory and limit their violence against them, while insurgencies with foreign territorial control are incentivized to deploy violence against civilians to gain compliance and extract resources. We test this hypothesis in three ways: a quantitative analysis of all insurgencies from 1989 to 2003 followed by a qualitative case illustration and the synthetic controls method that leverages the mostly exogenous acquisition of foreign territory by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) after the 1991 establishment of the northern Iraq no-fly zone. Our results strongly support our hypothesis. These findings shed light on potential broader patterns of civilian victimization by insurgents, and the conditions under which insurgents may strive to limit civilian casualties and provide governance.

The Securitization of the Kurdish Minority in Turkey: Ontological Insecurity and Elite's Power Struggle as Reasons of the Recent Re‐Securitization

AbstractThis article analyzes the treatment of the Kurdish minority by the government of Turkey. The uninterrupted power of the AKP (Justice and Development Party/Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) that since 2002 has created a de facto dominant party democracy (today going toward totalitarianism) and is implementing a strategy of securitization (Buzan, Waever, & de Wilde, 1998) of the issue of the Kurdish minority since the interruption of the ceasefire with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) in July 2015. The article argues that this strategy has been implemented for three main reasons: the reduced ontological security (Giddens, 1991) of Turkey because of the recent violent conflicts in Syria and Iraq, the risk of loss of power of the ruling party and the elites (Snyder, 2000) because of the recent entrance in the Parliament by the HDP (People's Democratic Party, a pro‐Kurdish party), and the ideological threat posed by HDP to the AKP regime (a left‐wing progressive ideology opposed to the moderate Islamist ideology of AKP). The purpose of this study is to fill a research gap in the area of why the post‐July 2015 era constitutes a new context shaping the AKP's perception and management of the Kurdish issue. The methodology followed in this research is a qualitative case study analysis based on process tracing of the recent Turkish treatment of the Kurdish minority and, in particular, the recent events of the second part of 2015 and the beginning of 2016. The article starts with a brief historical overview of Turkish democracy and a theoretical overview on the securitization theory. Then, it analyzes the past and current securitization of the Kurdish issue, arguing that the causes of the recent intensification of this securitization since the summer of 2015 have to be found in these three factors: the low level of ontological security of the state; the fear of losing the power by the AKP ruling elite; and the threat to the political ideology of the AKP posed by the HDP.