FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS
the Turkish government knows that, and I hope that the incoming US administration
knows that. You can’t really bomb the physical manifestations of an idea, you can only
bomb innocent civilians from the skies, and I think it is about time that we did call a
halt to this type of policy. We’ve seen the results in Gaza; let’s not see it repeated again
this winter and spring in the hills of northern Iraq.
I’d like to say one or two other things about the wider political situation. I’ll state
for the record now that I don’t believe for one moment that either President Gül or
indeed Prime Minister Erdoğan is particularly enthusiastic about those cross border
operations. In many ways in the last year they were played out as part of a chess game
between the nationalist military elites in Turkey and the AKP government. And I
think if anything in fact the failure of those cross border operations, the recent attacks
of the PKK on Turkish soil, has if anything, dented the pride and standing of Turkish
military forces, so that there is a new debate going on in Turkey, amongst not only civil
society, not only amongst the Democratic Society Party (DTP), not only amongst the
usual suspects, but in Turkish media and among business elites about the appropriate
strategy to deal with the Kurdish conflict, and I think there’s a renewed understanding
that it cannot be dealt with by military means alone. I think that actually the AKP,
President and Prime Minister may have an opportunity, once these local elections are
out of the way, once the grandstanding is out of the way, once the short term political
calculations are out of the way, they may well have an opportunity to once again
reconfirm their commitment to the EU accession process, once again reconfirm their
commitment to a constitutional reform process in turkey and also once again, and for
once to start looking at the Kurdish problem in a realistic way.
There are small elements of hope in the sense that Turkey has begun conflict resolution
on behalf of other countries and there are talks between Syria and Israel, indirect
talks, in the situation in Gaza, in the situation in Afghanistan, and I think amongst
policy makers and indeed amongst probably the prime minister there is a growing
understanding that if you really want lasting peace, if you really want democratic
reform at home, you have to tackle the big political issues. And I agree with one of
the comments recently of the panel that the European Union has to do that as well,
it can’t talk about accession gradualism, it has to make sure, especially in this year of
change, in the Obama year of change, that we fundamentally grasp the issues. And so,
I think, with the elections out of the way and with this conflict that is going on in Turkey
between nationalists and military elites on the one hand and democratic forces
on the other, although there’s much pessimism, these are if you like the underlying
tensions in Turkish society that are at last coming to the fore, at last being fought out
in constitutional courts on the streets of Turkey and its not a time now for Kurdish
and Turkish diplomats and democrats to fall out, its time to join forces and to push
for real change in Turkey.
I think we have to make sure the European Parliament does everything it can. We
have to make sure that the European Union presses the Turkish Prime Minister to do
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