FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

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FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS situation eventually led to the crisis of 2007 over the election of the AK Party’s Abdullah Gül as Turkey’s new president. Although the AK Party seemingly triumphed in this struggle by winning an enormous electoral victory on July 22, 2007 and then electing Gül as president, the party was soon put on the defensive by a nearly successful attempt in the Constitutional Court to ban it as a threat to Turkey’s secular order. 21 Having survived this threat to its very existence 22 , the AK Party seemingly lost its reformist zeal and become a party of the status quo that has forsaken reform and the Kurdish issue. 23 A detailed analysis of these developments will throw more light on the current situation. Initial Hope When it first rose to power, the AK Party had a unique opportunity to change Turkish politics by pursuing EU membership and a solution to the Kurdish problem, among numerous other initiatives. 24 Instead of being a traditional Islamic party seeking to install an Islamic political order, the AK Party seemed to be endeavouring to improve the political, social, cultural, and economic opportunities of Muslims by democratizing the state. Seeking EU membership became both a catalyst and result of this democratization process. In harmonizing Turkish laws with the EU acquis communautaire (in effect the existing EU law), the AK Party implemented a serious of important democratic reforms including the reduction of military influence over politics, abolishment of the death penalty and the State Security Courts, and improvements in freedom of the press and speech, among numerous other initiatives such as economic improvements. These steps had the side effect of creating a Turkey more tolerant and supportive of its ethnic Kurdish population. 25 Indeed in August 2005, Erdoğan journeyed to Diyarbakır, the largest city in Turkey’s southeast and long considered the unofficial capital of the historic Kurdish provinces in Turkey, to declare that Turkey has a ‘Kurdish problem,’ had made ‘grave mistakes’ in the past, 21 Hasan Kosebalaban, “The AK Party Closure Case: Domestic Situation and International Reactions,” SETA, Policy Brief No. 10, April 2008; Ihsan Dagi, “The Kurdish Question and Current Political Crisis,” Today’s Zaman, March 31, 2008; and Morton Abramowitz and Henri J. Barkey, “Turkey’s Judicial Coup D’etat,” Newsweek, April 14, 2008. 22 Ihsan Dagi, “AK Party Survives Closure Case: What Is Next?” SETA, Policy Brief No. 19, August 2008. 23 Saban Kardas, “Turkey under the Justice and Development Party: Between Transformation of ‘Islamism’ and Democratic Consolidation?” Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 17 (Summer 2008), pp. 175-87. 24 For background, see Michael M. Gunter, The Kurds Ascending: The Evolving Solution to the Kurdish Problem in Iraq and Turkey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); and Umit Cizre, ed., Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party (London: Routledge, 2007). 25 Michael M. Gunter, “The AKP Catalyst: Progressive Islamists and Ambitious Kurds,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 9 (Summer/Fall 2008), pp. 59-68. 66
FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS and now needed ‘more democracy to solve the problem.’ 26 Never before had a Turkish leader so explicitly addressed the Kurdish problem and seemingly promised to try to solve it. As a result of these achievements, the EU decided that Turkey had met the required Copenhagen Criteria 27 for membership and initiated accession negotiations with Turkey on October 3, 2005. Indeed, the AK Party actually polled more votes in the southeast in the elections of July 2007 than the explicitly pro-Kurdish Demokratik Toplum Partisi (DTP) or Democratic Society Party. Retrenchment The EU accession process, however, has introduced divisive issues into Turkish domestic politics that have led to sharp debates between the AK Party and its secular Kemalist opposition, which includes the still politically powerful military. During the crisis over electing the AK Party’s Gül president in 2007, for example, the military famously posted on its web site a so-called e-memorandum (e-muhtira) warning against the threat posed by some groups aiming to destroy Turkey’s secular system under the cover of religion, read the AK Party. 28 As recently as 1997, the military had forced Necemettin Erbakan’s Islamist Refah Party (RP) to resign. 29 In 2004, the military apparently considered yet another coup. 30 During the fall of 2008, the continuing Ergenekon trial of ultranationalists and retired military officers charged with planning violent campaigns to destabilize the AK Party government continued. 31 Indeed, the massive indictment of 2,455 pages described an incredible plot connecting some 86 military, mafia, ultra-nationalists, lawyers, and academic figures supposedly attempting to weaken the country’s administration and justify an illegal intervention against the AK Party government. Erdoğan himself was 26 Cited in “The Sun Also Rises in the South East,” Briefing (Ankara), August 15, 2005. 27 The Copenhagen Criteria required for EU membership mandate the stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and protection of minority rights. To these political requirements are added economic ones regarding the functioning of a market economy. Copenhagen European Council, “Conclusions of The Presidency,” June 21-22, 1993. 28 See the Turkish military’s web site: http://www.tsk.mil.tr. 29 See Michael M. Gunter, “The Silent Coup: The Secularist-Islamist Struggle in Turkey,” Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 21 (Spring 1998), pp. 1-12. 30 See the detailed analysis in Walter Posch, “Crisis in Turkey: Just Another Bump on the Road to Europe?” Occasional Paper No. 67 (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2007), p. 18ff. The prominent Turkish journal Nokta was forced to close down in April 2007 after publishing apparent details of the attempted coup. 31 See Frank Hyland, “Investigation of Turkey’s ‘Deep State’ Ergenekon Plot Spreads to Military,” Vol. 5, Issue 26 Terrorism Focus (Jamestown Foundation), July 16, 2008; and Gareth Jenkins, “Murky Past of Turkey’s Gendarmerie Intelligence Emerges in Ergenekon Investigation,” Vol. 6, Issue 17 Terrorism Monitor (Jamestown Foundation), September 4, 2008. For background, see Michael M. Gunter, “Susurluk: The Connection between Turkey’s Intelligence Community and Organized Crime,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 11 (Summer 1998), pp. 119-41; and Michael M. Gunter, “Deep State: The Arcane Parallel State in Turkey,” Orient 47, 3 (2006), pp. 334-48. 67
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FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

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