Kurdish Conflict in Turkey Causes, Actors, and Means of Struggle
Mar 26, 2015
Kurdish Conflict in Turkey
Causes, Actors, and Means of Struggle
Geography of conflict
Kurds of Turkey Kurds make up about
15% of Turkey’s population
About two-thirds of Turkey’s Kurds live in the country’s 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
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
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
Kurds
I 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 killed
No I'm sorry, no friends either, they are all in prison
I 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 disappeared
No I'm sorry, no relatives either, they fled from the war
I 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 hanged
No, I'm sorry, no country either, it has been stolen
S.W.Z
Boys at a Kurdish New Year celebration in the early 1990s. Photo: Kevin McKiernan.
PKK guerrillas, early 1990s.
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
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
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.
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.