Kurdistan Observer

Closure Of AK Party And DTP will Serve Separatism And Violence

Ayshe Karbat
Turkish Zaman

April 27, 2008

The closure cases filed against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Democratic Society Party (DTP) are weakening the already fragile faith of Kurdish citizens in democratic solutions, experts say.

Political experts note that these two parties get the votes of the majority of Kurdish citizens and that if they are shut down, the Kurds may even discuss self-determination, turn to fundamentalist groups or resort to violent means to achieve their goals.

Prominent Kurdish intellectual Tarık Ziya Ekinci and Diyarbakır Bar Association Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu emphasize that the AK Party and the DTP mean different things to Kurds, but that their closures would have the same result -- creating disillusionment with the democratic system.

Ekinci and Tanrıkulu both note that the DTP entry into Parliament and the solutions-oriented discourse of the AK Party raised hopes more than ever before; this is why if these parties are closed, the resulting disappointment would be greater than ever. On the other hand, they say, there is already an existing disappointment among Kurds with the AK Party.

According to Tanrıkulu, the closure cases of the AK Party and the DTP are not perceived in the same way by Kurds.

“The AK Party is not perceived as a party outside of the system, and the pretext of the closure case against them is not the Kurdish question. If the AK Party is closed down, Kurds will conclude that even a party within the system is subject to closure, so democratic means are not working at all,” says Tanrıkulu.

Ekinci recalls the fact that the support of the Kurds for the AK Party was greater than that for the DTP as was demonstrated in the July 22 elections, but over time, he says, Kurds lost their faith in it.

“When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said solving the Kurdish problem is a priority, he won the hearts of the Kurds. But he did not follow policies to fulfill those promises; just the opposite, he delegated the implementation of the policies to the army. So the Kurds lost their faith in the AK Party. The closure of it will not directly affect the Kurds, but it will deepen the hopeless mood of Kurds in general,” Ekinci says.

AK Party Diyarbakır deputy Abdurrahman Kurt says the closure cases are weakening the belief in the unity of the country. Although he shares the view of Tanrıkulu and Sezgin about the potential major disappointment among Kurds, he claims that the closure case against the AK Party is also related to the Kurdish question.

“The AK Party’s aim is to ensure that the state exists for the nation, not to make the nation serve the state. This philosophy includes steps for the solution of the problem but sovereign powers do not like that,” Kurt says. He accepts the criticism directed at his party, but says such criticism has come about not because the AK Party didn’t do what it should have but rather because the party could not clearly explain its position. “There are certain segments that are gaining their power from the deadlock over the problem. They are doing their best to maintain the deadlock. We have some difficulties in explaining this to the public,” Kurt says.

Another Kurdish intellectual, Umit Fırat, points out that on one hand the DTP is ineffective in Parliament and is not taken into consideration by the other parties, but on the other hand, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is not letting the DTP gain ground. In an article titled “Who will benefit from the closure of the DTP?” Fırat says if the voters were not forcing its hand maybe the DTP would even run with independent candidates for the general elections. “The PKK and its leader, [Abdullah] Ocalan, would not let any new Kurdish political authority come to power other than itself. They would not allow the emergence of a legitimate and new address in Kurdish politics,” notes Fırat.

Mustafa Akyol, the author of the essay “Re-thinking the Kurdish question,” says the main beneficiary from the closure of the AK Party would be the Kurdish separatist movement. In an article in which Akyol addresses the “protectors of the republic” he recalls that the AK Party is the only Turkish party that was able to get votes from the Kurdish-populated areas.

“It should be questioned. Are you insane? For 80 years you have had the fear of division, but there are efforts to close down the only political party that will weaken pro-Kurdish politics and separation efforts. If the AK Party and the DTP are closed, this will mean all the parties that get the votes of the Kurds are shut down. Then what will you do if the Kurds say: ‘That is enough. You take your republic; we are going to have Kurdistan.’ We know that you love your institutions and principles, but are you sure that you love your country?” asks Akyol in the article.

Professor Nihat Ali Ozcan from the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) says it is not easy to predict the results of the parties being shut down. “For the DTP, Parliament was never the main area of struggle; it was just a front. I don’t think they will give up on this front. The voters for both the AK Party and the DTP would not go to the mountains together. Of course, there will be negative impacts, but these impacts might not necessarily be fatal,” Ozcan says.

For the DTP, closure is not a new phenomenon; its predecessors were shut down, too. The DTP has already begun work on establishing two new political parties. One of them will be the continuation of itself, and the other will be an umbrella that will include the socialist left. But according to Ekinci, nothing will be the same if the DTP is closed.

“Although I don’t have any objective data in hand, by looking at the developments in the region and the general mood, I can say that the faith in democratic means for a solution is getting weaker. The PKK did not get any results, either; it caused huge damage in society. Under these circumstances, I think there will be a tendency to support illegal fundamentalist Islamist organizations like Hizbullah,” Ekinci states.

Kurt of the AK Party, emphasizing that his party is against party closures, including that of the DTP, says if these parties are closed the situation in the region will become very chaotic. “It would mean that the Kurds would be forced to turn to options other than democratic ones. It is very difficult to guess what they would be, but the options are there: the PKK, Southern Kurdistan or new options. Which one will gain ground? It will depend on the circumstances at that time,” Kurt says.

Tanrıkulu is pessimistic, too. He says since the establishment of the republic, Kurds have increasingly felt themselves excluded. He states that the closures of the DTP and the AK Party might be the last straw for the Kurds since the two parties got the vast majority of the Kurdish vote.

“There is a new generation in the region consisting of people who were born and lived under pitiable conditions. They are totally hopeless. They don’t have any expectations for the future. Anti-democratic interference and the closure cases are just increasing this mood. The parties before the DTP were inexperienced. They were not able to put forward projects, but the DTP is not like this. It at least has considerable experience in municipalities. But if a party like this is closed down, practically the whole region will be excluded from politics, and other options will come to their agenda,” Tanrıkulu says.

Tanrıkulu notes that this option could even be the right of “self-determination.” “The United Nations says if a group is not able to represent itself in politics in the country, it has a right to self-determination. If Kurds feel that they don’t have any other option, they may start to discuss it. I think the Constitutional Court has to take this fact into consideration when it is reaching a verdict,” Tanrıkulu says.