Turkish State: Where is your courage?

By Mufid Abdulla:

This question arises following the shooting down of a Turkish aeroplane by the Syrian authorities on Friday. The muted Turkish reaction to this ‘accident’ by the Syrian state – which shot down the plane over the Syrian/Turkish border – has not surprised me because of Turkey’s cowardice towards Syria. But why does nobody say anything when Turkish warplanes and military forces frequently cross the border of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to chase Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters? Why is there always no response from the KRG?

Here’s another side of the story. The Turkish army and police use brutality against civilian Kurds in the north of Kurdistan to the extent that any observer finding their way into the Kurdish areas of Turkey will see that it’s just a continuation of the policies of the old Ottoman Empire. In recent years we have seen from the Turkish authorities wild savagery towards its subject people but silence and cowardice towards outside forces.

We saw how the Turkish authorities responded after Israeli forces killed 14 Turkish Islamists on a sanctions-busting ship headed for West Gaza. Instead of action, Turkey took the diplomatic route to resolve its differences with the Israelis. Following Friday’s incident, the president and prime minister of Turkey have said that it was an unarmed Phantom F-4E aircraft conducting a reconnaissance mission that crossed the Syrian border for a few seconds. They haven’t yet reacted any more strongly than this, although Faruk Celik, Turkey’s Labour and Social Security minister, has said that Turkey would retaliate using “diplomatic or other types of response”.

The main power in Turkey, the Army, was unable to respond adequately to the latest Syrian aggression. How different to 1999 when Turkey was able to dictate to Syria that it expel the PKK leader, Ocalan, to Europe, leading to his long incarceration in Turkish custody. In the past two days we have seen an effective admission of weakness and cowardice by the regime.

The Turkish state should take the same pacifistic approach to the Kurdish issue. Rather than lecturing people about morality, the politicians should fix the mess they’ve made in the north of Kurdistan and talk to the PKK to solve the Kurdish cause without any further bloodshed by both sides of the conflict.

The Turkish military junta should realise that it is not bravery to kill innocent Kurdish civilians, as we saw with the massacre of 34 mostly young people at Uludere six months ago. Real bravery would involve engaging in dialogue to develop understanding and reach agreement on a just solution to the Kurdish cause in the north of Kurdistan.