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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000767 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/01/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY:  TALK OF PROGRESS MET WITH SKEPTICISM IN 
KURDISH SOUTHEAST 
 
Classified By: Adana Principal Officer Eric Green for reasons 1.4(b,d) 
 
This is a Consulate Adana cable. 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY:  Despite fevered media speculation in recent 
weeks about "solving" the Kurdish issue, contacts in Turkey's 
southeast remain skeptical that the Justice and Development 
Party (AKP)-led government has the will to make bold reforms 
in the short term.  The progressive rhetoric is met with 
skepticism, if not outright cynicism, by most pro-Kurdish 
activists, though some scholars acknowledge there may be a 
historic opportunity.  A key missing element to progress is 
for the AKP government to accept the DTP as an interlocutor 
and give official recognition to the Kurdish identity.  Given 
the legacy of empty promises and neglect from the government, 
Kurds in the region perhaps have a right to be doubtful that 
this time will be any different.  At the same time, Kurdish 
leaders need to be prepared to reciprocate overtures coming 
from Ankara.  The government and the state bureaucracy will 
have to demonstrate the will to back the rhetoric with action 
to convince the southeast region's Kurdish population that 
change is truly at hand.  END SUMMARY. 
SE KURDS UNDERWHELMED BY ANKARA'S NEW ENTHUSIASM 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
¶2. (C) On a May 17-22 visit to Mardin, Midyat, Hasankeyf, 
Batman, and Diyarbakir, Poloff found most of his 
interlocutors skeptical, if not cynical, about the increased 
rhetoric coming from Ankara regarding a solution to the 
Kurdish issue.  Although contacts welcomed President Abdullah 
Gul's recent statements, for example, acknowledging that the 
Kurdish issue was Turkey's biggest problem, they noted that 
they had heard similar statements from Prime Minister Recep 
Tayyip Erdogan in 2005 and that expectations following the 
2007 parliamentary elections had largely gone unmet.  On May 
20, President of the Batman Bar Association Sedat Ozevin told 
Poloff that they had heard positive statements on the Kurdish 
issue emanating from Ankara before and that the GOT will have 
to demonstrate what steps it is actually prepared to take. 
They described the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party's 
(DTP) advances in the March 2009 local elections as a 
reaction against the AKP government and Erdogan -- notably 
his "love it or leave it" speech to the AKP local branch in 
Hakkari in November 2008. 
¶3. (C) Ozevin questioned the AKP government's sincerity of 
its statement on solving the Kurdish issue while at the same 
time it was having dozens of DTP members, including three 
deputy chairmen, arrested.  Although he acknowledged that one 
could not really separate the DTP from the 
terrorist-insurgent Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), he 
claimed that at the start of the process it was unrealistic 
to ask the PKK to abandon its weapons.  They thought a more 
realistic proposition would be to ask the PKK to withdraw to 
positions where it will not clash with the Turkish military 
-- and simultaneously direct the military not to harass the 
PKK.  Ozevin outlined four steps Ankara could take to develop 
good will with the Kurds -- some of which the government is 
already contemplating: 1) allowing Turkish signs to be 
displayed with a subtext in Kurdish, 2) expanding Kurdish 
language classes, 3) allowing sermons to be delivered in 
Kurdish, and 4) granting to private Kurdish television 
stations the same conditions given to TRT-6, the state-run 
Kurdish-language TV station.  He also thought the Ergenekon 
investigation needed to make progress on the mystery killings 
and disappearances of the 1990s in the southeast -- incidents 
perceived by Kurds as key to unraveling Turkey's "Deep State." 
¶4. (C) On May 18, President of the Mardin chapter of the 
Human Rights Association (IHD) attorney Erdal Uzun and his 
colleague, attorney Huseyin Cihangir, acknowledged to poloff 
that the debates of the past few weeks had created some 
optimism in the region.  However, they claimed different 
elements of the GOT continued to pursue conflicting 
approaches to the Kurdish issue.  As an example, Uzun noted 
that, even as Gul has called for dialogue, prosecutors 
recently arrested scores of DTP members and a court sentenced 
a pro-PKK, Kurdish teenage demonstrator to a 40-year prison 
sentence.  He argued that the Kemalist concept of the unity 
state was at the heart of the problem and that, as such cases 
illustrate, solving the Kurdish issue demands allowing 
freedom of expression.  (NOTE: What the comment does not 
reflect is recognition of the fact that the AKP and 
government officials often oppose actions taken by Turkey's 
 
ANKARA 00000767  002 OF 002 
 
 
independent and often staunchly secularist judiciary, 
especially cases brought by overly nationalistic prosecutors 
who see it as their duty to protect Turkey's Kemalist 
traditions and their view of Turkey's unitary identity.  END 
NOTE) 
KURDS' DEMANDS: IDENTITY AND OCALAN 
----------------------------------- 
¶5. (C) Uzun pointed to the enshrinement of Kurdish identity 
in Turkey's constitution, the easing of PKK leader Abdullah 
Ocalan's prison conditions, and the passage of a general 
amnesty for PKK fighters as keys to a solution.  He claimed 
that the current "repentance law" (article 221 of the penal 
code) aimed at encouraging PKK members to surrender 
demonstrated a completely wrong mentality or understanding. 
The PKK members did not feel that they had to "repent" for 
anything, and as long as they were asked to, it would not 
work. 
¶6. (C) In a May 21 discussion with Poloff, DTP Diyarbakir 
Deputy Provincial Chairman Fehti Gunes asserted that the PKK 
needed to be recognized as a vital component of the broader 
Kurdish movement.  It should not be condemned by the United 
States or the EU as a terrorist organization, he asserted. 
Gunes argued for the recognition by the GOT of the PKK as a 
legitimate interlocutor and the freeing of Ocalan from 
prison.  Gunes complained that Prime Minister Erdogan was not 
even willing to shake his DTP colleagues' hands in 
parliament, so how could there be true dialogue?  He said 
until the government demonstrated that it was sincere and the 
Kurdish identity was recognized and accepted, a solution 
would be impossible. 
¶7. (C) Not all of our interlocutors concentrated on the 
negative, however.  Both attorney Sezgin Tanrikulu, a member 
of the Diyarbakir chapter of the Human Rights Foundation, and 
Dicle University sociology professor Mazhar Bagli expressed 
optimism, saying conditions were ripe for greater democracy 
and reconciliation.  Bagli thought that comments made by the 
PKK's Murat Karayilan to the press signaled a new willingness 
to end the armed struggle.  In a May 12 meeting, Hamza 
Yilmaz, a Mersin-based former lawyer for PKK leader Ocalan, 
also expressed optimism about the prospects for a solution. 
He thought Erdogan was committed to reforms; elements of the 
State had held him back in the past.  Erdogan occasionally 
made missteps when he acted impulsively, but he appeared to 
again be listening to his advisers.  Yilmaz thought that 
"doves" were in ascendance in the PKK and the DTP.  He 
pointed to the ouster of Dr. Erdal Barhoz from the PKK 
leadership as an example.  He suggested that the arrests 
earlier this month of the DTP members was a coordinated 
action with the government on the part of the security 
forces.  While the government made overtures on the Kurdish 
issue, hardliners were systematically eliminated in order to 
facilitate progress.  In fact, Yilmaz claimed that moderate 
DTP members were secretly pleased with the recent arrests 
because they removed hard-line elements.  (In our subsequent 
discussions with DTP officials in Adana and Diyarbakir, any 
such satisfaction was kept well hidden, however.) 
¶8. (C) Kurds in Turkey's southeast have met pronouncements on 
desire for a solution to the Kurdish issue from GOT officials 
and senior politicians in Ankara with not so much a healthy 
sense of skepticism, but rather a jaded pessimism.  While 
some of this cynicism is a defense mechanism born of 
disappointment and knee-jerk PKK apologia, it also serves as 
a reminder that achieving consensus among the power elite of 
Ankara is one thing and producing a solution that will win 
buy-in from a majority of Kurds in the southeast will require 
hard bargaining and more demonstrative official recognition 
of the Kurdish identity. 
 
Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey 
 
SILLIMAN