A letter to President Obama on the US-Turkey policies vis-à-vis the Kurds and the PKK

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
 
February 22, 2013

Honorable President Obama:

Thank you for your recent support for the peace initiatives between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Your encouraging speech in the Turkish Parliament on April 6, 2009, led the Turkish authorities to engage in dialogue with the leaders of “Iraqi Kurds,” which, eventually, forged a better understanding between both sides, and created a sphere of cooperation that ended the Turkish-Kurdish rhetoric and confrontation. This new Turkish-Kurdish relationship proved that cooperation would benefit all, particularly the Turks—because, after a change in Turkish behavior, Kurdistan-Iraq became a profitable market for the Turks. This also contributed to soothing the Kurdo-phobia that was embedded in the Turkish political mentality. It enabled the Turks to realize that relations with Kurds would benefit the Turkish state.

Mr. President, your support for the Turkish-Kurdish peace dialogue in Turkey could bear similar results for the future of Turks and Kurds, only If Turkey could adopt a more practical politics for resolving the Kurdish issue. So far, the Turkish authorities have not been able to find a way out of the cycle of fear that has prevented Turkey from paving a right path and into a brighter future.

Further, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government, although more practical than any of his predecessors since the establishment of the Turkish republic, has not been forthcoming with a more pragmatic vision to approach the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. Mr. Erdoğan’s most vocal rhetoric that the PKK must disarm before Turkey takes any meaningful step to show Turkish good-will has not palliated Kurdish anxiety. Mr. President, one could ask do the Turks really want to solve the Kurdish issue or do they want to disarm the PKK? Turkish authorities need to exercise a bit more sincerity in finding a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue and stop putting “the cart before the horse.” The PKK is the direct product of the Turkish policy of denial against Kurdish existence—a policy that stems from the Turkish Constitution that, to date, reminds the world that all who live in Turkey are Turks, not “citizens of Turkey.” Turkey should know that as soon as the Kurdish issue is resolved, the PKK will disarm and would become a genuine political party. Additionally, the PKK does not have a PKK agenda—it has been struggling for Kurdish national and democratic rights, which have been suppressed and repudiated by the Turks since the creation of the Turkish republic in 1924.

Furthermore, in your 2009 speech in the Turkish Parliament, you praised the many Turkish achievements in recent years, and stated that “These new achievements have created new laws that must be implemented, and a momentum that should be sustained.” Well, it is sad to see that after about four years since you gave that speech, none of the laws to which you referred has been implemented. All the Turkish authorities have done is political maneuvering without a change of a single Article of the Constitution that denies the Kurdish existence.  Further, on the one hand, Turkish government has opened a dialogue and entered into negotiation with Mr. Öcalan, head of the PKK. On the other hand, Mr. Erdoğan continues to use uncompromising and threatening language against the PKK. Here, one could ask why would he negotiate with the head while attacking the body. 

Exactly one day after his negotiating team met with Mr. Öcalan—Mr. Erdoğan claimed that he would do everything to disarm the PKK – ignoring the fact that disarmament of the PKK would be part of the fulfillment of an overall negotiation agenda. This was followed by the Paris murders of three Kurdish female diplomats, which traced to Mr. Omar Güney—reportedly, an agent of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT). Later in a news conference, Erdoğan said, he would guarantee safe passage for any PKK fighters to leave Turkey. This contradicting behavior of Mr. Erdoğan is not helping to reassure the Kurds that he is sincere in finding a genuine political solution and ending bloodshed in Turkey.  It is noteworthy that since 1993, the PKK leadership under Mr. Abdullah Öcalan, occasionally, has unilaterally ceased fire to give peaceful settlement a chance and end bloodshed. Every time, Turkish authorities announced, “We will not negotiate with terrorists.”

Turkey and its allies including the United States call these beautiful men and women in Qandil and elsewhere “terrorists”—men and women, who have given up everything in their lives and chose the most difficult condition of life only to serve their oppressed people. Well, if indeed these brave men and women are “terrorists,” then millions more peace-loving Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan and abroad—could be called “terrorists.” Mr. President, you know an oppressed people whose existence has been denied cannot be “terrorists.” Kurds have engaged in struggle only to be able to live in peace like Turks and other free nations.  If this label is true, it would mean the British crown could have called every settler in the US fighting for a free nation prior to 1776 a “terrorist.”  Further, in the past, the U.S. government had colluded with other oppressive regimes in labeling freedom fighters such as Nelson Mandela as “terrorists.”  Labeling the sons and daughters of Kurdish people who have been fighting for decades to protect their national integrity is not in line with American values and needs to stop—it has toxic and fatal consequences for the innocent people of Kurdistan. We understand that The US shares some important common interests with Turkey, we respect that—but it should not be at the expense of the oppressed Kurds.

Mr. President, the US public support for Turkey in going after the PKK has helped the Turks to take a harder stance with regard to Kurdish rights. They have been using the PKK as a pretext to continue their policy of oppression.  As mentioned above, the PKK does not have its own organizational agenda—it leads a national movement and enjoys a massive support among the people of Kurdistan. It was the PKK that exhumed the dead body of the Kurdish people out of the grave, gave life to and put it back on the international political arena. The PKK has been fighting for recognition of the identity of the most oppressed people in the world. Please don’t allow Turkey to misuse the US support against the Kurds who struggle for their inalienable rights which, according to the U.S. Declaration of Independence are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.    

Mr. President, Kurds are not enemies of the Turks, Persians, and Arabs. They are not enemies of the Western countries nor are they enemies of the United States. All they have been struggling for is to achieve their national and democratic rights. Yet they have been suffering unimaginably as the direct result of Western colonial policies and the way in which the Western powers divided the Kurds and their land. Consequently Kurds were left to be targeted by the policies of assimilation and oppression implemented by the ultra-nationalist governments of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq—these nations, together and with the help of their superpower friends, have been able to keep the people of Kurdistan under the policy of denial and oppression.

February 15, 2013 marked the fourteenth year commemoration of the capture of Mr. Öcalan.  The US-Israeli involvement crucially contributed to capturing and handing over Mr. Öcalan to Turkey. Nonetheless, this plot did not break Mr. Öcalan’s spirit nor did it weaken the PKK—and it certainly failed to subdue and prevent the Kurds from pouring into the streets of cities and towns of Kurdistan-Turkey to pursue their God-given rights. In the last fourteen years, Mr. Öcalan has been leading the Kurdish movement from inside of his prison cell in Imrali Island just as the honorable Nelsen Mandela did from his prison cell in Robben Island in South Africa. Mr. Öcalan is the leader who genuinely recognized and promoted the status of Kurdish women in every possible aspect. He did not separate the struggle for the rights of Kurdish women from the struggle for national rights. Calling such a visionary leader a “terrorist” would only harm the peace process in Turkey, and reminds the people of Kurdistan about America’s lack of sincerity in helping them to find a better future. Thus, we believe, the time has come for America as a leading superpower to play its role and contribute to the Turkish-Kurdish peace process by pressuring Turkey to transvalue the Kurdish cause and adopt a practical roadmap to establish a lasting peace with the Kurds. Mr. President, please de-list the PKK from your list of “terrorist” organizations and help to release Mr. Öcalan from Turkish prison and end Kurdish misery. We shall pray for your continued success.

 
Sincerely yours,
Kirmanj Gundi
Kirmanj Gundi, Ed. D.
Professor