Settlement Process In Real Crisis: Who's Responsible?

The settlement process launched to resolve Turkey's long-standing Kurdish issue has been on our radar for more than two years now, but for the first time ever, it's facing a serious crisis. Of course, there had been talk in the past of various threats to the process, but this time around, the situation is more critical. And at the heart of it all lies President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself.
One of the smaller past crises faced by the process was the “secretariat” crisis, which came about when it was said that imprisoned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan needed a secretariat in order to help him carry out his business. Of course, this was definitely a fake crisis; all it really meant was that some of the prisoners kept in the same prison with Öcalan were to be switched with others. Which is what happened, and the “crisis” was solved.

Then there was the Kobani crisis, which was more of a real crisis. The Kurds of Turkey were up in arms over the invasion of the border town Kobani by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces; there was a push to get Turkey to allow international assistance to make its way to Kobani via Turkish land. For example, the peshmerga forces of the Iraqi regional Kurdish leadership being able to reach Kobani with their weapons was only going to be possible if they traveled through Turkey. But the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government was not listening to these demands. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) called on people to take to the streets in protest over the situation on Oct. 6, 2014. And the next day, during a speech in Antep, President Erdoğan referred to Kobani as “being on the verge of falling.” What really wound up triggering the flood of protestors onto the streets had actually been the president's words.

As a result of the three days of protests in the Turkish Southeast, more than 50 people lost their lives. Many homes and workplaces were damaged. Lots of people were arrested. Calming the situation down was only possible when the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) received a message from Öcalan aimed at stopping the events that were unfolding.

There were some important lessons to be learned from the Kobani events. Why did the Kurds seem so angry during the “settlement process”? Finding the answer to this question, and thus calculating the real meaning of these events, is still important.

Throughout the process, we've witnessed a panoply of mini-crises often shaped around questions like “Why did the HDP delegation not go more often to Imrali?” or “Why did the delegation go late?” Of course, these crises were always presented to the public as having been major crises, with later news proclaiming, “The crisis has been resolved.”
But again, it is a real crisis that we are facing today.

The Erdoğan government got involved in preparations to create a monitoring committee, calling it “wrong.”
Words from Deputy Prime Minster and government spokesperson Bülent Arınç about how "the responsibility lies with the government” were actually completely abandoned by the government itself, left hanging in the air, so to speak. Prior to Erdoğan's personal interventions, even the individual names of the people that were to staff this committee had been leaked to the public. But no chance was ever given for debate over these names -- or their mission -- because the entire topic fell off the national agenda. What's more, one of the main coordinators for the settlement process, Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan, accused the HDP, Kandil and HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş of "poisoning the process.”

Akdoğan's statements were surprising because on Feb. 28, it was Akdoğan himself who had made a joint press statement along with the HDP delegation; right after this, Erdoğan said he had found this shared statement wrong. It was, similarly, Akdoğan who had helped clarify the names that would be on the observation committee and what the group's mission would be; and it was President Erdoğan who moved to the forefront as the main barrier to this group.
So it is that just as we enter the days when decisive steps forward are necessary and urgent in terms of seeing the settlement process into its next stages, that some actors involved really are “poisoning the process.”

In the March 30, 2014 regional elections, the greatest campaign strategy used by the AKP and Erdoğan was in fact this peace process. The same goes for the August 10, 2014 presidential election.

So what will Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the AKP say about the all-important settlement process with regards to the upcoming June general election? Might they be able to publicly admit, “If it weren't for Erdoğan, we'd be able to guide this process better”?

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)