Kurds’ return to Turkey may mark dawn of new peace

Thomas Seibert, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: October 21. 2009 1:59AM UAE / October 20. 2009 9:59PM GMT

Supporters of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, hold pictures of their jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, as they move towards Turkey from northern Iraq. Reuters

ISTANBUL // The voluntary return of Kurdish rebel supporters to Turkey from exile in northern Iraq could mark the beginning of the end to a war that has plagued the country for 25 years and cost tens of thousands of lives, officials and observers say.

“Good things are happening in Turkey,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, told deputies of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, in Ankara yesterday.

A total of 34 people, including children but also unarmed fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party ( PKK) arrived at the Habur border crossing between Turkey and Iraq on Monday, awaited by Turkish state prosecutors and a crowd of well-wishers. Besir Atalay, the interior minister, said he expected a further 100 to 150 PKK supporters from Iraq shortly.

After being questioned until the early hours yesterday, 29 people of the Habur group were released. Authorities were checking records of the remaining five people before deciding whether to charge them with membership in a terrorist organisation. Mr Erdogan welcomed the release of most of the returnees as “extremely positive”.

Most of the Kurds arriving in Habur came from the UN-run Makhmur refugee camp in Iraq, seen as a PKK bastion by Turkey. They were joined by eight PKK fighters from the rebels’ main hideout in the Kandil mountains in northern Iraq. All are Turkish citizens.

Although the group was relatively small given the scale and the long history of Turkey’s Kurdish conflict, their arrival at the border was seen as a significant event. The Radikal newspaper quoted an unnamed high-ranking government official as saying that the arrival could be a turning point. “Beginning of a new era for the republic,” a headline in the Taraf newspaper said.

By returning to Turkey, the group followed an appeal from Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed PKK leader, issued via his lawyers. Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on the prison island of Imrali, close to Istanbul, also called on two other Kurdish “peace groups” to enter Turkey. The voluntary return of the PKK supporters was designed to “open the way for a peaceful and democratic development” in the Kurdish question, Ahmet Turk, leader of the Party for a Democratic Society, or DTP, Turkey’s main Kurdish party, said about the initiative.

Ten years ago, a similar move by the PKK resulted in the arrest of those who returned, some of whom are still in prison. That is why much will depend on the way the new group is treated by Turkish authorities, observers said. Turkish laws offer an amnesty for lower-rank PKK militants. “If there are no serious problems during the return of the three groups [mentioned by Ocalan], others may come and we may see the disarmament of the PKK,” Rusen Cakir, a columnist and PKK expert, wrote in the daily Vatan.

Mr Atalay said an additional 100 to 150 could arrive at the border shortly, the NTV news channel reported.

According to news reports, the group that arrived in Habur carried a letter to the government listing political demands of the PKK, including more language rights for Turkey’s 12 million Kurds, a new constitution recognising Kurdish identity, and an end to military operations in predominantly Kurdish south-eastern Anatolia. The letter said Kurds were a “part of Turkey’s democratic nation”, confirming that the PKK no longer demands a separate Kurdish state, an aim the rebels had when they took up arms in 1984.

Some of the PKK’s demands tie in with government plans for the region. Mr Erdogan has promised a reform package for a democratic solution of the Kurdish conflict by the end of the year. Reports say the plan calls for an introduction of Kurdish-language courses in state schools and the return of Kurdish names to towns given Turkish names in the past, among other measures.

Polls show Mr Erdogan’s plans have the support of up to 64 per cent of the Turkish electorate. The initiative has also raised hopes for an end to the fighting in the Kurdish area itself, which could make it harder to the PKK to find new recruits.