Commentaries

Commentaries #25

Chronology of the PKK: From group formation to party (1973–1980)

By Prof. Joost Jongerden, University of Wageningen 

Executive summary: 

The Kurdistan Workers Party (Partîya Karkêren Kurdistan, PKK) is often considered a latecomer that miraculously survived the 1980 military coup. Yet the establishment of the party in 1978 was preceded by a long process of group formation that started shortly after the 1971 military coup in Turkey. This article presents a chronology of the PKK during the 1970s. 

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Colonial continuities in the Kurdish liberation
By Jan Yasin Sunca, Bielefeld University

Executive summary: 

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The Implications of Turkish Interventions in Rojava for US and EU Foreign Policies
by Dr. Veysi Dağ, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and SOAS

Executive summary: 

This essay focuses on the anti-intellectualism in Turkey in relation to the oppression, persecution, and discrediting of critical academics. It shows how this anti-intellectualism affects the reproduction and re-legitimation of war policies in regards to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. To this end, first it presents excerpts from in-depth interviews with academics who were dismissed from universities by presidential decrees for This paper examines how Turkish invasions into Northern Syria’s Kurdish enclave undermine US and European policy objectives. It argues that the Turkish state, obsessed with Kurdish hostility, endangers American and European foreign policies by further destabilising war-torn Syria, facilitating the empowerment of Islamist extremist groups, impeding a peaceful resolution to Syria’s protracted conflict, and assisting Russia’s anti-Western interests. The paper suggests that the US and Europe could rather deploy a dual strategy aimed at exerting pressure on Turkey to discontinue its disruptive and belligerent actions. To cease targeting anti-ISIS Kurdish forces, Turkey must either resume the Kurdish-Turkish peace process or risk being designated as a rival state, analogous to Russia, and subjected to punitive sanctions.
https://journals.tplondon.com/com/article/view/2951

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Anti-intellectualism and discrediting of critical academics in Turkey: an approach to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict
by Serhat Tutkal, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Executive summary: 

This essay focuses on the anti-intellectualism in Turkey in relation to the oppression, persecution, and discrediting of critical academics. It shows how this anti-intellectualism affects the reproduction and re-legitimation of war policies in regards to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict. To this end, first it presents excerpts from in-depth interviews with academics who were dismissed from universities by presidential decrees for signing a peace petition criticizing the military operations and human rights violations in Kurdish-majority cities. Subsequently, it shows some Twitter entries from a larger dataset where critical academics are attacked to legitimize police violence in a university campus. It concludes with underlining the importance of re-legitimation of critical academics and intellectual work in Turkey if authoritarianism is to be overcome.
https://journals.tplondon.com/com/article/view/2856

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Kurdistan under new qttacks
by Terry Saltsmann and Prof. Michael Gunter 

The Turkish November 19, 2022, attack on Rojava dubbed Operation Claw-Sword was reputedly launched in retaliation for the earlier November 13 bomb attack on Istanbul’s sleek shopping district known as Istiklal Street that killed six people and wounded at least 80 more. Although it made no sense for the Kurds to attack Istanbul and thus invite new Turkish wrath, Turkey quickly blamed the PKK and its kin Syrian Democratic Forces/Democratic Union Party/Peoples’ Defense Units (SDF/PYD/YPG) in Rojava for the atrocity despite their quick denial. On November 22, Turkey escalated these air strikes by hitting an SDF/PYD/YPG military base adjacent to the main US military base in northeastern Syria housing some of the approximately 900 remaining few but strategically important troops the United States still maintains in Syria. No U.S. casualties were reported.

However, a Pentagon spokesman declared that the Turkish airstrike had “directly threatened” U.S. troops stationed in the area. Thus, there is the danger of disastrous miscalculations that could lead to Turkish clashes with the United States. Although there is no credible evidence about who perpetrated the original bombing in Istanbul, one might speculate that some rogue Turkish intelligence element carried out a false flag operation to win support for Erdogan’s upcoming reelection scheduled for June 18, 2023. The PKK and SDF/PYD/YPG have accused Turkey of having used such attacks as a pretext for invasions in the past. General Mazloum Abdi (aka Mazlum Kobane), the SDF commander, claimed the reputed bomber, Ahlam Al-Bashir, was related to ISIS jihadists via her brothers and past husbands, some of whom were killed in battles against Kurdish forces. Also possible is a reputed rogue PKK element, such as the so-called Kurdistan Falcons/Hawks blamed in the past for similar violent atrocities. A jihadist group might also be responsible. Meanwhile, the midterm elections in the United States paradoxically both strengthened and weakened U.S. president Joseph Biden’s hand in all this.

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