Commentaries

Delisting the PKK as a terrorist organization

|by Prof. Michael Gunter

|Executive Summary:

Delisting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization would be a bold, imaginative move by Turkey, the European Union (EU), and the United States (US), among others, that might contribute to the peace process and benefit all concerned parties. However, Turkey presently does not want to acknowledge collective rights for its ethnic Kurds, and is willing to grant merely limited and begrudgingly individual rights such as mother-tongue language in the schools and a Kurdish TV channel, among a few others. Thus, there remains a very long way still to go, but delisting the PKK is surely one important start along this necessary journey.

https://journals.tplondon.com/com/article/view/2122

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Kurdish Allies and Kurdish Enemies: Turkey’s New War Against The PKK

|By Kamal Chomani and Dastan Jasim

|Executive Summary:

This paper focuses on the post-2015 Turkish warfare against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and the long-running relationship between the Turkish state and the ruling Barzani family. The commentary presents an overview of the interests behind the Ankara-Erbil coalition and the wider stakes in the current conflict.

It is argued that the Turkish military operations not only have taken a great toll on the civilian population of the KRI and the ecology of the region, but destabilizes the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. A full-blown civil war in the KRI between the PKK and KDP provoked by Turkey could be the final straw removing the last of the post-Islamic State stability in Iraq.

https://journals.tplondon.com/com/article/view/2101

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Turkish Paramilitaries during the Conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party

|By Dr. Ayhan Işık

|Executive Summary:

This paper focuses on how the paramilitary organisations of the Turkish state have transformed and been used over time as a ‘useful’ tool against dissidents, especially the Kurds. Paramilitary groups have been one of the main actors in the war between the Turkish state and the PKK, which has been ongoing for nearly forty years. These groups have sometimes been used as auxiliary forces and at other times made into death squads operating alongside the official armed forces, and they have mainly been used against Kurdish civilians who allegedly supportthe PKK, especially at the height of the war in unsolved murders, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings since the 1980.

In this article, I argue that the Turkish state elites use this apparatus not only in domestic politics but also in conflicts in the Middle East and the Caucasus and that this paramilitary tradition of the state even extends to western Europe.

 https://journals.tplondon.com/com/article/view/2062/1403

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On the Collateral Impact of Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn: Re-securitization of the Kurdish Issue and the Kurds’ Struggle for Minority Recognition and Self-Determination

|By Dr Emre Turkut

|Executive Summary:

Since the collapse of the peace process in 2015, the Turkish Government has sought to turn every move towards Kurdish rights into an existential threat – a process led to the re-securitization of the Kurdish question. Ever since the descent of Turkey into an authoritarian polity has begun in the aftermath of the June 2015 elections, the Kurdish minority has suffered a brutal crackdown marked by high of political imprisonment and greater restrictions on freedom of assembly and association and on electoral aspects of self-determination. This commentary will take a closer look at the dire consequences of the collateral impact of Turkey’s authoritarian turn on the Kurdish political movement from the perspectives of minority rights and self-determination.

https://journals.tplondon.com/com/article/view/2001/1257

EU Turkey Civic Commission
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What Will Happen to the Kurds If the US Withdraws from Syria and Iraq?

by Dr. Arzu Yılmaz

Executive Summary:

The future of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria after a US withdrawal has already begun to take shape. The containment of Kurdish political and military cross‐border mobility has been achieved to some extent by paving the way for Turkey’s military operations; it is now contingent on the recomposition of a desired ‘favorable balance of power” to fill the power vacuum in the Middle East. With an aggressive Turkish stance in the region, however, neither this containment policy nor the efforts made toward themaintenance of the “favorable balance of power” can be successful.