Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

​​Over the course of his career, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has broken many taboos in Turkish politics.

He is the first prime minister from the country's pious-conservative underclass, the first prime minister whose wife wears a headscarf, and is the first head of government in Turkey to have publicly spoken of the "Kurdish problem" and to have praised his party for being the best political representative of the Kurds in his country.

Under Erdogan's government, the Turkish state has allowed Kurds considerably more rights in recent years. Kurdish newspapers, Kurdish language courses, and radio and television broadcasts in the Kurdish language are now possible – even when under strict conditions.

The Kurds have also profited from the general growth of freedom of expression as a result of Turkey's application to join the EU.

Open approach to the Kurdish problem

The most important thing, however, is how open Erdogan has been in dealing with the Kurdish issue. He has met with Kurdish intellectuals in order to discuss ways of solving the conflict.

In August 2005, during a keynote speech in Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital city of the Kurdish area, the prime minister publicly admitted that the state had made mistakes in its relations with the country's around twelve million Kurds. "The Kurdish problem is everyone's problem and mine in particular," said Erdogan at the time.

In a country where state unity is regarded as the highest good, another remark by the prime minister seemed nothing short of revolutionary. He stated that as long as the idea of belonging to the Turkish nation was accepted as a main identity, individuals were free to develop their own sub-identity. These were hopeful words to the ears of the Kurds. Even the separatist PKK rebel group reacted positively to the prime minister's initiative.

Subdued economic improvement in the Kurdish area

As a politician who sees the creation of prosperity as the way of ensuring long-term electoral success, Erdogan also promised more state investment in the impoverished Kurdish region. According to government information, billions of euros have flowed into the southeast of the country in recent years.

In cities like Diyarbakir, this funding and a period of relative calm between the forces of the Turkish army and the PKK have resulted in the establishment of small islands of prosperity.

Western fast-food restaurants, supermarkets, and shopping centers have appeared and for the first time there is something akin to nightlife. In some parts of the Kurdish area, new infrastructure projects, such as the construction of a four-lane highway, have begun.

These initiatives have paid off for Erdogan. In the parliamentary elections held in July, the AKP won with a nation-wide landslide of almost 47 percent of the vote.

In addition, Erdogan succeeded in capturing the greatest number of seats in the Kurdish areas of southeast Anatolia, coming ahead of all the other parties, including the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which managed to circumvent the 10 percent threshold by running independent candidates.

The flip side of success

Considering their previous election successes in which they had won up to 60 percent of the vote in the Kurdish region, the DTP was not expecting strong competition. Election day, however, turned out to be a bittersweet experience for the DTP.

Even though they managed to elect 20 parliamentarians to the National Assembly in Ankara and form the first Kurdish parliamentary group in Turkish history, the success of the AKP was simultaneously a disappointment for the Kurdish party.

In Turkey's southeast provinces, the country's central Kurdish region, Erdogan's party won almost 52 percent of the votes – some five percentage points higher than the national average. In Diyarbakir, the AKP improved upon its 16 percent vote in 2002, winning 41 percent this time.

There are now 75 politicians among the 340 AKP parliamentarians who come from the Kurdish areas. This is why Erdogan recently began calling his party the "true representative of the Kurds."

Yet, the picture isn't as glowing as Erdogan wants to present it. When the prime minister spoke about the "Kurdish problem," a storm of protest arose from the military and nationalist opposition parties. Since then, Erdogan and other AKP politicians have carefully avoided the phrase.

Need for political and economic proposals

Beset by the recent wave of violence on the part of the PKK rebels in the Kurdish region, Erdogan has increasingly made use his own nationalist rhetoric. Despite all efforts, this situation has resulted in the Kurdish region not being able to fully participate in the economic upswing enjoyed by the rest of the country.

The average per capita income in Diyarbakir is around 1300 dollars annually, whereas the Turkish average is 5500 dollars. Some observers are already predicting that this will cost the AKP votes in the Kurdish region during local elections set for next March.

If Erdogan and the AKP want to continue the course they set in recent years, then they have to act quickly to provide the people in the Kurdish region with concrete results. There is repeated talk of new investment programs and incentives for companies to settle in southeast Anatolia, but until now these announcements have been implemented in a very fragmentary manner.

According to reports from government-aligned media, this is about to change. There are now opportunities at the political level to give new emphasis to Kurdish policies. A number of former military chiefs of staff have admitted to committing great mistakes on policies towards the Kurds during their tenures.

Such remarks from within the ranks of the military, which is beyond all doubt of harboring any pro-Kurdish sentiments, allows Erdogan a certain degree of political leverage, which he can use in the coming weeks and months. This time he won't have to break any more taboos.

Susanne Güsten

© Qantara.de 2007

Translated from the German by John Bergeron

Qantara.de

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