Handle Ocalan Arrest With Care

The capture of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, is a triumphal event for Turkey. Ocalan has conducted an armed struggle against Turkey for 15 years, including the use of terror against Turkish civilian and military personnel and installations and even the killing of many pro-government Kurds. His capture could represent a turning point in the whole Kurdish issue in one of several directions.

While a terrorist to Turks, to large numbers of Kurds, Ocalan is a Kurdish patriot fighting for Kurdish rights in Turkey and neighboring states. Even if they do not approve of his methods and the closed, harsh, authoritarian character of his leadership, many Kurds perceive him as a vital symbol of protest and the sole pressure point upon Ankara to gain formal recognition of their ethnic identity and aspirations.

The Kurds--perhaps some 25 million people--are the largest nationality in the world without a state of their own; they are divided up among Turkey (20% of Turkey’s population), Iraq, Iran and Syria. This geographical division coupled with regional feudalism and dialect differences have historically hindered the Kurds’ ability to unite as a single people.

But like many other ethnic groups in the world, the Kurds’ own sense of ethnic identity has been rising in past decades and is not reversible. The supreme challenge to Turkey will be to wisely manage their Kurds’ aspirations for some degree of regional autonomy and economic development and for cultural and linguistic self-expression. Right now, any official use of the language--including Kurdish-language school, radio or TV--is banned.

In point of fact, Kurds do not suffer discrimination in Turkey as long as they assume Turkish identity. But they are denied most channels of expression of their Kurdish identity. Also, their region is economically backward and the state’s heavy-handed counterinsurgency tactics have destroyed more than 3,000 villages and created millions of refugees. Human rights violations in Turkey have been the most egregious against politicized Kurds and even against numerous Turkish journalists who seek to report objectively on the situation.

Turkey’s policies toward the Kurds have in fact cost it especially dearly in Europe, where Turkey’s hard-line policies and serious democratic deficiencies deeply prejudice its case for European Union membership.

The capture of Ocalan, used wisely, could permit the Turkish government to claim that it has fundamentally defeated the armed struggle and is now ready to get on with a political solution. Ocalan has never been an ideal leader, and a more thoughtful, politically attractive and savvy leader could now emerge in his place.

That may not be good news for Turkey with its current policies, especially since the trial of Ocalan, if not handled right, presents Ankara with major problems, attracting international press coverage, putting Turkish justice itself on trial and perhaps creating a national martyr for the Kurdish population. Handled correctly, however, his trial could also present a major opportunity for the government to demonstrate a new tolerance toward Kurdish political activity in the country among moderate, nonviolent and democratic Kurdish leaders. Turkey should have the self-confidence to move in this direction.

But there are no guarantees the government will act wisely. Unfortunately, with elections coming up in April, the government is in the process of actually closing down the only pro-Kurdish party under the charge that it has “links to the PKK.” Suppression of the Kurdish identity will only drive Kurdish votes into the arms of Turkey’s large and powerful Islamist party--itself perhaps also to be banned.

In reality, most Kurds in Turkey do not wish to separate, but if Ankara does not handle the issue of minority rights with wisdom and sensitivity, their Kurdish population will eventually conclude that separation is the only viable option. Meanwhile, the PKK may now abandon the military phase--a losing prospect anyway--for the political arena. But Kurdish frustration and anger, left unattended, could inaugurate a truly volatile stage of urban terrorism as well.

Turkey matters a lot in this world as a key ally in a hot region--a major player in the Balkans, Mediterranean, Middle East, Caucasus, Caspian and Central Asia. The Kurdish issue has been in part exploited by states unfriendly to Turkey: Greece, Armenia, Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran--even Britain in the 1920s. How long will Turkey offer its opponents this “Kurdish card” to be used against itself?

The international dimensions of the Kurdish struggle affect both the future of Iraq and Turkish willingness to contemplate autonomy for Kurds in northern Iraq--up to now a threat to Turkey. Israel’s new security treaty with Turkey reportedly has involved Israeli intelligence in the struggle against the PKK. A further backlash against Israel and even the U.S. is not inconceivable. Europe cannot stay out of the Kurdish problem, given the presence of several million Kurds there and Kurdish demonstrations across 20 European cities in the past few days. The Kurds will likely make Europe the center of a struggle that is now foursquare on the world’s political map.

In the end, only a satisfied Kurdish minority will create a strong Turkey that hostile neighbors cannot manipulate. Washington needs Turkey as an ally, but the value of that ally will be vastly less if Turkey makes itself a global political pariah.

Turkey aspires to be a European nation; if so, it will have to comply with a standard of political behavior that is more in keeping with the remarkable advances the country has made in this century toward democratic governance and a booming economy. It can celebrate the capture of a terrorist by all means, but it ignores the roots of that terrorism at great peril. Washington must make that clear to Ankara, as a friend.