Time for urban battle in Kurdish cities
As of May 8, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has begun to retreat from Turkey. Expectedly, many people interpret this development as a sign we are moving toward permanent peace. Analysts close to the government claim that the PKK will disarm in the fall and wait to return to politics. This optimistic scenario is constantly pumped out by pro-government media outlets to raise hopes for peace.
However, should we really hope to see peace permanently established in a few months? What is the PKK's Plan B for the “peace period?”
While the pro-government media claim peace is on the horizon, there are many developments that lead us to questions these government sources. First, the PKK network is working hard to recruit more members. Just last month, nearly 80 new militants were recruited from the province of Hakkari. This is the highest number of new recruits the PKK has ever found from one province in one month. Furthermore, the PKK network has intensified its activities in urban centers. The collection of money from almost all shop owners in urban centers of the Southeast has become a daily activity that the state has not been able to do anything about.
In addition to these activities, newly emerging youth groups linked to the PKK have begun to dominate major urban centers in the Southeast and to intensify pressure on non-PKK supporters, groups and networks to force them from the region. In recent months, more than 20 civil society institutions and civilians, including a few schools and their dormitories, have been targeted by these PKK-affiliated groups. However, the media are silent when it comes to reporting these incidents so as not to harm the peace process.
In recent days, the PKK-affiliated youth movement the Revolutionary Patriotic Youth Movement (DCGM-H) in Hakkari issued a memorandum and circulated it while Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) head Selahattin Demirtaş was visiting the city. The group stated in its memorandum that “we established a youth group to combat prostitution and religious networks as well as to prevent assimilation policies, protect people from police pressure and create a youth political movement in our region.”
The group has claimed responsibility for a violent attack on a school opened by the Gülen movement, inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, in Hakkari as well as for setting fire to a car owned by a teacher who they claim has close ties to the Gülen network. The group also stated in its memorandum that “the people of Hakkari should not support the Gülen movement or other religious networks and should not to send their children to state schools or schools opened by the Gülen network.”
This is just one example of a PKK-affiliated group pressuring non-PKK groups and the general public. You can see many other instances of similar pressures. Another example happened in Şırnak. Last week, Molotov cocktails were thrown at seven institutions in an effort to intimidate non-PKK supporters in the region.
Moreover, the Turkish press reported that the PKK kidnapped the mayor of the town of Silopi, Hüsnü Yıldırım, last week in order to force him to resign from office. Although the mayor had been elected from the pro-PKK BDP, he had long been in a dispute with his own party. Over the past year, BDP officials had pushed him to resign but he refused. His house was set on fire and he was later kidnapped, apparently by PKK militants.
One could cite many more such examples of pressure in urban centers during the peace process. Despite the fact that the government claims to be smoothly transitioning the country to peace in a short period of time, the facts in the streets of Kurdish towns indicate the opposite.
It seems that urban centers will be the new battleground, but the degree of violence seen will lessen in the coming months. Perhaps PKK militants will not use AK-47s, but they will certainly use various other methods and weapons to intimidate non-PKK supporters in the region.
Will this generate peace? I am not sure.
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