Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti
Since taking power in 2002, Erdogan's
Justice and Development Party has lifted
bans on Kurdish-language broadcasting
and education and called for a political
solution to end the PKK insurrection. Al¬
most half the voters in the southeast
backed the party in the July elections,
helping Erdogan capture 341 seats in the
550-member parliament.
People voted for Justice because they
believed it has the power to solve the
Kurdish problem," said Akboga, 33.
Now the fear of bombs has eroded that
hope."
Increased government aid to the region
for health care, basic services and educa¬
tion also drew Kurdish support, said Ah¬
met Sen, head of Hakkari's chamber of
commerce. Hakkari's annual per-capita
I Christian
Science Monitor;?'*^
income is $1,000, less than a fifth of the
national average, and unemployment is
about 60 percent, he said.
Any Turkish military operation ' 'shouldn't
affect the livelihoods" of people on either
side of the border, Foreign Minister Ali
Babacan told reporters in Ankara today.
Economic Mainstays
The conflict with the PKK has nearly wiped
out the former economic mainstays of
agriculture and animal husbandry as thou¬
sands of Kurds have fled fighting near
their villages for the town, where the
population more than doubled in the
1990s to 70,000 now.
Hakkari province's sole border crossing to
Iraq has been shut for two decades, Sen
said. Erdogan last week threatened trade
November 01. 2007
restrictions to force Iraqi Kurds who run
the semi- autonomous area there to crack
down on the PKK.
Ali Ozdemir, 42, works for a Turkish cons¬
truction company in northern Iraq and
hasn't returned to his job because he
fears an all-out war. He estimated 4,000
Turkish nationals work in Iraq's north,
where
ties.
Kurds have family and linguistic
' 'These borders don't mean much to us,
and an attack on north Iraq is an attack
on our brothers," said Ozdemir, who voted
for Erdogan in the last election. ' 'Justice
won with the hope to end this conflict. A
war will extinguish our optimism."
Why Turks no longer love the U.S.
US Secretary Rice arrives Friday to defuse tensions over Kurdish rebels in Iraq.
By Yiaal Schleifer I Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Istanbul, Turkey The US has
hailed Turkey as moderate
Islamic democracy, the kind it would
like to see develop elsewhere. It's a
key NATO ally, with US aircraft
stationed here.
Yet, as Secretary of State Condoleez¬
za Rice arrives in Ankara Friday to
defuse tensions over Kurdish rebels
operating in Iraq, she faces a nation
that is now the most anti-American in
the world, according to one survey. In
the meetings with Ms. Rice, and next
Monday in Washington with President
Bush, Turkey's prime minister is
expected to press the US to take
steps against the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) rebels in Iraq.
That might help soften attitudes here
toward the US. But given the depth of
anti-American feeling that has deve¬
loped in just the past few years, few
expect Turkish public opinion to turn
quickly.
In a recent global survey by the Pew
Research Center, only 9 percent of
Turks held a favorable view of the
United States (down from 52 percent
in 2000), a figure that placed Turkey
at the rock bottom of the 46 countries
surveyed.
"People have become accustomed to
this plot line of America being a threat
to Turkish national security. This was
inconceivable five years ago, but now
it has come to be the prevailing view,"
says Ihsan Dagi, a professor of inter¬
national relations at Ankara's Middle
East Technical University.
That perception has been reinforced
in the past two years by some of
Turkey's most popular books and
films which portray the US and Tur¬
key at odds - if not at war. Turkey's
all-time box office champ, 2006's
"Valley of the Wolves," saw a ragtag
14
Turkish force square off heroically
against a whole division of bloodthirs¬
ty American soldiers in northern Iraq.
"Metal Storm," a bestselling political
fantasy book from the year before,
went even further, describing an all
out war between Ankara and Was¬
hington in the not so distant future (the
year 2007, to be exact), in which
Turkey ultimately prevails with the
help of Russia and the European
Union.
Analysts say the public's mood re¬
presents a trend that has worrying
implications for the future health of the
ties between the two NATO allies.
"The public is really convinced that
the United States is no longer a friend
and ally. That is really frustrating,"
says Professor Dagi.
Real life events have also done little
to improve America's image in Tur¬
key. The recent passage by a US
congressional committee of a resolu¬
tion recognizing the mass killing of
Armenians in the final days of the
Ottoman Empire as a genocide -
something Turkey strongly rejects -
set public opinion aflame.
At the same time, the renewed at¬
tacks on Turkish forces by PKK
guerrillas have only strengthened the
widespread belief that Washington is
doing little to get rid of the PKK in
northern Iraq. Ankara has been buil¬
ding up its troops on the Iraqi border
and threatening an invasion, some¬
thing Washington strongly opposes.
"The clearest fact is that the real
threats against Turkey come not from
its neighbors, but from its 'allies' and
each new development brings Turkey
face to face with its Western allies,"
Ali Bulac, a columnist for the liberal-
Islamic Zaman newspaper, recently
wrote. "The United States ... is taking
its place on the stage as the force
behind the PKK."
Says Gunduz Aktan, a former Turkish
ambassador who is currently a par¬
liamentarian with the right-wing
Nationalist Action Party (MHP): "The
entire Turkish public opinion now is
one of frustration and exasperation
and a kind of acute expectation of the
US to do something meaningful and
concrete [on the PKK issue] and to
understand the problem that we have
in Turkey."
But experts say Turkey's growing
anti-Americanism also has a domes¬
tic element. The success of the Isla¬
mic-rooted ruling Justice and Deve¬
lopment Party (AKP) has forced
Turkey to confront the issue of how to
reconcile secularism with Islam,
while the renewal of PKK violence
has again brought to the surface the
decades-long struggle to square a
strong national Turkish identity with
the country's diverse ethnic identities.
"Turkey is caught right now between
East and West, between Islam and
secularism, between Kurdish and
Turkish nationalism," says Omer
Taspinar, director of the Turkey
program at the Brookings Institution, a
Washington think tank. "Since the
cold war ended, we are living in an
era where all the problems that defi¬
ned the Turkish Republic in the early
years are back, and Turkey is
ming the West for this."
bla¬
The Rice visit and Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's trip
to the White House on Nov. 5 are part
of an effort to stave off any further
deterioration in US-Turkish relations.
"I will openly tell him [President
George Bush] that we expect
concrete, immediate steps against the
terrorists," Mr. Erdogan recently told
parliamentarians from his party. "The
problem of the PKK terrorist organi¬
zation is a test of sincerity for every¬
body," he said. "This test carries
great importance for the region and in
determining the fate of our future
relations."
Observers inside and outside Turkey
say Ankara could play a role in easing
regional tensions by dropping its
objections to speaking directly with
the Kurdish Regional Government in
northern Iraq and its leader, Massoud
Barzani.
But METU's Dagi says that without
American action on the PKK front,
there is little Ankara can do to defuse
the public's growing dislike of the US.
"The government has somehow been
taken hostage by this public mood,"
he says. "The first thing is to deal with
this mood, and in that America has to
contribute something."
Most Anti-American Nations
Percentage surveyed with an unfavo¬
rable view of the US
1 . Turkey - 83 percent
2. Pakistan - 68
3. Morocco -56
4. Argentina -72
5. Jordan - 78
6. Egypt - 78
7. Malaysia -69
8. Indonesia -66
9. Germany -66
10. Spain -60
Source: June 2007 Pew Global Attitu¬
des Project (Pewglobal.org)