Gulan: Tension in Hewler and Ankara

http://www.gulan-media.com/h634/g50.pdf

Last week the news from Hewler were shocking. On Wednesday a suicide bomb killed at least nineteen people. I hope it is again peaceful there. If it can be after such a painful attack. Who benefits of it? My readers in Kurdistan know the situation better than I do.

Could Turkey be involved in the attack? It transfers more soldiers to the boarder and threatens South Kurdistan by all possible means. Agents of Jitem, the intelligence service of Turkish Gendarmerie, have been seen in South Kurdistan. There are rumours that they have participated in bomb explosions in Kerkuk. But I have never heard that Jitem would have been involved in suicide attacks.

This thinking can sound an exaggeration but I have found similar deliberation in internet. Investigations about the bomb explosion continue. All connections behind the attack must be found.

In Turkey the election campaigns go on with full speed. AKP and Recep Tayyip Erdogan are not giving up to the pressure from the army.

European Union has also commented the power struggle. According to Turkish Daily News EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said the seventh May that democratic secularism is one of the Copenhagen criteria. I looked quickly at Copenhagen criteria but I did not find there any mention about secularism. I must study the criteria more.

The power struggle in Turkey is not between Islam and secularism. It is between democracy and militarism. Democracy and secularism are not the same thing despite the Deep State wants Turkish people to think so.

It is dangerous if EU distributes an image that it accepts only secular Turkey. EU has not supported the democracy process in Turkey. In addition to Kurdish organisations AKP has been the only power which has effectively demanded it in Turkey.

EU ignored the rights of Kurds in the membership negotiating process. What was the effect of this? Kurds became suspicious about EU.

Recent predictions promise Erdogan and AKP a good result in the parliament elections. What other choices Turks have than vote AKP when they want to get army out of power? EU must see this. Otherwise it will loose the support of Turks in addition to the support of Kurds.

There are Turks who are against army. I hope they could make cooperation with Kurds. But I am sceptical that this could happen soon. Mehmet Ali Birand, the columnist of Turkish Daily News, demands often change in his writings. Last Friday he wrote about the Kurdish party DTP taking part in elections. Birand wrote about DTP and PKK that "the PKK is dominant in every office". He thinks that when DTP will be in parliament "it will be inevitable that the relationship between the party and the PKK and Imrali will change...The DTP deputies will become powerful and in time they might oppose Imrali and the PKK."

This is again one form of "divide and rule" mentality. Birand does not understand that Kurds started guerrilla warfare because they could not get their rights by political ways in the post-military coup Turkey. There is no need for guerrilla army if the problems are solved by normal ways.

Birand's thinking is so different than Masoud Barzani's answer to Cem Özdemir's question about PKK last week in Brussels. He said that the PKK is a political question that cannot be solved by military means. Barzani was ready to take part in a political solution to the issue. But Birand wants Kurdish politicians to change.