There’s never been a Turkish-Kurdish struggle

Then the Arabs opened fire on the Kurds. The violence spread to the city, and the Kurds and Arabs began to attack each other’s neighborhoods.

The events’ lesson for Turkey is this: The terrorist organization PKK once carried out a bloody assault against civilian and military targets. The campaign’s military base was on Iraqi soil, its political base (until 1999) was in Syria, and its financial base in Europe. The attacks cost Turkey dearly, in terms of both 30,000 deaths and a $100 million financial toll. Foreign and domestic investors shied away from Turkey due to terrorism, resulting in an underdeveloped economy, unemployment, late democratic and economic reforms, and 15 years spent on the road to European Union membership. PKK head Abdullah Ocalan got the world to pay attention to the Kurdish question, but this strategy was costly for Turkey as well as his supporters and himself. The organization he left behind is now split into two factions, one pro American and another pro European. Their hopes for the future depend on the northern Iraqi federation expected to be founded by the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (IKDP) and the Iraqi Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (IPUK). There’s another reason why the PKK couldn’t fight the powerful Turkish military: This fight didn’t make the Turks and Kurds enemies. People who felt the pain in their Anatolian towns and held almost daily funerals for martyrs haven’t sought revenge or attacked their fellow citizens. The fight against the PKK never turned into a fight between the Kurds and the Turks. There was another factor besides the common sense of the people, namely Turkey’s steady democratic improvements. The death penalty was lifted under reforms for EU membership, and so Ocalan wasn’t sentenced to death. A solution was found by improving democracy within democracy. As we just saw, little sparks in Middle Eastern countries ruled by dictators can cause set off a firestorm between peoples. Those who seek solutions through antidemocratic interventions should look at this example and realize the value of democracy.”