THE RECENT CRISIS BETWEEN THE ERDOðAN GOVERNMENT AND THE MILITARY: WHAT CRISIS?
Barin Kayaoglu
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Feb 19 2007
Because of a want in professionalism and boredom, Turkish newspapers
have declared "a crisis between the civilian government and the
military" in the making for the past two days.
It all started the week before when the successive visits to
Washington by Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Chief
of General Staff Gen. Yaþar Buyukanýt drew attention from the
Turkish media (interestingly, but not surprisingly, this was not
the case for the American media). Both visiting dignitaries had come
to discuss security matters over Northern Iraq and to ask the Bush
administration to scuttle the resolution on the floor of the U.S. House
of Representatives recognizing the events of 1915 as a genocide
perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against its Armenian citizens.
In many respects, both visits have bought enough time and patience for
Turkey. By meeting with his counterpart Condoleezza Rice and Pentagon
officials, Mr. Gul has conveyed to the American side that Turkey is
still considering diplomatic and political options in its dealings with
the government of the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Arbil. In fact,
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoðan precisely made that point by stating
that Turkey would "develop relations with the Kurdish government…if
it would bring peace to us both."[1] Gen.
Buyukanýt, on the other hand, resorted to a more emotional discourse
and expressed his points in Washington to the order of "as a soldier
and as someone who fights the PKK, it is not my responsibility to
talk to the Iraqi Kurds who openly support the PKK."
And entered Turkish journalists with their typical thirst for
sensational news. Looking at this picture, many yelled "crisis"
and tried to point to a divergence between the civilian and military
branches of the government. Yet it was in the same press statement
that Gen. Buyukanýt maintained that fighting terror had economic,
armed, sociological, and psychological dimensions. He pursued this
point by further and asserted that "every mechanism, if it is to help
fighting terror, must be supported."[2]
Possible talks with Mesut Barzani and President Celal Talabani would
perfectly fit this description. What people need to see is that
both Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds are bogged down in a typical case of
"mutual insecurity." Under the straight-jacket of "mutual insecurity,"
every move to maximize one side’s security is reciprocated in kind
by the other side, which leads to a spiral of events that preserves
the balance of insecurity.
In order to start transcending this aura of insecurity, Iraqi
Kurds and the Turkish government need to sit down and talk. (The
central government in Baghdad has more existential problems and it is
doubtful if they have any resources to allocate to this question.) It
is crucial to note that these talks should be conducted in an
atmosphere of complete honesty (granted, this is not a common feature
in politics). But if it is to facilitate more open discussions, the
two parties should use reliable intermediaries, such as journalists
or academics. Turkey is expresses its unease about Kirkuk and Mt.
Kandil while the Iraqi Kurds are holding the PKK as a trump card in
case Turkey decides to intervene in Northern Iraq. It is in the best
interests of both Turkey and Iraqi Kurds to have a stable Northern
Iraq. Each party should calculate its moves very carefully and move
in a direction to increase their mutual security.
With this basic requirement at hand, the last thing that Turkish
newspapers should do is to exaggerate the statements made by Turkish
statesmen and Kurdish leaders. For their part, political figures need
to refrain from giving excuses to the members of the visual and print
media. As an ascribing historian of the Cold War, I now know that
many of the "dramatic" statements made by American and Soviet leaders
during the Cold War were in fact not as dramatic as they seemed at
the time. Notwithstanding this, a spiral of misunderstanding and
misperception led humanity very close to total annihilation. It is
up to Turks and Kurds to draw their conclusions from that lesson and
to decider whether they should choose a hot war or a cordial peace.
+++
Barýn Kayaoðlu is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of
Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia and a regular contributor to
the Journal of Turkish Weekly.
E-mail: [email protected] 18 February 2007
[1] Ferai Týnc, "Kurt hukumeti ile yakýnlaþýrýz" (We would get closer
to the Kurdish government), Hurriyet, February 15, 2007; available
from
[2] The full text of Gen. Buyukanýt’s press conference in Washington
can be reached in Turkish from
p?m=1&gid=112&srid=3601&oid=1.
–Boun dary_(ID_dR9EssJX5dm8qazBF2xSbg)–