Boosted profile for ‘emboldened’ Kurdish rebels

Unlikely to win recognition
Even if Turkey’s alliances fray, the PKK is unlikely to win international recognition and status as the sole representative of Turkish Kurd aspirations because of its track record of bombings and assassinations.

David Phillips, author of a report on the PKK by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York, said candidates of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party ran for parliament in July with PKK approval. However, the party only won four out of 12 seats from the Diyarbakir area, a traditional PKK stronghold.

Turkey’s new president, Abdullah Gul, toured mostly Kurdish areas last month with a message of unity and was greeted with flowers and blessings. Gul’s gesture was highly unusual for a Turkish head of state, and represented the Islamic-oriented government’s shift away from the bitter relationship between Kurds and the military-backed, secular elite.

“This increase in PKK activities is in part an effort to assert their relevance since their support is waning at the ballot box,” Phillips said.

Kurds gain rights, but seek more
The Turkish government granted some cultural rights to Kurds as part of its bid to join the European Union. But many Kurds, who comprise 20 percent of Turkey’s population of 75 million, chafe under state controls on freedom of expression.

The PKK started as a Marxist-Leninist group demanding an independent homeland, but shed socialist ideology with the end of the Cold War and says it seeks some degree of self rule, similar to that of Spain’s semiautonomous Catalonia region.

Arrested in 1999, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan still enjoys a personality cult among sympathizers and is believed to send directives through lawyers from prison.

But the tight control that characterized the PKK eroded. In 2004, it dropped a unilateral cease-fire. Last year, a splinter operation called the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons bombed Turkish tourist resorts. An Iranian Kurd group affiliated with the PKK is fighting Iran.

Even the PKK’s military operations are believed to be highly decentralized, with significant independence between the faction based in Iraq and units deep within Turkey. The Kurdish diaspora in Europe, a rich source of PKK funding, also chimes in on the political agenda of Turkish Kurds.

“There have been a lot of times in the past when people were saying the PKK was finished,” said Brandon. “They’ve never gone away, but now people are starting to realize that they’ve never gone away.”

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