Doubts over PKK as fallout intensifies

Until a few months ago, the world appeared to be warming to the Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK, the armed Kurdish militia based in the mountains of northern Iraq.

In Syria and Iraq, the group and its regional offshoots were fighting off waves of attacks against Kurdish towns and villages by Islamist militants Isis, winning plaudits as the only regional force willing and able to engage the jihadis in a ground war.

In Turkey, the PKK was abiding by the terms of a ceasefire against a historical enemy, the Turkish state, reviving hopes of an end to a conflict that has claimed more than 30,000 lives over the past 30 years.

A handful of western pundits and politicians were calling on the US and the EU to delist the group as a terror organisation.

That changed in July when the PKK resumed its insurgency against Turkey, alleging that the latter had forced its hand by building new army outposts in the Kurdish south-east and reneging on promises made during peace talks. The Ankara authorities counter that the PKK was never ready to make peace and that it had taken advantage of a lull in the fighting to stockpile weapons.

Even though support remains steady for the group in Turkey, in western capitals the PKK’s stock has fallen dramatically, officials say. Proposals to remove the group’s terror label are no longer given a hearing, a European diplomat says, speaking privately and on condition of anonymity. “These days no one in their right mind mentions it.”

PKK attacks against Turkish targets also threaten to complicate the west’s fledgling relationship with the group’s Syrian wing, the Democratic Union party (PYD), a key partner in the
war against Isis. “Turkey is taking advantage of this to put us under more pressure [not to work with the PYD],” the diplomat says. “Especially as far as the US is concerned, these attacks
[by the PKK] are not helping.”

The death toll continues to rise on all sides. Since July, at least 130 Turkish troops and security personnel have died in PKK attacks on the country, particularly in the south-east.

At the same time, air strikes by Turkish jets against PKK strongholds in northern Iraq have left hundreds of militants dead, destroying ammunition depots and supply routes.

“These bombs haven’t demolished the PKK but they’ve diminished its fighting capacity,” says Metin Gurcan, a security analyst and former officer in the Turkish army.

Interactive map

Isis advances through Iraq and Syria

Chart the progress of the jihadi militants as they attempt to gain more ground

Where the PKK has had some degree of success is in importing its insurgency from the countryside to the city.

“They have learnt urban warfare and IEDs [improvised explosive devices] by fighting Isis in Syria and in Iraq,” says Mr Gurcan. “They have been able to diversify, to expand the front to avoid being beaten by the state, they have been able to franchise violence . . . the Turkish police cannot contain this.”

But civilians have been caught up in the crossfire. According to local media reports, a police bullet recently killed a boy reported by various outlets as being aged either nine, 12 or 16, in Bismil, a south-eastern town.

With elections only one month away, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has clearly tried to use the renewed fighting to his political benefit. He has warned that anything short of a parliamentary majority, preferably an absolute one, for his Justice and Development party (AKP) would prolong the security breakdown. “If a political party had been able to secure 400 deputies to make a new constitution, the situation would be very different today,” he said in September, referring to a June election when the AKP lost its ruling majority for the first time in over 12 years.

Experts and diplomats agree that Mr Erdogan had been itching for a fight with the Kurdish insurgents to bolster his party’s nationalist credentials following the June vote, but add that the PKK gave him just the excuse he needed. In late July, having accused Ankara of involvement in an Isis-linked bombing that killed 33 pro-Kurdish activists, the PKK claimed responsibility for the assassination of two policemen in what it called an act of revenge.

“That was a huge mistake,” says Gareth Jenkins of the Institute for Security and Development Policy. “They played right into Erdogan’s hands.”