The peaceful process between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government with the Kurds ended a few years ago, and it also increased military action against Kurdish military groups in Turkey and Syria over the past few years. There were hopes that the EU's prerequisites for Turkey to join the EU would at least respect Kurdish rights to gain support, but the process of acceptance by the EU has nearly reached a dead end. Meanwhile, resolving the unresolved Kurdish question in Turkey is a part of the agenda of the two new breakaway parties from Turkey ruling AKP.

Kurdpress made an interview about the issue with Stefan Jojić, a researcher at the University of Belgrade, who has conducted a lot of research in the field. In an interview with Kurdpress, Stefan Jojić stressed that Turkey's possible accession cannot guarantee the resolution of the Kurdish issue or respect for their right of the Kurds in the country. He also expressed doubt about the ability of the new Turkish parties to resolve the question. This scholar believes that Kurds in Turkey are better to work to gain their rights through backing the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in order to achieve their rights in the country.

What follows is the full interview with the political analyst who is a PhD Candidate in International Relations;

The most important question is that Turkey is a member of NATO and is involved in many deals with Europe, but Europe does not attempt to solve the Kurdish problem in Turkey. Why? And how Turkey's relations with the west, especially Europe, would affect the Kurdish problem in the country?

First of all, Trump has no interest in the fate of the Kurds, as he has repeatedly shown in Syria and relations with Turkey. Issues such as arms sales, Israel and Iran are among his primary concerns in the wider Middle East. The attitude of some future US administration toward the Kurdish question in Turkey is still unknown, but it is hard to expect that the fate of the Kurds in Turkey will be among the key matters with the potential to set aside issues that are crucial for maintaining the strategic partnership between Washington and Ankara. Politicization and setting the Kurdish issue at the forefront, however, could happen in the case of a more serious divergence between the US and Turkey in the future, where the Kurdish card could be played in a similar fashion as Erdogan today plays on the Syrian migrant card in his relations with Europe.

No substantial positive effects on the resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey should be expected from NATO either. “An obsolete” or not, NATO alliance is a product of the realist needs of the US to secure its dominant position vis-à-vis Europe. In that sense, the question of the fate of the Turkish Kurds is not going to be set before this platform, especially not today when it faces a crisis of existence. The Secretary-General of NATO, going these days from one to another European capital, reiterates his empty phrases on the Russian threat and the importance that the host country presents for the functioning of Alliance as a whole. It is difficult to expect a man interested in his position and the position of several thousand officials of the NATO supranational structure to take a more serious criticism of the Turkish treatment of the Kurdish minority. Moreover, the same empty phrases and messages of encouragement came from his side even after the failed coup attempt in 2016, when relations between Turkey and NATO allies fell to their lowest.

When we speak about Europe, it raises the question of EU’s will and its competence to engage in resolving the Kurdish issue. In the past, there have been some improvements in Kurdish rights through Turkey’s European integration process, but they have been of limited scope. Although countries that are in the process of accession to the EU are expected to meet certain standards of protection of minority rights, the accession process is proven to be deficient when it comes to the fair and permanent regulation of intrastate ethnic relations. The example of Estonia illustrates this phenomenon well. Although Estonia joined the Union in 2004, the rights of the Russian-speaking population are far from satisfied. On the other hand, while Macedonia is still far from joining the EU, the status of its Albanian minority has been virtually resolved, either through the European integration process or as a result of domestic political dynamics. The first case clearly indicates that the whole process depends on the willingness of the European Commission and the most important Member States to insist on strict adherence to the criteria that can be interpreted differently in cases when there is a political will and interest to accept potential member, as evidenced by Estonian case. The case of Macedonia signifies that the process of regulating ethnic relations through the process of Euro-integration depends both on the will and willingness of the state to accept the imposed criteria in return for progress in the European integration process, that is, on countries’ negotiating power. And during the 2000s, when certain concessions were made to the Kurdish minority in Turkey, the Turkish state was strong and with little or no faith in the sincerity of the EU countries’ intentions to actually allow Turkey to join the Union. This partly explains Ankara’s unwillingness to make substantial concessions to the Kurds. Today, there is even less room for the EU to influence the resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Turkey’s EU accession process is frozen and it will not change in the near future. Even in the case of the restarting of Turkey’s EU accession process, the question arises around Ankara’s trust that the process will end one day, which is essential for agreeing on the conditions. Although Europe remains an external actor with the most interest in the Kurdish issue in Turkey, in circumstances we have at the moment both and the carrot and stick have been knocked out of her hands. Therefore, European states and statesmen today are able to offer to the Kurds nothing more than sympathies.

Do you think the new parties established by former AKP officials like Ahmad Davutoglu and Ali Babajan, can they kick the AKP out and Erdogan out and solve the Kurdish problem?

The first impression here is that it seems that the two emerging parties, with former AKP members on the forehead, might have a more favorable attitude toward the Kurdish issue than the current government. Here, the question of time is raised at first, given that the next elections in Turkey are scheduled for 2023. Considering the recent constitutional changes in Turkey which concentrated more powers in the hands of the president, the time to full takeover might take even longer. Secondly, if the opposition takes over one day, the question arises as to whether the new government would indeed be able to secure the desired rights for the Kurds. It is hard to imagine that any of the opposition parties will dominate the Turkish political scene in the short and medium-term in the way that AKP has been doing for nearly two decades. The absence of a secured and solid government significantly reduces the space for the implementation of unpopular measures. And granting the Kurds additional rights is certainly one of the measures that would distance some of the right-wing Turkish parties from its electorate. In this regard, the AKP has repeatedly failed to make use of this capacity and the credit afforded by their independent rule in the past. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine any future CHP coalition of power with Davutoglu’s or Babajan’s party which would be prepared to make significant concessions to the Kurds upon taking power. Even if we assume the goodwill of former AKP senior officials, circumstances can tie their hands. And given their political background, we have to even take their intentions with reserve. Despite the milder rhetoric against the Kurds and several initiatives in the form of dialogue with representatives of Kurdish elites, the only thing we can be sure about now is that the two politicians would lead the country with more democracy and less authoritarianism than Erdogan. This by itself does not automatically mean essential rights for the Kurds. But it would be a good starting point and a sign of the emergence of an environment where a final solution could be reached. And here we employ a fourth factor - the HDP. The only way the Kurds in Turkey might achieve greater rights is the reliance on their own forces. The HDP, a pro-Kurdish party with a liberal agenda, is the only actor on Turkey’s political scene that genuinely stands for Kurdish rights. Of course, the HDP will never be in a position to dominate Turkish politics, but their bargaining potential might come to the fore if one day their coalition support is needed in forming the government in Turkey. We can easily imagine some future anti-AKP post-election coalition of Davutoglu's and Babajan's parties with the HDP where the first two would be prepared to grant certain rights for the Kurds in return for HDP’s support to the new government. Similarly, the Albanian minority parties have succeeded in less than 20 years to make Macedonia a de facto two-nation state today, mostly by supporting the mainstream Macedonian parties in key moments. Therefore, the HDP is a key actor that could lead to a change of the state’s attitude toward the Kurdish minority. In that sense, their failure to cross the election threshold would be a real disaster for Kurdish overall struggle for greater rights.

Erdogan has been attacking Kurdish groups in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria since 2015; can military actions wipeout these groups and help Turkey to get rid of them and the Kurdish problem? What are the alternatives?

The answer is no to both. The decades behind us and the shifting of the conflict and ceasefire periods are a good indication that Turkey cannot militarily defeat a flexible political-military formation such as the PKK. This has also been proven by years of fighting in Syria where Turkey has achieved only limited success, exclusively through political cooperation and bargaining with Russia. The complete capitulation of Kurdish fighters was not an expected outcome to any of the Turkish incursions into northern Syria. Turks were closest to this goal during the siege of Kobane in late 2014, where they were not even involved directly. Today, with American, Russian and Assad troops as a barrier and tens of thousands of well-organized members of the SDF, Turkey is farther from that goal than ever.

On the other hand, that fact it is almost impossible to defeat the armed forces of the enemy militarily makes the entire Kurdish issue even less likely to be resolved using the same means. Such an outcome and lasting solution can only be reached through political dialogue. At the domestic level, Turkey has been implementing policies of exclusion and assimilation toward the Kurds for a long time. That approach turned out to yield the desired result - the Kurds were kept out of the political system, while the Turkification of generations of Kurds was in force, especially those populated in city centers in the west of the country. At the time, the Kurdish struggle was inevitably violent, because there was no other channel for demonstration of dissatisfaction with their status. Today, there is the HDP in parliament and the Kurds can express their demands by participating in the political system. Of course, in order to satisfy those demands, a change of circumstances and goodwill in Ankara are needed, as well as to put an end to the repression of the HDP and calming the tensions down in the country’s southeast. However, with the HDP being the Kurdish representative on Turkey's political scene, there is the first necessary precondition for political negotiation to begin. Also, the HDP’s participation in Turkey’s everyday politics helps with keeping Turkey's Kurdish armed conflict at a low intensity. I believe Erdogan is especially aware of the latter which is the reason why this party does not face a ban as was the case with pro-Kurdish parties in the past, despite the state’s repression of the HDP and accusations against its officials for collaboration with terrorists. Nevertheless, dialogue and ending the conflict later require the goodwill and change of the political climate in Ankara. The problem remains that Erdogan was not willing to treat the HDP or any other pro-Kurdish organization in the past as equal interlocutors and representatives of the Kurdish population. He did not want to give any political power the exclusive right to represent Kurdish interests, but rather saw himself and his AKP as the change-makers. That strategy secured some Kurdish votes in the 2000s for the AKP. But even this approach may change someday. Hypothetically speaking, although it sounds insane today, it is Erdogan with his interests in preserving own power who could offer the Kurds more rights in return for the HDP’s support one day. It sounds unbelievable at the moment, but political history has witnessed even greater turnarounds.

At the regional level, I also see recognition of the reality and establishing of political relations as the only suitable way for Turkey to face the Kurdish issue. A good example is Turkey's relations with the KRG in Iraq where Ankara is simultaneously conducting policies of both cooperation and limitation of Kurdish influence. The situation in Syria is more complicated, due to the proximity of Syrian Kurdish leaders to the PKK. Turkey has nothing left to do but to cooperate with apparent victors of the war, Assad and Russia, in order to politically marginalize the Kurds. Ankara has been partially successful in these efforts so far, for example with the exclusion of the Kurds from the peace process led either by the UN or Russia, Iran, and Turkey. What is of greater importance for Ankara is that Kurds receive as little as possible out of the forthcoming political negotiations over the future of Syria. In other words, Turkey does not want Kurds to gain territorial autonomy, and fortunately for it, they won't. In such a scenario and with a few concessions regarding the northern parts of Syria under the control of Ankara, I'm deeply convinced that Erdogan would be prepared to accept Assad's remain in power. That way, the first step toward the international recognition of the results of the war would be made.

Reporter’s code: 50101