US embassy cable - 04ADANA147

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ADANA 000147 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, TU, ADANA 
SUBJECT: KURDS IN SE TURKEY SEEK NEW POLITICAL LOOK? 
 
 
1. (SBU) Summary:  Various Pro- Kurdish Democratic People's 
Party (DEHAP) contacts signaled strongly to PO in late October 
regional visits that many DEHAP political leaders over the next 
three to six weeks will declare their support for the new 
Democratic Society (Demokratik Toplum Hareketi) political 
initiative declared two weeks ago by the four Kurdish former 
MP's, including recent Andrei Sakharov award winner Leyla Zana. 
Additionally, every Kurdish community contact whom PO 
encountered last week dismissed the recent announcement by 
Turkish tribal leader Dervis Akgul of a new party in Turkey 
aligned with Marsoud Barzani and his Iraqi Kurdish Democratic 
Party as "insignificant and politically unviable." End Summary. 
 
2. (SBU) Various Pro- Kurdish Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) 
contacts in differing levels of detail signaled strongly to PO 
in late October visits to Diyarbakir and elsewhere in southeast 
Turkey that DEHAP core political leaders over the next three to 
six weeks will declare their support for the new Democratic 
Societal Movement (Demokratik Toplum Hareketi) political 
initiative declared recently by the four Kurdish former MP's, 
including recent Andrei Sakharov award winner Leyla Zana. 
Contacts say that the determination to take this 
"transformational step" has emerged independent of pending court 
cases which may result in orders to close DEHAP. 
 
3. (SBU) They see the movement being buoyed by these 
declarations of prominent support leading to a platform debate, 
legal formation of a new nationwide, leftist party and 
leadership decisions by February to early March 2005.  They say 
that DEHAP party resources will support this new party's 
development and anticipate DEHAP rank-and-file "will follow 
where we lead," one prominent DEHAP provincial party leader 
said.  Their goal is to establish a major leftist party with 
nationwide reach by early 2005 "which can keep the Kurdish issue 
on the national agenda as well as unify some (Comment: largely 
unspecified. End comment) leftist national social issues."  One 
contact did speculate that the new political party also would 
focus on better health and education services for Turkey's poor, 
but clearly cautioned that no one can accurately prejudge the 
outcome of anticipated province level party caucuses on the new 
party's platform. 
 
4. (SBU) Few DEHAP contacts would offer their thoughts on who 
might eventually lead the new party, but several repeated Zana's 
press comments that she would demur from doing so.  Several 
contacts, including one close to recently-elected and popular 
Diyarbakir mayor Osman Baydemir, noted that Baydemir planned a 
high profile endorsement announcement soon after his return from 
an ongoing trip to EU countries to lobby on behalf of Turkey's 
EU accession candidacy. 
 
5. (SBU) Several DEHAP contacts projected fragmentation within 
the leftist nationalist DSP and CHP party ranks over the coming 
year or two, and anticipate receiving blocs of voters from those 
parties to bolster their ranks.  "(Current CHP party leader) 
Deniz Baykal already sees this threat and that is why he is 
trying to undermine the new movement before it even starts in 
press comments now," one Diyarbakir mayor's office and DEHAP 
official commented.  They also pointed to a DEHAP victory in 
Tunceli, a former CHP bastion where Alevi's shifted votes to 
DEHAP in last March's municipal elections, as a harbinger of 
future voting trends.  Asked about DEHAP losses of former 
prominent municipal posts in Van and Siirt, and elsewhere in the 
southeast at sub-province levels during the past election, one 
DEHAP strategist conceded that the vote showed the party that it 
could not be complacent about its regional support.  However, he 
then offered that overall DEHAP votes changed little and 
repeated the other contact's optimism about the "breakthrough 
with the Kurdish Alevi bloc in Tunceli." 
 
6. (SBU) Additionally, every Kurdish community contact whom PO 
encountered last week dismissed the recent announcement by 
Turkish tribal leader Dervis Akgul of a new Iraqi Kurdish 
Democratic Party-aligned and Barzani-linked party as 
"insignificant and politically unviable."  One DEHAP province 
level leader pointed out that this tribal connection yielded 
only several thousand voters in recent municipal polling and 
said that the tribal leader may even be pushing further on the 
issue than Barzani himself would wish. 
 
7. (SBU) In general, one contact with over a decade of DEHAP and 
its predecessor party organizational experience, pointed that 
small parties in southeast Turkey fare poorly.  For example, he 
noted how an independent Kurdish candidate, Melik Firat, had run 
for parliament in the most recent national elections, spending 
much money and time in a developed electoral campaign and still 
received only three to five thousand votes. 
 
 8. (SBU) Comment: DEHAP has been preceded in recent years by 
similar leftist, pro-Kurdish parties, such as HEP, DEP and 
HADEP.  Like DEHAP, each of these has been limited in scope and 
ambition by its single region and single issue appeal.  Reaching 
beyond this regional focus and successfully embracing leftists 
on a national scale is ambitious and would be a new Turkish 
political development.  Nevertheless, it is also a very tall 
order for DEHAP.  It will take more outreach and political 
organizational skills than DEHAP or its predecessors has 
demonstrated to date to develop this nascent movement into a 
nationally viable party, but the possibility of this development 
has energized DEHAP party faithful in southeast Turkey for now. 
 We will follow these reports to see whether DEHAP leadership 
support declarations occur and party caucuses are widespread. 
End Comment. 
 
9. Baghdad minimize considered. 
 
 
REID