US embassy cable - 05ANKARA4182

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 004182 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2015 
TAGS: MOPS, PGOV, PHUM, PREL, TU, POLITICAL PARTIES 
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S SOUTHEAST: UPDATE ON PRO-PKK POLITICAL 
PARTY DEHAP 
 
 
Classified By: (U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: 
 E.O. 12958 1.4 (b,d). 
 
1.(U)This is a Consulate Adana cable. 
 
2. (C) Summary:   Pro-Kurdish DEHAP party officials profess 
to be upbeat about the political development of the 
Democratic Society Movement (DSM) and continue to defend 
PKK's use of violence in response to what they call "Turkish 
state violence against Kurds" and insincere  democratization 
by the AKP government.  End Summary. 
 
Pro-Kurdish DEHAP Leaders Claim Official Hostility 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
3. (C) AMCON Adana met with Adana's DEHAP leadership on July 
12 to discuss the Democratic Society Movement (DSM) and DEHAP 
perceptions of current clashes in southeast Turkey. . The 
DEHAP leaders predict an eventual transition of DEHAP into 
the DSM, but were fuzzy on the details DEHAP leaders 
criticized the Adana governor's office for seeking to block 
DEHAP's lending of its provincial offices and staff to DSM 
for the new group's balloting on the grounds that the DSM was 
not yet an established political party.  The DEHAP leaders 
said that they "just had been informed" that the Adana Chief 
Prosecutor would charge them with illegal political 
activities for DEHAP's assistance to the recent DSM 
balloting.  They said that Turkish state animosity toward 
DEHAP on the DSM balloting issue, which they said occurred 
elsewhere in SE Turkey, fit a larger pattern.  For instance, 
governors are denying permission for DEHAP mayors to travel 
internationally to attend EU activities (they cited a recent 
ban on the international travel of the Dogubeyazit DEHAP 
mayor as an example) and blocking DEHAP municipalities from 
receiving funding for EU-financed local development projects. 
 (Note: AMCON Adana asked for corroborating information on 
this allegation and the extent of its possible application. 
End Note.) 
 
An Impassioned Defense of the PKK 
--------------------------------- 
 
4. (C) Asked about ongoing conflicts in SE Turkey, Adana 
DEHAP leaders embarked on an impassioned defense of what they 
said is the restraint PKK is showing in the face of a large 
Turkish offensive.   They claimed the PKKis only attacking 
when attacked and is showing restraint in avoiding mixed 
civilian/military targets in urban areas.  PO asked how this 
perception squared with attacks in tourist areas or trains in 
eastern Anatolia.  They countered that the train attack had 
been focused on a cargo, not troop-carrying train, and said 
that the tourist area attacks were intended to make scare 
tourists and decrease tourism tax revenue so that the State 
could not afford the offensive in SE Turkey. 
 
5. (C) PO noted that the PKK is a terrorist organization and 
that violence is not helping democratization in Turkey.  The 
DEHAP leaders said the AKP government is not interested in 
democratization or in satisfying any aspects Kurdish demands. 
 They pointed to the closing of Egitim-Sen teacher's union ( 
which championed mother-tongue  language instruction in 
public schools), state oppositiontot the DSM, a lack of 
instruction in Kurdish in state schools, the ten percent 
election threshold, and no private Kurdish-language 
broadcasts as examples of AKP government insincerity about 
democratization.  "Kurds are not going to be convinced by a 
few minutes of Kurdish language on TV and radio a week about 
what the deep state wants us to hear," one DEHAP leader said. 
 
6. (C) " The two DEHAP leaders claimed Kurds think that their 
only choices are sniffing glue on back streets or  making a 
&patriotic8 decision to join the PKK.  "As a result," two 
leaders said, "they make the 'patriotic choice' to head 
toward the mountains."Both leaders said U.S. policy on PKK is 
one-sided and does not recognize that Turkish policy offers 
only "assimilation and no way for Kurds to peacefully and 
honorably express their identity within a Turkish 
citizenship." 
 
7. (C) They said that PKK fighters have no incentive to give 
up arms and come back to Turkey. To what would they return, 
they asked rhetorically:  to unemployment, prison, no 
dignity? They said the Turkish state) will only change  under 
great outside pressure, and the PKK is what has pressured 
them from outside this long.  Without the PKK, nothing would 
have changed they argued. 
 
8. (C) Comment:  The  Adana DEHAP leaders, defense of the 
PKK and its terrorism reflect the PKK strategy of using the 
current campaign of violence to achieve three goals: (1) free 
Ocalan; (2) obtain founding-nation status for "the Kurds"; 
and (3) a general amnesty that would allow PKK guerrillas to 
join society, enter the bureaucracy, and fight for Kurdish 
autonomy as a Sinn Fein equivalent.  None of these goals is 
acceptable to the Turkish State. 
 
9. (C) As for the AKP government, it has made only one or two 
feeble gestures toward the Kurds and Southeast in more than 
two and one half years in power.  AKP has no strategy for 
dealing with the PKK (Erdogan learned about one recent 
massive army operation from television the following day), 
the Kurds in general, or the Southeast.  The armed forces, 
which for a decade or more have called for a coherent GOT 
social, economic, and political policy, are left to fill the 
void with military operations; at the same time the TGS is 
using the AKP policy failure as one of several instruments to 
put increasing pressure on AKP.  End Comment. 
MCELDOWNEY