10.11.2016

Danger at home and abroad

War could be the AKP’s last card, writes Esen Uslu

The pace of developments in Turkey is breathtaking when you consider things over the last couple of years.

In February 2015, high-level teams from the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government and the HDP (People’s Democracy Party) met to finalise the accord aimed at bringing to an end the long-running war in Turkish Kurdistan. The meeting took place at the Dolmabahçe Palace, a serene location on the Bosporus shores. This provided an ideal photo-opportunity to the members of the press when an HDP MP read the joint statement announcing the 10-point programme for the next stage of the peace process.

This was to be the culmination - the “process of resolution” in the official speak of the Turkish bureaucracy, which has never acknowledged that it is waging a war in Kurdistan. But astonishingly the meeting actually triggered the failure of the peace process.

A general election was to be held on June 7 and president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP leadership realised that they stood to lose much of the support they had enjoyed for over a decade. The party was split down the middle, with one section prepared to accommodate a solution with the Kurds, while the other, extreme nationalist, wing was dead against it. The US-supported, ‘moderate’ Islamist Gülen movement, believing that yet another election victory was beyond Erdogan, made its move to bring him down by revealing examples of his corruption.

Erdogan was desperately looking for a way out. The first step was to kick away the chairs under the negotiating table with the Kurds. And he also sought to rebuild bridges with the discredited top brass of the armed forces, which was reeling following a campaign of investigations, arrests and trials.

However, this was not enough to win the election - despite the bias of ever more closely monitored media and widespread voting fraud. The AKP lost its parliamentary majority, and the HDP became a party to reckon with when it went beyond the 10% threshold required for electoral representation. No government could be formed without a coalition, but neither the AKP nor the other parties were prepared to strike a deal. Erdogan used the indecisiveness of the opposition to force another election in November 2015.

The parliamentary bargaining was accompanied by ever-increasing terror attacks on the opposition and a new wave of army actions against the Kurds. As a result Erdogan managed to reverse the fortunes of his party in the November elections and the AKP was able to form a government alone. While its majority was insufficient to change the constitution in order to switch to an outright presidential system, Erdogan had a willing partner, the MHP (the Nationalist Action Party of the infamous Grey Wolves), to lend a hand.

Within a year almost every opposition district in Kurdish cities and towns had been subject to a ferocious onslaught. According to official figures, more than 7,000 guerrillas were killed. The tried and tested cross-border bombing of guerrilla bases in ‘punishment actions’ was now accompanied by the bombing of alleged guerrilla bases in rural Turkey itself.

That mainstay of Turkish nationalism, the military, was now under control. However, that was not enough. A section of disillusioned AKP voters had switched to the MHP, which now had to be taken into the fold. The war in Kurdistan brought them onside, while the CHP (Republican People’s Party) was falling apart. One section, blinded by anti-Kurdish prejudice, was prepared to accommodate Erdogan so long as he acted strongly against Kurdish separatism, while the other remained indecisive. The Erdogan regime seemed totally in charge, and started to reel in dissidents within his party and opposition elements within the state bureaucracy.

However, the Turkish economy, which had been presented as one of the miracles of the 21st century, was heading for a downturn. Three favourable factors - exports, tourism and the boom in construction - were conjectural and driven by foreign hot-money investment. With any rocking of the international boat, one of those factors might collapse, revealing in the process that the Turkish economy had not successfully overcome its traditional weaknesses.

The AKP government, which was blindly pursuing Islamist policies and committing blunder after blunder in the Middle East, suddenly saw the rug being pulled from under its feet. In a short space of time tourism had collapsed, exports of agricultural produce had slowed dramatically and the volatility of hot-money movements suddenly made investing in the Turkish economy very unattractive. Istanbul and other major cities were full of half-built, but abandoned building projects, while the newspapers were full of advertisements for unsold houses. Even the most ardent supporters of the AKP regime within the building industry were having second thoughts, as contractors begged for state assistance.

The Turkish lira started to lose its value against foreign currencies, inflation was on the rise again, and the bankers were coming under ever-increasing governmental pressure to reduce interest rates. Prospects were looking bleak.

Coup

All this provided the backdrop to the July 15 coup d’état driven by the Gülen movement. Erdogan and his supporters had been preparing for a showdown with the Gülenist wing of the AKP, while the latter was convinced it needed to act swiftly to avoid its own downfall. The failure of the coup gave Erdogan a heaven sent opportunity to purge the Gülenists. They were sacked, hunted down, arrested and jailed.

The post-coup atmosphere enabled Erdogan to demonstrate his hegemony over all the opposition parties, even the HDP, using the pretext that everyone had to stand side by side in support of parliament and against military intervention. He attempted to develop this ‘unity’ at a giant rally held in Yenikapi, Istanbul, where all the parliamentary opposition, bar the HDP, stood shoulder to shoulder with him against “every kind of terrorism” - a euphemism for the contention that the Kurds are numbered amongst Turkey’s enemies once again. The so-called ‘spirit of Yenikapi’ meant that the long-sought-after ‘grand national coalition’ was achieved. All strands within parliament were united against the terrorist Kurds and Gülenists, aided by Islamist-nationalist rhetoric with a sprinkling of anti-imperialistic, anti-US narrative.

But make no mistake: the Gülenists within the AKP, especially the MPs, have not yet been touched. Their fate will be determined by their actions leading up to the next general election. Those who do not toe the Erdogan line will be thrown into the meat grinder of the nomination process (the president clearly stated his intentions when he quoted the old adage, ‘Don’t change horses while crossing a stream’). The same goes for the top brass of the armed forces.

Walking his current tightrope, Erdogan is not in a position to stop, look back and take stock. He has to move speedily and decisively to keep all parties on board. To galvanise his new grand national coalition he had to step up the anti-Kurdish rhetoric, backed by the actions of the armed forces.

He tried to take advantage of the dangerous situation in Iraq and Syria by involving Turkish forces stationed near Beshiqa to join in the push to ‘liberate’ Mosul. He tried to make use of his good relations with the Barzani regime in the Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq to isolate Kurdish forces loyal to Abdullah Öcalan and the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party). He even ventured to rebuild bridges with Iran, while maintaining his rabid anti-Shia rhetoric, by implying Tehran would have a free hand in Syria as far as Turkey was concerned. He bit the bullet and begged the USA to stop providing arms to the YPG (Kurdish People’s Protection Units), offering the use of Turkish forces in the approaching offensive.

However, he failed in all of those clever plans. The only option was to go it alone militarily, setting in motion an invasion of northern Syria by proxy. Turkish artillery and air cover supported the Turkish-trained forces of the Syrian Sunni opposition driving into Jarabulus and towards the towns of al-Bab and Manbij in order to take over territory controlled by Islamic State. The motive behind the move was to stop the YPG creating a liberated zone within Syria parallel to the Turkish border. However, while IS withdrew from most of the zone, on the approaches to al-Bab its resistance was stiffer, since that town marks the gateway to the long-contested prize of Aleppo.

The US and Russia also ensured that Erdogan was forced to jam on the brakes. The Syrian regime, with the support of the Russian airforce, warned Turkey that any plane violating its airspace would be considered hostile. And the regime’s anti-aircraft defences, bolstered by the installation of new Russian radar and missiles, ensured Turkey was kept at bay. For its part, the US made it clear it would not tolerate any further attack on Manbij after Turkish forces had bombed some YPG positions.

The further the front line is from the border, the less effective is Turkey’s long-range artillery, while supply and command-and-control are more difficult. The lack of motivation of rank and file troops means that more and more officers of the Turkish special forces are needed. Casualties were mounting and the operation was going nowhere. While at present the public are ready to forget the objectives and support the military, the outcome in the long run depends on many developments beyond the AKP government’s control.

More armoured units are being directed towards the Iraqi and Syrian borders. The YPG has started a push toward Ar-Raqqa, an IS stronghold in Syria, in order to offer simultaneous strategic support to the operation in and around Mosul in Iraq. But Turkey has been forced to watch from a distance, whining about the ‘betrayals’ of its US and European allies. The situation on the war front is precarious at best, and in this situation we should expect dramatic action on the part of Turkey.

War within

Maintaining the grand national coalition is the aim, but anti-Kurdish sentiments alone are not sufficient for Erdogan’s regime. What about those who refuse to be bought off? In order to keep on board the Kemalists or liberal secularists, it was necessary to move against such opponents. Academics who have raised any criticism have been sacked and subject to investigation by the police.

The hold of the government over the administration of universities has also been strengthened in order to strangle any opposition. Intellectuals raising a dissenting opinion have been suppressed, arrested and convicted by the courts, which have now lost all trace of judicial independence.

The CHP was wooed when, for example, it was needed to withdraw parliamentary immunity from HDP MPs. But, now that the co-chairs of the HDP have been detained, together with nine other MPs, CHP support is no longer needed. On the contrary, CHP opposition is preferred, since that gives the AKP the opportunity to demonise it, along with the Kemalist movement as a whole, in preparation for a referendum on Erdogan’s proposed constitutional amendment.

In Turkish Kurdistan and the predominantly Kurdish districts of large cities, an unbridled police campaign is continuing. Any gathering - even a funeral procession on one occasion - may be brutally attacked with tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and baton charges. In rural Kurdistan, every day breaks with news of more deaths and fresh destruction. Large areas have been declared war zones, where no press is permitted and all liberties are suspended.

The emergency situation declared by parliament, united in the ‘spirit of Yenikapi’, has opened the way to rule by decree and the end of parliamentary scrutiny. Media outlets that have either been pressured to toe the government’s line or are willing to serve the regime are allowed to operate, but all others are suppressed. The internet and social media are turned off at will, depending on developments in Kurdistan. All major TV news channels broadcast practically identical programmes, dominated by the speeches of Erdogan and his ministers.

Despite all these developments, Erdogan is not as strong as might be thought. He sits precariously at the driver’s seat of a juggernaut he has let loose - one that does not have much by way of steering or brakes. Provided he maintains the momentum, he can drive on, but any bend or fork in the road risks bringing the juggernaut crashing into a wall.

It is difficult to deal cards to every player, while keeping the winning hand for himself, and Erdogan does not have many cards left up his sleeve. Fully aware of his weaknesses, he tends toward more aggression. He has even raised the issue of the long forgotten treaties signed at the end of World War I, reminding us of Turkish claims on Mosul, Kirkuk, the Mediterranean coast of Syria, the Aegean Islands and even western Thrace. At present such remarks are mainly for domestic consumption, but they are certainly an irritant to other states and forces in the region.

But who knows how far Erdogan will go in order to keep his grip on power? The temptation to launch further adventures in the international arena may draw Turkey into a full-scale shooting war.