After Jailing Their Leaders, Erdogan Courts Kurdish Kingmakers

Selcan Hacaoglu and Firat Kozok
·5 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Selahattin Demirtas is the most prominent Kurdish inmate in Turkey, vilified by the government as a terrorist. On Nov. 12, he boarded a small plane to visit his father in hospital after a heart attack.

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Compassionate day release is hardly a norm for political prisoners in a country that’s blamed many a terror attack on Kurdish separatists, most recently the bomb that killed six people and wounded dozens in Istanbul on Nov. 13. But the act of benevolence had a subplot, and it didn’t stop Turkey’s air force from launching strikes on Sunday against Kurdish military bases in Syria and Iraq by way of retaliation for the bomb.

With elections a little over six months away, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration is quietly seeking the support of some influential Kurdish figures, according to people familiar with the plan. Talks are focused on securing their backing or at least stopping the Kurdish party HDP from bolstering a fractious opposition bloc, they said.

For the 68-year-old Turkish strongman, all roads lead to the election next year as he tries to cement a revival in opinion polls. His handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, money for households and businesses, and investment in Turkey’s conservative heartlands have strengthened a grip on power that looked to be weakening just months ago.

The Kurds are key, though, and Erdogan’s attempt at courting senior members of the grassroots underscores how tight he still reckons the presidential and parliamentary elections currently scheduled for June could be.

The HDP has been the target of a clampdown by the Erdogan’s security forces since 2015 when it won an unprecedented 80 seats and denied the governing AK Party of a majority. It faces a potential ban by the country’s top court on charges of ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and European Union.

“These contacts appear to be a tactical move rather than offering a permanent solution,” said Ayhan Bilgen, who resigned from the HDP last year to form a splinter party. “For Erdogan, it could be sufficient to prevent the HDP from joining the others. Erdogan knows that the HDP will not walk with him on the same road again.”

The recent effort at some sort of political rapprochement escalated when Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag visited the HDP in parliament earlier this month to garner support for a constitutional amendment on head scarves.

The following week, authorities took the 49-year-old Demirtas, a former co-leader of the HDP, from a high-security prison near the Greek border to Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast. He was allowed a 45-minute meeting with his parents at a hospital in Diyarbakir, said Zinar Karavil, a family friend who met the jailed Kurdish politician upon his return to the prison on the same day.

“Those who were escorting him were respectful and kept their distance like when they detained him on the night of Nov. 4, 2016,” said Karavil. “The exercising of a right can’t be a gesture. If this was a gesture than it shows how ridiculous to call Demirtas a terrorist.”

Turkish authorities launched a crackdown on the HDP in 2016, a few months after a rerun of the 2015 vote saw the AKP regain its legislative majority amid a spate of violence by Kurdish militants.

HDP lawmakers were stripped of their immunity from prosecution and dozens were jailed on separatism charges. The government has ousted almost 100 elected mayors in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast and the army has attacked PKK bases in Iraq and targeted an affiliated US-backed Kurdish force that’s carved out effective self-rule in northeastern Syria.

Demirtas was jailed for allegedly having ties to PKK and encouraging Kurds to protest over Turkey’s failure to stop Islamic State attacks on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani in 2014. He denied the charges.

The HDP says it’s not influenced by the PKK. It blames the group’s armed rebellion on a history of repressive policies toward Kurds, estimated to make up nearly a fifth of Turkey’s population. Some in the top echelon of the HDP say the party is under no illusion when it comes to Erdogan’s motives.

Tayip Temel, a deputy chairman of the party, accused the AKP of playing politics with what is a human right to visit a sick relative. “The AKP is winking at our people” he said. “None of HDP’s Kurdish supporters will be deceived as long as Demirtas remains jailed.”

While Demirtas was flown to Diyarbakir, his wife and children had traveled to the western city of Edirne to see him and he also met them on Nov. 12, Karavil, the friend, said.

A day later, a bomb exploded in central Istanbul, fueling nationalist sentiment “just at a time when questions were raised on whether there are normalization steps in politics,” HDP lawmaker Garo Paylan said in parliament on Nov. 15.

Demirtas denounced the bombing through a Twitter message via his lawyers on the day of the attack. “Regardless of the purpose or justification, any attack targeting civilians is terrorism,” he said. “I am condemning the act of terrorism that openly targets civilians in Istiklal Street.”

Erdogan’s crackdown on the Kurds plays well with the nationalist voters that the AKP and its ally, the MHP, need to keep control of conservative bastions across the country.

But even with the bounce in recent months, most polls suggest Erdogan may struggle to win more than 50% of the presidential vote to give him a first-round victory. He is seeking to broaden his support base to increase his chances in a run-off to extend his 20-year-rule.

“The government really needs to take trust-building steps to create a common political ground with the Kurds,” said Mehmet Kaya, head of the chamber of commerce in Diyarbakir. “But we are still at the opposite end, the resistance toward Kurds is still prevalent in the government as well as nationalist members of the opposition camp.”

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