Emin Colasan: Please, PKK members, sit down at the table for talks
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Again, we face the funerals of slain soldiers, 5 for soldiers killed by clashes with the PKK outside of Sirnal, and 1 for a policeman killed by a rocket attack on his station in Bingol. For now though, it looks like the government has quieted down the attempt at uprising in the Southeast. But at the very first opportunity, this will all happen again. Why? Because in that region, the government has lost its character as any sort of government. Most of the authority now lies in the hand of the PKK-supporting Democratic Society (DTP) Party members and city mayors.
Yesterday I had the chance to speak with a Turkish military officer who has spent years fighting terror along all our borders. His words to me were frightening. He said:
"We cannot protect our borders in the region that run along Iraq and Iran. The borders are porous. I say openly, the police and soldiers in the Southeast have pulled back into their shells. Their authority has been removed. Any security force member who has a complaint launched against him becomes the immediate focus of an investigation into human rights, and the punishment then goes as far as jailing. The location of PKK camps in Iran and Northern Iraq is clear to us. We know those places like the backs of our hands, but there is nothing we can do. We cannot take a stance, we cannot go and clean them up. No one should think the people living in the Southeast are against the government. What people are is hopeless. They don't see a sign of the government. And when they don't see Ankara's authority, what happens is that the authority gets given instead to the PKK and the political parties which support it. This is what is happening now. The government has no policy."
Coming in at the head of this list of regional authority is the city mayor of Diyarbakir, Osman Baydemir. Ankara sent an inspector to look into his role there. What the man has done until today is clear. He has even allowed municipality vehicles to be used in the funerals of terrorists! So what does the government do about this? It has the authority to remove Baydemir from office. Will it do so? Probably not. Because the minute it does, there will be street protests and more uprising.
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Dear readers, as you might remember, I asked the Turkish Armed Forces some questions in this column awhile ago. I would like to ask them again, to remind readers:
1- Up to today, how many of our soldiers have died in the fight against the PKK? (I am guessing around 6,000, but I have no exact figures or proof.)
2- How many of our soldiers have been wounded in the fight against the PKK?
3- Of the wounded, how many have lost arms, legs, eyes?
Note that I direct this same question to the Police Force, which is also a target of PKK factions. The point I am getting at here is that the moment these numbers are released, not only all of Turkey but in fact the entire world will see the enormity and awfulness of this situation. Of course, there are those, starting with certain EU members, who do not want to see or accept this human drama!
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While I wrote this column enveloped in pessimism, yesterday did produce some interesting news: Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered, in front of press members, a message to the PKK to leave off their weapons and come to the table. Well, let's just say the PKK decided to take Erdogan's message seriously, and they came to the table. Who from the government would sit with them and talk? Can't Erdogan find a more realistic way of dealing with the terrorists than this sort of message?