Yusuf Kanlı

The Supreme Military Council, or YAŞ, will convene today. This will be the first YAŞ meeting since Gen. İlker Başbuğ took over the top commander’s position from Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt last November. Although prime ministers were chairing only the opening session of the YAŞ meetings in the past, ever since the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, came to power Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been attending the meeting right to its end. Today, as well, he is expected to devote an entire day to the YAŞ. The YAŞ meeting will convene in the morning. After a short opening session, YAŞ members will visit Atatürk’s mausoleum and attend a luncheon hosted in their honor by President Abdullah Gül. In the afternoon the second session of the meeting will be held and late in the afternoon decisions adopted will be sent to the presidency for presidential endorsement. Traditionally, after receiving presidential approval, decisions are made public the same evening.

For the past six years, Prime Minister Erdoğan and Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül have been placing reservations to expulsion decisions complaining that unlike other administrative undertakings the YAŞ decisions are final and cannot be appealed against and thus do not conform to the principles of democracy and the supremacy of law. In this fall routine YAŞ meeting, generally the defense minister and the top commanders discuss under the chairmanship of the prime minister "disciplinary matters," a general evaluation of the political and military situation within Turkey’s "influence area" as well as in the areas of interest, preparedness of the Turkish Armed Forces for war and force requirements.

For the first time in many years, there were no expulsions from the military either for "poor discipline," a term used often to describe Islamist activities in contravention to the secularism principle on which the military attaches ultra-high importance, or for any other reason. Though there were some "poor discipline cases" in the military over the past months, such as leakage of the photographs of Başbuğ at the Wailing Wall, but military judicial process is not yet complete on any of those cases and thus cannot be taken up by the YAŞ.

Still, ahead of today’s YAŞ meeting we were hearing some incomplete sentences such as, "the chopper deal is over," "(the alleged) Dolmabahçe understanding era is over," and "There were different conditions in August..."

Indeed, the August meeting of the YAŞ was important for two reasons. While on the one hand, it was the first YAŞ meeting after President Abdullah Gül assumed presidency, top on the agenda of that meeting was promotion within the military. If because of expulsions the YAŞ decisions did not receive presidential approval by the end of August due to age as well as waiting period limitations, many top commanders, including Gen. Başbuğ could have been retired from service and the military would have been landed in a command crisisÉ There is no such concern now...

Before the August YAŞ meeting, President Gül had said as president his duty was to oversee smooth functioning of the state organs and thus he would fulfill the duty entrusted on himself as president. Although as no one was expelled, the remark of Gül could not be put to test, the performance of the president ever since he assumed the highest office of the republic indeed underlines that even if he might not be personally happy with the YAŞ decisions, he would endorse and put them into implementation out of his concern not to disrupt the smooth functioning of the state organs and land the country in an administrative crisis at a time when the government is fighting to ease the impacts of a global financial crisis on the Turkish economy. Still, as prime minister and a Cabinet member he objected expulsions and placed reservations on YAŞ decisions in the past, as he was not tested as a president on this highly controversial issue before, it is difficult to estimate what will be the attitude of a President Gül on expulsions? As he does not have the power to place a reservation for the expulsions section before endorsing the YAŞ decisions, will he endorse the text submitted to him or land the country in a fresh controversy? Or, will the YAŞ decide not to expel anyone at this meeting as well and thus a possible confrontation between the military and the presidency and the AKP government be avoided or postponed to the next YAŞ meeting?

As was expected, meeting Saturday in Nicosia’s Turkish Cypriot quarter, the convention of the main-opposition National Unity Party, or UBP, brought an end to the two-year chairmanship of former Foreign Minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu and overwhelmingly elected seven-time former Prime Minister Dr. Derviş Eroğlu, 70, as the new chairman of the party. In a way, UBP delegates have decided to go back to square one in the party and reinstalled the party’s leader of 25 years back in the chairman’s seat. Eroğlu had left party chairmanship in 2005 following a humiliating electoral defeat. It is of course no surprise - indeed a tradition - in either Turkish or Turkish Cypriot politics to see a political leader who was forced to step down from chairmanship to work behind the scenes against the succeeding party chairmen, prepare grounds of their return to leadership and then with the pretext of, "The party organization demanded, I could not escape from duty," cliche try to make a comeback when the party appears to have recaptured an upward trend in public opinion. There are lots of examples of this in Turkey.

Now, in public opinion polls UBP appears to have recouped its lost prestige and has become once again the largest party with over 40 percent popular backing. With parliamentary elections tentatively scheduled for February 2010, the UBP delegates, to a certain extent, have selected the next premier of the KKTC, although popular tendencies may change a lot between now and the election date, depending on the success of the ruling socialist-led coalition and President Mehmet Ali Talat in either striking a settlement deal with Greek Cypriots or bringing some relaxation to the international isolation of northern Cyprus.

While Eroğlu’s reelection as party leader could be considered as a blow to the rejuvenation efforts within the UBP - the party established by founding President Rauf R. Denktaş and in a way is considered as the political transformation of the Turkish Resistance Movement, or TMT, of the 1960s - the old guard of the party overtaking the leadership might mean President Talat and his former party, coalition’s senior partner Republican Turks’ Party, or CTP, will have a more limited area of maneuver at the talks with the Greek Cypriot leadership for a compromise power sharing deal to end the over 45-year-old Cyprus problem. Talat will have to take into account that at the helm of the main opposition party there is now a cunning veteran politician who could even wage an indecisive fight against Denktaş.

Stress on "KKTC reality"
Indeed, delivering a victory speech late Saturday evening, Eroğlu declared that any Cyprus settlement must be established not only on the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, or KKTC, reality but also continuation of the KKTC even after a settlement as one of the two founding states of the new partnership federation. He was clear in stressing that there can be no compromise from the Turkish Cypriot state; the new federation cannot be a continuation of the 1960 Cyprus Republic and that even after settlement the two constituent states must continue to possess residual sovereign rights. He also underlined that there could be no compromise on the Treaty of Guarantee and of Alliance, that provide Turkey, Greece and Britain guarantor powers status on the island.

While there is no difference on major policy issues between Ertuğruloğlu and Eroğlu, the 70-year-old new UBP leader with his vast political experience is expected to stage a more rigid and creative opposition to the socialist-led, two-way coalition government, and Talat.

On the other hand, while the senior coalition CTP has been in very close cooperation with Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, the junior coalition partner Freedom and Democracy Party, or ÖRP, was established two years ago with intense manipulation of the AKP in center-right flank of Turkish Cypriot politics. Special thanks goes to then AKP deputy chairman, Şaban Dişli, in ÖRP’s establishment, collapse of the CTP-Democrat Party, or DP, or Serdar Denktaş, coalition government and creation of the new "Denktaş-free" coalition. The UBP, however, has always been in tune with the Turkish military and the conservative establishment.

That is, in the period ahead in a way we will most likely start seeing a proxy war of the "Ankara sovereigns" in northern Cyprus.

Excitement has gripped northern Cyprus ahead of the convention of the main-opposition National Unity Party, or UBP. Excitement levels are high because the convention will likely elect the next prime minister of northern Cyprus. Elections are due for February of 2010 and in the public opinion polls the UBP is shown once again as the leading party, with over 40 percent of the popular support, while the senior partner of the ruling coalition, then socialist Republican Turks’ Party, or CTP, appears to have lost considerable support compared to the 2005 elections and now enjoys only around 25 percent support Like the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, of Turkey which rightly boasts of being the party that established the modern Turkish republic, the UBP is the political transformation of the Turkish Cypriot Resistance Movement, or TMT, who waged an epic struggle to fend off Greek Cypriot attacks all through the sixties and until the 1974 Turkish intervention and in a way is the party that established the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, or the TRNC.

At today’s convention there are two candidates running for the party leadership. One is the current party chairman Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, the other is 70-year-old Derviş Eroğlu, the party’s former chairman and a seven-time prime minister from 1985 to 1994 and from 1996 to 2004, who was declared "party leader" after he stepped down from party chairmanship in 2005 after a humiliating electoral defeat. While Ertuğruloğlu represents the young new generation, Eroğlu represents the old guard of the party. While Ertuğruloğlu, a former foreign minister, has been a loyal supporter of the policies of Denktaş, Eroğlu was the arch-rival of Denktaş on the conservative flank. Eroğlu’s differences with Denktaş, however, were rather confined to domestic political issues.

Fight of two hawks
Both the 55-year-old Ertuğruloğlu, and 70-year-old Eroğlu have rather hawkish views and oppose a settlement to the over 45-year-old Cyprus problem that falls short of recognition of the Turkish Cypriot state even for a very brief period and which is not based on the "full political equality and partnership in governance" of the two founding states who even after settlement must retain "residual" sovereign powers. That is, in essence, both are supporting - without saying so - a confederal settlement on the island, rather than a federation. Indeed, for both candidates the best settlement on the island is indeed to make the de facto partition on the island into de juro through a land for peace deal with the Greek Cypriot side and thus establishing "unity of the island" through European Union membership of both two states. Once two independent and EU-member states were established on the island, both leaders defend, these two states could then resume talks if they wish, on the basis of equality and negotiate a federal or confederal arrangement.

Compared to the strong "federal settlement" stance of the current the CTP-led coalition and President Mehmet Ali Talat - a former CTP leader - the UBP, therefore, is offering the Turkish Cypriot people a real alternative.

While the increase in popular support for the UBP appears to be stemming rather from the failure of the CTP-led coalition and President Mehmet Ali Talat - a former CTP leader - in providing the 2005 campaign pledge of a "speedy resolution of the Cyprus problem in a new federal partnership state," it is a fact as well that the UBP have re-found massive popularity only after Eroğlu - whose image was tarnished with nepotism, corruption and favoritism charges - stepped down and the party restructured itself. Now, Eroğlu and his supporters claim that the veteran politician is making a bid for party leadership because not only were Ertuğruloğlu and his team unsuccessful but the country demanded to have once again a strong political leader and a prime minister capable with vast experience to bring an end to the economic mess produced by the CTP-led coalition government. Ertuğruloğlu and his supporters, on the other hand, say Eroğlu has become the fresh hope of the CTP because his election as UBP leader would dwarf the electoral support for the party and thus help the CTP remain in power.

After Eroğlu supported candidates won at the Nicosia and Famagusta local conventions, the general expectation is that he will score an outstanding success against Ertuğruloğlu at today’s convention. While that remains to be a strong probability, young delegates may well unite at the last minute behind Ertuğruloğlu and send Eroğlu home to look after his grandchildren.

Electoral lists are hanging at the offices of the district muhtars (headmen). People are asked to check whether or not they are on the lists and if they are not on the lists make an appeal by the end of office hours today. That is, Turkey has officially entered the "election period" for the March 29 local polls. The last time Turks went to the election booths was July 22, 2007.

That was 16 months ago. Before the July elections the Higher Election Board made a statement and "disclosed" that there was a mistake in the number of people eligible to vote in the elections and though some 2.5 million new voters were added, the actual number of Turks eligible to cast a vote was a down 42,799,303, some 1.5 million less than the previously disclosed figure.

Sixteen months have passed since then. How many people can be added to the Turkish population and thus the number of Turks eligible to cast a vote in elections? 100,000? 300,000? No... According to the Higher Election Board, over the past 16 months some miraculous development has taken place and the Turkish population all of a sudden has had an inclusion as big as the population of Libya, Paraguay or Jordan, or as big as the population of Denmark, Slovakia or Finland...Yes, according to the electoral board, the number of Turks on electoral lists has increased over the past 16 months by more than six million and has exceeded 49 million. Someone must be joking!

It has been an urban legend so far that could not be verified, but after every election we keep on hearing claims of election fraud and duplicate voting organized by some local branches of the ruling parties. The March local polls apparently will have implications beyond installing new mayors and local assemblies. As the then ruling Motherland Party suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1989 local polls though it was the first party in the 1987 parliamentary elections, early public opinion polls, that cannot be considered reliable as we have a long period between now and the polling day, indicate a sharp decline in the public support for the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP. We are not of course accusing, yet, the AKP of engaging in election fraud, but what has been happening is rather odd, is it not?

Most likely the government and the ruling AKP, will be angered about why we are making an issue of the increase in the number of Turks eligible to vote. But, is it not awkward to have such a high increase in the electoral number within 16 months? When we went to the polls in 2007, we were told that as all citizens were given a citizenship number and all population records were computerized, it was normal to have a correction in the electoral lists because duplicates were erased. Now, what has happened is that we have such a big jump in the number of people on the electoral lists? Are we a rabbit nation multiplying with a such high rate?

About 9:30 p.m. in the evening. With one eye, I was trying to follow a sitcom on TV, while with the other reading an excellent "State and the Kurds" book by Professor Metin Heper of the Bilkent University Ğ a book which has been waiting on my "must read" list since early summer. My wife, Aydan, was talking on the phone with my daughter, while at the same time cooking our evening must, Turkish coffee... Heper’s book was just published in Turkish as well. It is an excellent presentation of the relationship between the state and the Kurds with a historical perspective, a very detailed background and which tries to answer some very important questions such as a) How was the perception of Kurds by the state at different periods?; b) Why was so?; c) What threats did the state occasionally perceive could be posed by its Kurdish citizens?; and d) What were the strategies the state developed to overcome those perceived threats? I was distracted from reading with a "Bang... Bang... Bang..." noise coming from deep in the building. I panicked! For the past two weeks Aydan was on my neck to dismantle the swing on the terrace. I thought, there must be a strong wind and the seat of the swing must be banging on the wall... Reluctantly, I said, "Well, I had better go up to the terrace and although I cannot dismantle it at this hour, I should at least try to tie the swing firmly!"

"You had better," said Aydan with her typical, "Did not I tell you to dismantle and place the swing in the depot" look on her face...

On the terrace, there was no wind. It was a dark, but calm night. The deep "bang... bang..." noise, however, continued. As I was coming down, I heard Aydan whispering in fear - as if there was someone else in our home and she did not want s/he to hear us. "The noise is coming from the ground floor... It is as if someone is pulling down a wall!"Remembering a discussion with the ground floor neighbors a while ago where a thief broke into their house, I rushed to the back room that has a window to the backyard of the building. Without turning on the lamp, I rushed to the window and opened it. Looking down, I saw a dark figure hammering the back door of the ground floor flat...

Shocked at what I saw, I called 155, police emergency and reported that someone was trying to smash the back door and break into my neighbors’ house, for the second time in 20 days. We also called and reported the unfortunate situation to our neighbors - a family of a retired noncommissioned officer who, like most fixed-income Turks, were so affected by the crisis that they had taken refuge with their daughter’s family living in the remote Batıkent area of the city. Their daughter had just delivered a baby son and she needed the help of the elderly to look after the baby anyway. That is how the Turkish miracle works: Family solidarity to brave difficult conditions! In less than 10 minutes, two policemen were on the scene. The thief was still in the house. However, after a small fight with the police, the thief - who apparently attacked policemen with a long knife - escaped into the darkness. Within moments, several minibus loads of policemen were in the area and until late after midnight they searched the entire neighborhood, but the thief was long gone.



Break-ins on the rise...  

In the meantime, we learned from police trying to collect fingerprints and other evidence in our neighbors’ house that there has been a sharp increase in break-ins since last summer, particularly over the past two months. Although we were shocked that the thief smashed the back door of our neighbors’ flat, a senior policeman stressed that thieves have become rather reckless nowadays and were not only applying rather daring and clamorous methods to break in to houses, but while in the past most break-ins were late at night, they are now entering houses in the daytime or in the early hours of the evening. One reason for that, he said, might be that people are less suspicious during those hours and would not tip off police if something extraordinary was happening in their next-door neighbor’s house.

While I have no intention of trying to legitimize robbery, we have to accept as well that the rise in thefts, as well as the daring methods used by thieves, reveal how desperate people have become because of the worsening economic situation and rampant unemployment. Like other countries, there are of course "professional thieves" in Turkey as well. But, excluding those "professional ones" why should someone who can work and earn his living engage in such shameful deeds?

Did you hear? Probably not. Even if you have heard about it, you must have burst into laughter. It is like a joke, but a rather incredible one. Six soldiers; who probably woke up earlier than other soldiers and presidential guards, tried to stage a coup, made their way up to the residence of the president, not the presidential palace, and fired several shots on the building. Moments later other soldiers; who probably woke up because of the noise of the gunfire, intervened and defeated the rebel soldiers. They arrested six of them, but the leader of the rebels, a sergeant, was still on the run and a country-wide hunt to capture him and two other mutineers was still underway on Tuesday. No, there was no coup attempt in Turkey. The above was what happened in coup-prone Guinea-Bissau. The alleged coup leader on the run was identified as Sergeant Alexandre Tchama Yala, a nephew of former president Kumba Yala. How many guns, hand grenades or other arms the mutineers had or how they hoped to stage a coup with a handful of young soldiers was unclear in reports from the West African country. It was like a comedy.

But what was more important than the attempted coup was the immediate declaration by the Guinea-Bissau military command pledging loyalty to democracy and the civilian elected government. Such a firm statement from the military command may help prevent future coup attempts by some young soldiers who might wake up earlier than others.

Operation democracy!
That was indeed the joke we were making in the 1980s, after the last fully-fledged coup, in Turkey. Not only we, youngsters of the time, but leading comedians as well were condemning military takeovers with plays based on the theme that, "Whoever wakes up first, has the right to stage a coup." There was of course nothing wrong in making such jokes as we were a generation who became witness to three coups in 20 years; the 1960, 1971 and 1980 coups, as well as seeing with our own eyes that nothing good was indeed achieved with such interventions in democracy although all were staged as an, "Operation to restore democracy."

We always had doubts, some of us even beyond doubts, that there was some sort of American involvement in the coups. Was it a coincidence, for example, that late prime minister Adnan Menderes was flirting with the Soviets when he was toppled in 1960? Even today, some people believe that what we have been following as the "Ergenekon gang" was nothing but a liquidation by the United States of some elements of the "Turkish Gladio" or the Turkish deep state that got out of control and instead of following a pro-NATO and pro-United States political line, started becoming "Eurasian."

Or, is it correct that the Ergenekon trial is indeed an operation of the Turkish Gladio and with it the Turkish Gladio is just liquidating some of its unwanted or overused elements? Or, is it correct that the Turkish Gladio is just sacrificing some of its members as a measure to contain possible damage of some bigger probe against it? Or, is it that the Ergenekon trial is just product of a revanchist effort of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, against the closure case as well as the rampant corruption claims hurting its prestige ahead of the local polls?

In a country adhering to the principle of supremacy of law and thus to the notion that unless sentenced no one can be considered guilty, no one can either say for sure that the accusations in the glossy Ergenekon indictment were just products of a "creative mind" of a "fundamentalist prosecutor" or condemn the defendants before the court gives its verdict; hopefully sometimes this century!

But, what must be clear for all of us without any discrimination is the reality that democracy must be allowed to rub in its own bed without external interventions and manipulations. For a long time we have been of the opinion that the era of, "whoever wakes up first stages a coup," was closed in this country. Past experiences must have shown to all of us that rather than hoping for remedies to existing problems through the intervention of the powerful, that is the military, we have to stick to democracy as the only way out, whether the problem we are facing is separatist terrorism, or a devastating killer quake, or an economic quake.

That is "democratic engagement," for a resolution of the problems must be preferred at any cost to an "Operation democracy."

In history, headgear was a "tradition" enforced by other monotheistic religions as well as Islamic culture, although in our time covering the head with a piece of cloth, its shape, type and form may vary, in Jewish and Christian cultures has become rather exceptional. Discussing through symbols is definitely part of the culture of this geography, as it is for most other cultures elsewhere. Even though the meaning and implications of them differ from person to person, group to group, semantics do matter; symbols do matter! Something which might be a fertility symbol to one, could become the symbol of "pure race" for another. While a group of people suffer as a consequence of that "pure race" obsession, the same symbol could become the symbol of genocidal crimes against humanity.   

Sometimes, an outfit symbolizing fidelity and virtuous life in a society from a particular period, becomes the symbol of oppression, backwardness, deprivation of individual rights and liberties and indeed of radicalism. What is also strange, these two contradicting perceptions of a symbol may even exist in the same society in the same period, producing polarization and social tension. Similarly, a certain outfit which might be a symbol of wealth and social status at one time in society, may indeed become a symbol of backwardness, peasantry and even ethnic separatist manifestation, at another period of time, in the same society. We have lots of examples in today’s Turkey.

The veil, for example, as an element of an outfit predates the spread of Islamic culture. At a certain time in history, headgear was a "tradition" enforced by other monotheistic religions as well, although in our time covering the head with a piece of cloth, its shape, type and form may vary, in Jewish and Christian cultures has become rather exceptional.

Is the covering of heads by women a divine order? Or, to go even further, is it a divine order to hide women from head to toe in black, white, blue, whatever the color might be, chadors? Is there any meaning in engaging in such a discussion as there are people who believe that covering is the order of their religion? If that is what they believe and if they believe seeing the world behind a curtain is what their religion expects from them, why should others who do not believe so be bothered with that!

That being said, however, sometimes symbols acquire political meanings and indeed become some sort of "flag" for a political ideology. What if so, one may say. However, if after decades of revanchist campaigning and the exploitation of religion and through developing a certain type of headgear, the turban, a piece of cloth becomes a manifestation of belonging to political Islam trying to take a revenge from the "secularist republic" everyone must concede that there is a serious problem in that country.

A residue of the 1980 coup
That has indeed been the situation in Turkey since the early 1980s when with a rather shortsighted ban on the headscarf by the then military junta and through systematic exploitation of the headscarf by political Islam the head-cover of some pious women gradually became the flag of political Islam and landed the country in a deadlock. Put aside the demands of those who believe it is the requirement of their religion to cover their heads; a demand which cannot be ignored by anyone with some awareness of individual freedoms, how can anyone who considers himself a democrat turn a deaf ear to such appeals? On the other hand, how could a secular democracy allow manifestation of political Islam that aims to destroy it?

The only way out of this quagmire might be in de-politicizing headgear and re-instituting it as a religious attire rather than being the flag of political Islam. That was why when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a news conference in Madrid at the beginning of this year said, "What if the turban is a symbol (of political Islam)," the statement that triggered the latest turban controversy and brought the ruling party at the verge of closure. Many people thought "Ha ha... If he is accepting that the turban has become a political symbol, perhaps he will work to liberate the turban from that political connotation and thus from the ban as well."

Things did not progress as hoped and instead of ending the political connotation of turban, the premier preferred to further consolidate it as a symbol of political Islam and preferred to try to "liberate" it through imposition by forging an overwhelming parliamentary majority in cooperation with the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP.

That exercise proved as well that the turban nightmare of Turkey could only be solved by the secularists, that is by the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, as any offer from that block would not be perceived as a covert legitimization effort for the symbol of political Islam, but liberalization of the turban from political Islam.

Some members of the CHP might not be happy with the current efforts of the CHP leadership to enlist head-covered women, and even women in black chadors, as members and perhaps the CHP effort is just a local election ploy, still this is an effort in Turkey’s best interest and which may help as well to remove the veil from Turkish democracy...  

Construction has started on İmralı island. The immediate target is to build new lodgings for some 1,500 personnel and security guards who serve on the prison island. But, construction will not be limited to that. A small prison complex, capable of hosting five or six more inmates, will also be built.

Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Şahin was reluctant to disclose the five or six names who might become “neighbors” of separatist chieftain Abdullah Öcalan at İmralı island prison where he has been serving a life sentence without parole. Who might be those five or six “prisoners” who might be Öcalan’s neighbors in the not too distant future?

The silence of Justice Minister Şahin to the question of whether Turkey is planning to place some other chieftains of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, gang in the “enhanced” İmpralı prison led to speculations that notorious mafia leader Alaattin  Çakıcı, al-Qaeda islamist terror network hitman, Louia Sakka, Islamist fundamentalist Metin Kaplan, Abdi İpekçi’s murderer, Mahmet Ali Ağca, DHKP-C terror gang chieftain, Ercan Kartal, and Islamist IBDA-C terrorist gang chieftain, Salih İzzet Erdiş, could well be the “prison compatriots” of Öcalan. Speculations are also spreading that Turkey is seeking the capture of Cemil Bayık and Murat Karayılan, two of the most notorious chieftains of the PKK, to confine them to the İmralı prison.

No change in İmralı conditions
Irrespective of which of these speculations will come true eventually, it is becoming clear that Turkey will soon have an İmralı Prison larger and more crowded than the current one. It is also certain that the İmralı Prison will continue to be a “top security” jail where the most notorious prisoners will be hosted and where, irrespective of how many other prisoners are hosted, Öcalan will continue to stay in his prison room in solitude.

While the Massoud Barzani administration in northern Iraq is not expected to actively take part in a possible Turkish (pinpointed) operation on some selected PKK targets, through intelligence sharing and some other cooperation schemes it may indeed facilitate Turkish efforts to nab, as was the case in the capture of Şemdin Sakık in 1998 in northern Iraq by elite anti-terror squads, Bayık, Karayılan and some other senior figures of the PKK gang. Perhaps, Babacan’s statement that Turkey would concentrate more on the PKK in 2009 was a slip of the tongue, revealing what might be in store, at least some hopes of Turkey.

What appears certain at the moment is that Turkey is willing to warm up to a new spring in relations with northern Iraqi Kurds, but in this new climate the determining factor will be how far Barzani can go in cooperating with Turkey in the fight against the PKK, as well as how well he will be able to accommodate himself to Turkey’s perennial red lines, though they turned pink in time, regarding Iraq.

Move will cut Öcalan to size