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Ankara is failing to win over Kurds

Turkey's Kurds, who make up between 15 and 20 per cent of Turkey's 75 million people, faced oppression and enforced cultural assimilation policies for decades.

A car bomb that struck the heart of Istanbul on Tuesday, killing 11, has underlined how the violence once limited to Turkey's Kurdish-populated southeast is now casting a shadow over the whole country.
The bombing of a police bus was the third terrorist attack in Istanbul this year, and hit close to popular tourist spots, such as the Grand Bazaar. While no group has claimed responsibility, the attack bears hallmarks of Kurdish separatists, who have launched a wave of similar strikes in recent months.
At a time when the 32-year-old Kurdish insurgency is arguably at its deadliest, Turkey claims its "hearts and minds" strategy is succeeding in undermining popular support for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). But long-time observers fear that the government is failing to win over Kurds, and that the fight is leading the country toward deeper instability.
"The irony is that there is serious dissatisfaction with the PKK within the Kurdish population, but the government's response has been so heavy-handed that they have not really undermined its support," says Aliza Marcus, author of "Blood and Belief: the PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence."
The PKK, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States, is exacting a higher toll on Turkey than at any previous time in the conflict's history. Attacks by the PKK and its affiliates have helped drive a 28 per cent year-on-year decline in tourist arrivals - the biggest drop in a decade for a country that was hitherto the world's sixth-most popular tourist destination.
It is also gaining fresh combat tactics and equipment from Syria, where its affiliate, the PYD, is a key ally of the United States in the fight against the Daesh. Last month, PKK militants for the first time used a MANPADS shoulder-launched missile to bring down a Turkish military helicopter.
Since a two-year peace process collapsed last July, the war has cost the lives of 517 security officials, 519 PKK militants, and at least 271 civilians, according to the International Crisis Group.
Meanwhile, as many as half a million people have fled southeastern urban centers devastated by the conflict, which has included intense house-to-house fighting. The exodus from cities such as Diyarbakir, Cizre, and Nusaybin mirrors a similar population shift in the 1990s that helped trigger a new wave of radicalism, says Ms. Marcus.
That view is sharply contested by government officials and their supporters, who claim that the PKK is facing imminent defeat due to a collapse in support.
"The government is helping the people in the southeast to understand that we care for them," a senior Turkish official told the Monitor, asking that his name be withheld because he is not authorised to speak on the record. "We're fighting terrorists who are oppressing the people, and the people realize that."
Most observers agree that Kurdish anger with the militant group is running high, mainly over its decision to draw the conflict away from the remote rural regions in which it had hitherto fought and into urban centers, with deadly results.
Turkey's Kurds, who make up between 15 and 20 per cent of Turkey's 75 million people, faced oppression and enforced cultural assimilation policies for decades.
Since the PKK launched its separatist insurgency in 1984, successive Turkish governments have claimed that it relies on brutality to cow a Kurdish populace that does not fully support them.
The current Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which came to power in 2002, has gone further than its predecessors in acknowledging Kurdish identity and freeing restrictions on the Kurdish language, but has dodged demands for autonomy.
At a general election in June last year, the People's Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish movement with close links to the PKK, enjoyed a record showing by winning 13 per cent of the national vote.
"The difference today," says the senior Turkish official, "is that the security forces and the government are much better organised, and we make sure that we not only fight the terrorists but also support the people. We're not only fighting the terrorists; we're gaining the people's hearts."
However, the potential for goodwill has been undercut by the fact that the redevelopment has involved forced evictions, the bulldozing of homes, and compulsory purchases, causing critics to accuse the government of purging the city's population.
While advanced military hardware, urban guerrilla tactics, and a newfound expertise in the use of improvised explosive devices have all made the PKK a potent threat to Turkey, they do not negate the Turkish military's continuing advantage, says Ulgen. "[T]hat makes a military response more complicated, but not to the extreme where Turkey cannot respond."
However, he does not believe that Turkey's endgame is to outright destroy the PKK, but rather soften it up in preparation for a return to the negotiating table - something that Turkish officials deny.
Alexander Christie-Miller is a journalist and writer based in Istanbul
The Christian Science Monitor