Disarming, Demobilizing and Reintegrating the PKK

The National Committee on American Foreign Policy today released a report on “Disarming, Demobilizing and Reintegrating the Kurdistan Workers Party.” The report recommends that Iraqi Kurdish leaders use their influence with the PKK to encourage a 12-month cease-fire. This would create a cooling off period averting a showdown between Turkey and the PKK and allowing Turkey time to proceed with reforms.

Dr. George Schwab, President of the National Committee asserts, “Our report sequences some new ideas whose implementation would promote the interests of both Turkey and the United States. The PKK problem should be addressed through improved living standards for all Turkish citizens including those of Kurdish origin.” Schwab adds, “Military action by Turkey against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan would radicalize Turkish Kurds and risk a regional conflagration adversely affecting relations between the United States and Turkey, as well as Turkey’s candidacy for membership in the European Union.”

The report welcomes Turkey’s proposed “civil constitution” as a big step to institutionalizing minority rights in accordance with European Convention on Human Rights and calls for implementing legislation that expands Kurdish political and cultural rights and abolishing regressive legislation, such as the Anti-Terror Act and Article 301 of the Penal Code. It notes that improving economic conditions in the Southeast is also part of the solution and recommends investment in infrastructure, such as roads and water works, as well as funding for health care and education.

To pressure the PKK, the report suggests ways of targeting its financing and propaganda infrastructure. It calls for implementation of last month’s Counter-Terrorism Agreement between Turkey and Iraq while urging the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to take steps against the PKK’s logistics that include replacing PKK check-points around its base in Iraq’s Qandil Mountains with KRG forces; interdicting funds reputedly transferred to the PKK by air travelers via Erbil; and restricting the activities of groups in Iraqi Kurdistan that condone PKK violence.

It also calls on Turkey and the KRG to focus on their common interests. It notes that a stable, secular, and pro-Western Iraqi Kurdistan is a useful buffer between it and an increasingly unstable and Islamicized Iraq. Good neighborly relations with Iraqi Kurdistan could also yield a wind-fall of economic benefits in the form of oil transport fees, water rights, construction deals, oil development contracts, and cross-border trade.

At best the PKK problem can be managed but not solved without an amnesty. The report proposes a phased amnesty and asylum program. First, PKK youth who joined after 2002 would be eligible. Cadres without command responsibility would be next. PKK leaders would be denied amnesty but could apply for asylum in their country of current residence.

David L. Phillips is project director and author of the report. Phillips has worked on Kurdish issues for almost 20 years as President of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation and as a senior adviser to the US State Department. He is currently Project Director of the National Committee and a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Human Rights. Phillips can be reached at 1.212.224.1120 or at dp2366@columbia.edu.


To view the full report, please click on the title: “Disarming, Demobilizing and Reintegrating the Kurdistan Workers Party"