How did the Turkish-Kurdish Peace Process Collapsed?

I. HOW DID THE PEACE PROCESS COLLAPSE?

Peace with Kurds: A sine qua non for Turkey

Turkey had been aware of one fact since the end of the Cold War: Becoming a supra-regional power was not possible without resolving the issues and establishing a peaceful order with its Kurdish citizens. Moreover, settlement of the Kurdish issue was the prerequisite to ensuring peace and calm in the country. Installing political and consequently economic stability also depended on resolution of the Kurdish issue. A country with a target of becoming one of the world's top ten economies had to have solved this problem first and foremost. Ranking among the top ten global economies is a quite challenging target. It requires being a big production economy and having a market for your products. In order to achieve these targets, Turkey first needs to economically integrate with its own region like prosperous countries did. In other words, it is imperative to establish good relations with your immediate neighbours and have access to the big population potential there. The fact that most of the world's top ten economies are "continental level" countries might give an idea in this regard. Indeed, Ahmet Davutoğlu explained this in a speech he delivered in 2013: "Let's have a look at the other nine countries. The United States of America is in itself a continent. Texas alone is larger than us geographically. Russia is the largest country in the world along with Canada. Brasil is ten times larger than us. Australia, India and China - these are all continental level countries. So how can we stand out amongst them? There is only one way we can do this: We will respect borders, but we will not let any border around us become a wall."1 During Cold War years, a country like Turkey, which was located in the south wing of NATO with a border with the Soviet Union, could not have a vision to integrate with nearby countries. This was impossible in a two-pole world. The first 13 years following the Cold War were lost due to successive unstable coalition governments and economic crisis. Moreover, the country's track record in democracy and human rights back then was an obstacle before such a regional integration. It was about 15 years after the end of the Cold War when Turkey found the fertile ground to materialize that vision. 2002, 2007 and 2011 elections had finally created an atmosphere of political stability. The EU harmonization laws enacted in this period prepared the ground forTurkey to be able to make some moves beyond its borders. With the rationalization of markets and the banking system as well as the overflow of money from global markets to Turkey after the crisis in 2001, the economic outlook also became conducive to regional integration moves. Now the only obstacle left in Turkey's quest for integration - the schackles on its feet if we may say so - was the Kurdish issue problem was shackles on his feet. The steps taken after the 2002 and 2007 elections brought significant progress in this area. The state of emergency in the Southeast was abolished, identity denial was no more, language prohibitions were lifted altogether. Policies, which envisaged peaceful coexistence based on 'equal citizenship', were put in place in the country during that period. Membership negotiations with the European Union had started. Turkey's relations with neighboring countries were going well, the regional conjuncture was available. In short, it was time to take more decisive steps to solve the problem for good. Turkish National Intelligence Organization's then undersecretary, Emre Taner's views were in parallel with the new government's vision for regional integration. It was under these circumstances that Emre Taner went to İmralı to tell Öcalan about the government's intention and test the waters with him in 2005. My book The Fight - Turkish Foreign Policy During the Arab Spring covers the steps taken towards resolving the Kurdish issue starting from 2005 up until 2013. The "Democratic Opening Process", which the government could finally announce to the public in 2009, managed to continue until 2013 despite many provocations and road accidents. Abdullah Öcalan's Newroz messae on March 21st, 2013, which was read out before a crowd of one million people, was a milestone on the way to achieving permanent peace. In his message, Öcalan was calling for "a farewell to arms" after a highly challenging and delicately-carried out process: "We have now reached the point of 'silence the weapons and let the ideas and politics speak'". The modernist paradigm that has disregarded, excluded and denied us has been razed to the ground. Regardless of whether it be Turkish, Kurdish, Laz or Circassian – the blood spilled is flowing from a human being and from the bosom of this land. Witnessed by the millions of people who heed my call, I say a new era is beginning; an era where politics gain prominence over weapons. We have now arrived at the stage of withdrawing our armed forces outside the borders. I believe that all those, who have opened up their hearts to me and believed in this cause, will watch out for the vulnerabilities of the process." As Selahattin Demirtaş later put it, this declaration was a "mutually agreed text", which went back and forth between İmralı and the Prime Ministry and was finalized after several revisions. We didn't know it back then, but that statement was the first step of a road map which would later be referred to as the "Four-Step Ladder Strategy". Ending confrontation, deporting PKK's armed elements, negotiating disarmament and ending the armed conflict were to follow as part of this strategy. Hence, PKK's armed elements started to withdraw from Turkish territory on May 8th, 2013. In my book The Fight (2013) there is a chapter titled "Healing of a Century-Old Wound" which ends with the following words: "The millennial history and cultural reality of the geography we live in shows that Turks and Kurds have formed a partnership in destiny against all odds. Proper and objective analysis show that the conditions for such unity still exist and moreover, that if this union continues, Anatolia is going to become a more peaceful and prosperous geography. History is already ruling on the streets, in daily life. Politicians, who claim to speak on behalf of Kurds and Turks, should be able to use their historical roles in favor of Anatolian people. History is watching them."3 It's been five years since these sentences were written. Back then the quest for a Turkish-Kurdish peace was going more positively than ever before. Seeing an end to the 30-year bloodshed was not a far-fetched possibility anymore. There was a glimmer of hope starting to flicker in Anatolian people's eyer. The ground to bury the hatchet and build a future together was found. Finally, all people of Anatolia including Turks and Kurds were going to see better days. But let's admit, everyone was still concerned. They feared the risk of renewed provocations or undermining moves because the point in question was about bringing a solution to a century old burning issue and the road ahead was a minefield. In my 2013 book, The Fight I wrote that "history was watching these actors". History is full of examples showing how these leaders missed big opportunities and brought disastrous troubles on their people. That was the reason behind the precautious and concerned stance of these ancient communities, which have witnessed those bloody disasters. And soon these concerns would prove to be justified.

First roadblock to solution process: Gezi incident

It had been only two and a half months since Öcalan's call to bid farewell to arms on March 21st, 2013 when the 'Gezi protests' broke out in İstanbul and quickly took the whole country by storm. Municipal teams had started to cut trees for the 'Taksim Military Barracks' to be built at the site of the present-day Taksim Gezi Park next to Taksim Square, which triggered people's reaction. What started out as a scuffle with municipal teams quickly spread to other districts. Local administrators' approach and statements from Ankara further escalated the issue, let alone easing it. Officials handled the process so badly in the first three days that the tension increasingly intensifed. In a matter of a couple days, a natural reaction, which was triggerred by environmental concerns, turned into a mass protest against the government. Ferries were carrying protestors from İstanbul's upper-middle class Kadıköy district to Taksim while on the European side Maslak-Levent metro line was flooded with protestors trying to reach Taksim. What they were protesting was the ruling Erdoğan government, which remained in power after three successive elections. Anti-Erdoğan crowds were experiencing an outburst of reaction through the Gezi Park protests. Things got out of control when illegal organizations infiltrated the protestors' ranks in an effort to turn the protests into a propaganda apparatus. In 24 hours between June 1-2, 89 police vehicles, 42 private vehicles, 18 municipal vehicles, 4 public buildings, 94 businesses, one residential building and many bus stops were set on fire. Taksim Square remained under occupation by these organizations for days. Posters and banners symbolizing illegal organizations were hung on many buildings around Taksim, most particularly the Ataturk Cultural Center which has a full overview of the Square. Police did not and could not dismount them as they were worried about the risk of a further escalation. International news channels such as CNN, BBC World and Al Jazeera International flocked to İstanbul, broadcasting the incidents 24/7. Although the then Turkish government came to power with a vote rate as high as 49 percent, European and US channels were making analogies between Taksim and the Tahrir Square in Egypt, referring to the Tahrir protests that led to the overthrowing of Eyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. However, Tahrir was the revolt of a majority which never had the right to elect their rulers freely and had been living under a severely oppressive regime for years. Taksim, on the other hand, was an uprising by an educated minority which disliked the elected government, to say the least, and was concerned that the government would interfere in their life style. The protests, which started in Taksim, spread beyond İstanbul to other parts of the country, turning into a widespread protest against the government. Demonstrations were being held in more than 3o cities. But what was the link between the Gezi Incident in 2013 and the Turkish-Kurdish peace process? Why are we mentioning Gezi protests when talking abut the peace process? Because Gezi left its most important short-term political impact on the solution process. Gezi protests were the first incident which overturned the agreement that the State, Qandil and İmralı reached after 2013. At a time when people's hopes for solution and peace were genuinely renewed, Gezi cut the process like a knife. It's just that we didn't know it back then. As a matter of fact, one of the Kurdish actors, who had first hand knowledge about the talks between İmralı and Ankara, told a group of journalists, including me that Öcalan halted the peace process after the Gezi incidents. Abdullah Öcalan was following the protests both via the television in his room at the İmralı Prison and through his meetings with the HDP delegates, who were allowed to visit Öcalan back then. Principally, Gezi protests were not directly linked to the Kurdish issue. Kurdish political movement stood aloof from and even suspected Gezi, and tried to figure out first how it was going to unfold. PKK-HDP side did not actively get involved in the anti-government protests and stayed back. They refrained from engaging their people in these anti-government demonstrations. Some left-wing HDP deputies went to Taksim to support activitist, but there was no organization-level support. Of course there was an understandable motive behind their stance. For one, the most serious steps in the history of the Turkish Republic were being taken towards resolving the Kurdish issue and for the first time they were dealing with a government, which could see the solution process through thanks to its broad support base. Members of the delegation who visited Öcalan in İmralı quoted him as saying that some internal or external powers seemed to press the button to overthrow the government, which should not be ignored as a possibility.

Öcalan halts the process

At the time of the Gezi protests, PKK's armed elements were withdrawing from Turkey as agreed. The organization's armed mountain cadres had been leaving Turkish territory in small groups gradually since the first week of May. It was at that stage when Abdullah Öcalan's decision to stop withdrawal of PKK's armed elements from Turkey came. This meant the collapse of an elaborately built process. Only two and a half months ago Öcalan declared an end to armed struggle in his Newroz message, taking the most concrete step of the process by instructing PKK to withdraw from Turkish borders before hundreds of thousands of people. Now he was backtracking. Öcalan's intention in taking this decision was not to undermine the process. He was just taking "precaution" in his own way against the Gezi backdrop. He could not foresee how the Gezi protests would unfold. It was not possible to know what kind of government would come had the existing one was overthrown. They might have to resume armed struggle. Under the circumstances, he thought it would be better to keep the armed cadres in Turkey. He declared this decision to stop the withdrawal of armed elements to the HDP deputies during their visit to İmralı on June 24th, 2013 and the deputies swiftly passed on Öcalan's message to Qandil. İmralı's directive was more than welcome to those in Qandil. They immediately stopped the withdrawal, which they had been carrying out very slowly anyway. It was known from the very beginning that the PKK's executive team in Qandil - or at least a major part of them - were not that eager about the solution process and that they were unwillingly involved because Öcalan wanted it. The Gezi incident disrupted and even stopped the solution process, which caused a serious disappointment in Ankara. But again, this was not a "collapse", but a "road accident". Because both the government's and Öcalan's will to resolve the issue continued. Indeed, they had encountered many obstacles and provocations since the announcement of the solution process in 2009. This was not the first disruption in the process and many people lost their lives during the clashes which began after those disruptions. But this time the outlook was different. Soon talks resumed. The process was going to start from where it was left off. Now it was time to act and revive the process. The opposite party had certain expectations, which they had expressed back when the talks were still on. That could be a starting point for the process. The efforts to establish a Turkish-Kurdish peace were resurrected thanks to the government's new moves, but there were other mines - much more destructive than the Gezi incident - being planted on the road. 

A second blow to the 'Process': Arab Spring and 'Rojova Revolution'

As talks with Turkey continued, the Arab Spring, which erupted in late 2010, shook the balances in the region. As of March 2011, the winds of this spring had already reached Syria. After an 8-year honeymoon, Ankara-Damascus relations started to deteriorate as street protests in Syria gained steam in March 2011. I am not going to enter into further details as this topic is already addressed in other chapters, but I'll tell you one thing: The most signifcant outcome of Syria's Arab Spring for Turkey has been the collapse of the Turkish-Kurdish peace process. During the heyday of Ankara-Damascus relations, the PKK could get support from neither Syria nor Iran and Iraq. Qandil was in complete isolation. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad even proposed to hold a joint military operation with Ankara against the 'Kurds' in northern Syria in 2008. That Turkey have chosen to side with the people during the Arab Spring has turned Assad against Ankara. It came as no surprise when he got in contact with Qandil again with the idea that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. And the chain of isolation around the PKK cadres in Qandil started to break when Iran, who wanted Assad to remain in power, and Iraq, who shared the same view with Iran, followed suit with Syria. The Arab Spring acted as a life buoy for the PKK cadres in Qandil. After it became evident that the Damascus government would not allow a democratic transformation in the country and Tehran and Baghdad supported Assad, regional conjuncture made it almost impossible for Turkey to continue the solution process with the PKK. Continuation of the process now strictly depended on demonstration of a genuine will for peace by Qandil. But it was known from the very beginning that Qandil had no such concern. As soon as Qandil got rid of isolation, it looked away from Ankara, turning to Damascus and Tehran, and in time to Washington and Moscow based on circumstances. Hence, the biggest mine planted on the road to the solution of the PKK issue was Syria. Could it be possible achieve a Turkish-Kurdish peace without stepping on that mine? When the Assad regime saw that Turkey was no longer an ally, it started flirting with the PKK/PYD and chose to cooperate with the group, leaving certain regions to them as it did not want to open a new front in the north. With this move the Syrian regime did not only get the opportunity to shift its forces to more critical areas, but also created a threat against Turkey, which supported the popular protests. The political actor, which would act on behalf of Qandil during this period, was the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekitiyya Demokrat or PYD), which was founded in 2003 on Öcalan's command to operate in Syria and create a support base there. A while after the civil uprising broke out in Syria, the People's Protection Units (Yekitýiye Parastina Gel or YPG) were formed as the armed wing of the PYD due to the need for an armed force. Resim altı: PKK's core crew in Qandil: Murat Karayılan, Cemil Bayık, Duran Kalkan and Mustafa Karasu. Add Ali Haydar Kaytan and Rıza Altun to this quartet and you will have all the oldest living founders of the PKK in the same photo. In fact, the Kurdish population in the northern regions of Syria had many political movements or parties most of which were linked to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (Partiya Demokrat a Kurdistanê or KDP) in Iraq. None of these were armed movements. But soon the one, who held the weapon, started to dominate the entire region as was the rule in the Middle East. Eventually, the YPG forced all other Kurdish movements out of the region, pushing some of them to Iraq and some to the other parts of Syria. In effect, Turkey tried to engage those Kurdish movements in northern Syria, including the PYD in the solution process at the beginning. Because the most important reason why the PYD succeeded in forming a support base in Syria's north was that a considerable part of the Kurdish population there was originally from Turkey. Ankara took two important steps to reach out to that region. First, it asked Damascus to naturalize the people there, relying on its influence on the Syrian regime, which was seeing the Kurds in the country as an enemy. Ankara's second move was to try establishing a dialogue between the PYD and the Kurdish movements linked with the Iraqi KDP. It was important for Turkey that all Kurdish groups in the north take part in the opposition movement as part of the protests against the Syrian regime. Kurdish parties, which had organic ties with the Iraqi KDP, formed a coalition under the name the Kurdish National Council in Syria (Encûmana Niştimaniya Kurdi li Suriye or ENKS) in October 2011 and later came to an agreement with the Syrian National Council (SNC), an opposition coalition which included the Arabs, Turkmens and other groups in Syria. However, the PKK/PYD were not willing to join the ranks of the Syrian National Council. Instead of acting in concert with the SNC, they preferred to collaborate with the Syrian regime, which treated Kurds as an enemy for years and did not even naturalize them. Salih Muslim, who was appointed as the head of the PYD in 2010, had been arrested and released by the regime in the past, and he was also prohibited from entering the country. After the outbreak of the conflict, the Assad regime invited him to Syria and simultaneously released around 600 PYD members from Syrian prisons. The Damascus administration started to withdraw from the Kurdish areas in the north in July 2012. The PKK/PYD took control in Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) on July 19th, Afrin on July 20th, Malikiyah (Derik) and Amudah on July 21st, Sanjaq, Tel Ziwan and Tel Jihan villages in Tirbesipi (Qahtaniyah) and Girke Lege (Muabbada) in Hasakah on July 23rd, and Tel Amir on October 10th. Having been handed over the control of large swaths of territory in northern Syria raised Qandil's hopes for the future. Abdullah Öcalan might have been seeking an agreement with the Turkish state based on 'democratic autonomy', but the cake in Syria seemed much bigger than that. And certainly, this did not mean giving up on their demands in Turkey. Indeed, what they could gain on Syrian territory could further strengthen their hands in their armed struggle in Turkey. PYD's (you can read it Qandil) collaboration with Damascus during the Syrian uprising was going to have devastating effects on the Turkish-Kurdish peace process. A race against time The opportunities, which those in Qandil saw, was apparent to Abdullah Öcalan, too. On a meeting with Pervin Buldan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Altan Tan on February 23rd, 2013, he said "Kurds in Syria should talk with both sides and work with whichever recognizes their rights. Kurds must establish an independent defense force". On another account, he said "The powers in Syria would probably arm both sides. We can establish tactical alliances with both sides based on our own interests" on June 24th, 2013. These statements were disturbing for Turkey as the country was conducting peace talks with Öcalan at the time. The Kurdish side could be lured by the opportunities in Syria and become disinterested in the peace talks with Ankara, and indeed, things were going in that direction. It was no secret that a group in Qandil had been against the talks with Turkey since the very beginning. The decision at the 9th Congress of the PKK on July 13th, 2013 to 'spread civil insurrection across Turkey' was a manifestation of their opposition. It was amid these developments when Turkey invited the PYD Co-chairman Salih Muslim to Turkey in July 2013. Ankara's massage to Muslim was clear: "We are going through a historic period, trying to create a peace atmosphere. Avoid making moves that would upset this process". Ankara wanted the PYD to support the formation of a democratic Syria and join the globally-recognized legitimate opposition forces. While Turkey was asking the PYD to abstain from taking steps, which would create de facto situations in Syria, the YPG started to capture certain critical areas including the Rmelan oil field. Turkey's fears were coming true. The situation in Syria was increasingly becoming a bargaining chip in the talks that were being carried out in Turkey. The developments in Syria were whetting Öcalan's appetite as well. On August 17th, 2013, Öcalan said: "There may be cantons or autonomous regions like in Sweden (He means Switzerland)... There may be regions such as Afrin, Kobani and Jazira... But the basic strategic alliance would be with Turkey. This is what we offer to Turkey. It may be a more principled relationship than that with Barzani. There is a 900-km border." It was necessary to quickly get results from the peace talks with Abdullah Öcalan and Qandil. Otherwise, the developments unfolding in Syria could destroy the peace initiative. In ther words, Turkey had to conclude its own peace process faster than the Syrian war. The government prepared a 'road map' on September 3rd, 2013. MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan went to İmralı to negotiate it with Öcalan and they 'fully agreed' on the conditions. But on Setember 9th, Qandil made the following statement: "The government is not taking steps towards democratization and resolution of the Kurdish question, it does not keep its promises". The decision to stop the withdrawal of the armed elements was taken during the Gezi protests two month ago, but crisis was overcome later. So what was the rationale behind making such a statement now? As I mentioned before, Qandil had remained distant to the solution talks right from the start. They attempted to make simlar provocations back in 2009 during the first stage of the solution process and this was the latest example. In an effort to accelerate the peace initiative, the government announced a new democratizaton package on September 30th, 2013, under which Kurdish names of villages that had been replaced by Turkish ones would be returned to their originals and the use of letters x, w and q would be allowed. The package also paved the way for a new arrangement whereby all political parties which pass the 3 percent threshold would be entitled to get treasury grants. Turkey was trying hard to finalize the solution process, but would those efforts suffice to save the prcess given that İmralı-Qandil started to demand recognition for its control on the other side of the Syrian border? Turkey's number one concern was now rendering of the process conditional on what was happening in Syria and this concern turned out to be true when the HDP delegation visited İmrali on November 9th. When HDP's Sırrı Süreyya Önder told Öcalan that the Prime Minister had told him that he had one red line: Syria and that he would never let a Northern Iraq-like structure to be established there", Öcalan said: "Then you tell him that we will never let Kurds melt down within the central Syrian state. This is our red line." This dialogue revealed that the PKK had scaled-up their case. For them, the solution process could no longer be carried out independently of the developments in Syria. This attitude would be further proven by future incidents. Mesut Barzani in Diyarbakır On November 16th, 2013, Turkey took a significant symbolic step. Prime Minister Erdoğan got together with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Masoud Barzani in Diyarbakır. The duo was accompanied by Kurdish musicians Şivan Perwer and İbrahim Tatlıses. A message of unity and peace was being sent out from Diyarbakır, with the intention to show that a Kurdish-Turkish peace would create a peace atmosphere in the entire region. Masoud Barzani was supportive of Turkey's talks with İmralı and Qandil. At the same time, Ankara was trying to build a dialogue platform between Barzani and Özalan by mediating the correspondence between the two Kurdish leaders with the aim of getting them together under a common vision for regional cooperation. A positive climate was achieved, but it was not going to last long. This time Turkey was faced with the December 17 probe. The country was shaken with a flow of corruption allegations involving certain government minister, wiretapping records and arrests. This was a move by Gülenists, which would be followed by another similar move on December 25th. December 17-25 corruption probes was an attack to topple the government, just like the Gezi Park demonstrations a few months ago. When they failed to overthrow the government with street protests during the Gezi incident, they made a second attempt - this time through the law enforcement and the judiciary. Neither the Gezi Park nor what happened during December 17-25 were directly related to the content of the solution process. They were about the existence and continuation of the government. Eliminating the government would mean an indefinite postponement of the solution efforts. Once the government got over the December 17-25 incident, it directed its attention on the talks with İmralı-Qandil again in early 2014. However, the outlook was not very bright. PYD, on Qandil's command, had declared Syrian towns Jazira, Kobani (Ayn al Arab) and Afrin as autonomous cantons on January 21st, January 27th and January 29th, respectively. The most solid evidence, that the PYD turned a deaf ear to Turkey's demand 'to not create de facto conditions' in Syria, was the declaration of cantons. The organization was taking over the administration in those regions. In an exclusive interview by Ece Göksedef from Al Jazeera Türk, PYD leader Salih Muslim said the decision to declare cantons was actually made earlier, but that they waited a while to announce it at a closer date to the Geneva Talks on January 24th. In other words, they were giving the message that "If we are not represented at the Geneva Talks, if Ankara objects to us being independently represented there, we will not shy away from taking unilateral steps." PYD did not only declare a de facto administration in those regions, but it also started to forcibly displace the inhabitants there who were not affiliated with the PYD. International reports were especially drawing attention to how Arabs and Turkmens in the region were oppressed and forced to immigrate. Turkey was watching these developments with deep concern, but did not/could not intervene. At that stage, the government made another move by putting forth a new democratization package which allowed for electioneering in Kurdish language in local and parliamentary elections. The package also included legalization of party co-chairmanship and reduction of the maximum pre-trial detention period to five years. The ruling AK Party came out victorious in the local elections, which were held on March 30th, 2014, getting a vote of over 40 percent in almost 70 percent of all provinces. The party failed to pass 10 percent in only three provinces. These results indicated people's approval for the accident-prone solution process. In his statement on June 1st, 2014, Abdullah Öcalan said that the process arrived at a new stage and that now there was a significant hope for a serious beginning which should be protected. Those, who listened to Öcalan those days, would think everything was fine and the solution process was in progress while those, who looked at Qandil's messages, could easily believe that there was no end in sight with regard to this issue. ISIL captures Mosul On June 10th, 2014, ISIL made a game-changing move by capturing Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, which would also affect the course of the solution process in Turkey. The group did not even have to engage in a serious clash since thousands of Iraqi soldiers in Mosul simply fled and surrendered the city when faced with a few hundred-member attacking force of the organization. Iraqi army since Nouri al-Maliki has largely become a Shia-majority force. Shia Iraqi soldiers of the central government fled the Sunni Arab city of Mosul with no resistance at all against ISIL. Reports from the region showed that the Iraqi security forces with more than ten thousand soldiers did not even clash with a group of less than a thousand ISIL militants. Moreover, they left behind the sophisticated weapons provided by the US, which ended up in the hands of ISIL in addition to the millions of dollars in Mosul banks Mosul's fall to ISIL was a traumatic event not only for Iraq, but also for the United States which invaded the country in 2003 and withdrew its soldiers a couple of years ago. ISIL, which was already controlling many areas in Syria, was now establishing a new order in the region by seizing a large Iraqi city like Mosul, virtually deleting the Iraqi and Syrian borders. This was a grave picture on the US' part. Moreover, the Barack Obama administration had no intention whatsoever to send troops to respond to the situation on the ground. The most fundamental notion of Obama's Middle East policy was to not send troops to the region ever again. His pledge to withdraw US soldiers from Iraq was one of the most important elements of his election campaign. And he did withdraw them. Therefore, sending troops to Syria or Iraq again was out of question for him. But the US needed more soldiers on the ground. This was what made the PYD/YPG increasingly valuable in the eyes of the Pentagon and eventually led to the demise of Turkey's peace process. YPG had what the US needed and the US had what Qandil was looking for. As the developments in Iraq and Syria were unfolding in this direction, another significant step was taken with regard to the legal basis of Turkey's talks with the PKK. A 6-article framework law for the solution process was enacted in July 2014 in an effort to lay the legal basis for the talks with Öcalan and the PKK. The law authorised the government and bureaucracy to take the necessary political, legal, economic and cultural steps to finalize the solution process and achieve a resolution with the PKK. According to the then Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay, "the framework law was going to serve as a basis for the road map and action plan which would detail more concrete steps with regard to the ongoing process". Öcalan insistently expressed his demand for enactment of this law, which, according to him, would indicate that the government was engaged in the process on a legal basis as well. "The most important reality is that the process has entered a new stage. There is hope for a serious beginning at this stage, and this hope should be preserved and improved," Öcalan told the HDP delegation who visited him at İmrali on July 2nd, 2014. This was a message to Qandil, which had been continously making provoking statements. In another meeting with HDP members a week later, he thanked the government for enacting the framework law. His thank-you message, in which Öcalan called on 'everyone to act responsibly', was shared with the public by Sırrı Süreyya Önder and Leyla Zana on July 11th, 2014. This message was addressed to Qandil as road blocking, kidnapping and racketeering cases were rampant in many parts of Turkey's southeast those days and the government remained silent against these incidents most of the time for the sake of the process. We do not know whether İmralı and Qandil were playing good cop-bad cop back then because despite Öcalan's warning, Qandil continued with its provocative messages. For example, speaking to Al Jazeera Türk on July 10th, 2014, Cemil Bayık said that withdrawal was not going to resume. He further went on to tell Azadiye Welat newspaper eight days after Öcalan's call to avoid provocative actions, on July 19th, 2014, that "those, who thought the PKK would lay down arms, were dreaming". After Pervin Buldan and Sırrı Süreyya Önder delivered the road map, which was agreed between the government and İmralı, to Öcalan and came back, Davutoğlu wanted to talk to them personally. Ankara had serious doubts as to whether the PKK's mountain cadres would shoulder responsibility due to Qandil's provocative statements. Buldan and Önder met with Prime Minister Davutoğlu on September 10th, 2014. The PM wanted to 'hear himself' that everything was on track and that Qandil consented to the process. "We will take these steps, but do you guarantee that [the PKK] will put an end to road blockings, kidnappings and prosecutions in tents erected on the countryside, and stop activities disturbing public order?" he asked and was told, in response: "Not a single illegal activity will be left in Turkey by October 15th. You will see the difference in two weeks." But Turkey observed no change by the said date. On the contrary, Qandil amped up messages indicating that the mountain cadres prioritize territorial gains in Syria over the peace process in Turkey. Ahmet Davutoğlu was describing the then outlook in an interview as follows: "We are trying to solve a 30-year-old issue with a circle of fire around us... I say [the issue should be resolved] as soon as possible, because we are faced with a very serious regional instability, which is prone to provocations. We may encounter unexpected incidents." In the same interview, he also said that PYD should clarify the choices it will make in Syria and Iraq. Because he, too, knew that the Achille's heel of the process was not in Turkey, but elsewehere. Meanwhile, the developments in Syria took such a turn that those in Qandil started to view the talks with Turkey as an obstacle to the continuation of their gains in Syria. They preferred to pursue a much bigger goal in Syria instead of bargaining with Turkey over a a vaguely-defined 'democratic autonomy'. They went after that goal at the expense of ending the solution process with Turkey. Securing their position in Rojava would give them a stronger hand at the negotiating table. Tensions climbed up further in mid-September 2014 when ISIL launched the siege of Kobani (Ay al Arab). Turkey was making democratization moves, which would also help resolve the Kurdish issue, on one side, and trying to keep the talks with İmralı alive. That being said, we must also admit that the PKK/PYD side's gains in Syria were becoming more and more attractive, overshadowing any domestic pursuit for peace. Having acquired hundreds of square kilometers of territory in a very short period of time with the help of the Assad regime, PYD was consolidating its presence there with YPG's force of arms. While MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan reached an agreement with Abdullah Öcalan with regard to the road map in a face-to-face meeting at İmralı in early September (2014), a statement by Cemil Bayık revealed that the risk actually originated from outside Turkey. Speaking to journalist Amberin Zaman on September 21st, 2014, Cemil Bayık said "We may resume our war at the end of September. We have the authority to resume the war... We have a division of labor with Öcalan... We decide on war. The authority to end the cease-fire lies with us. But our leader Apo decides on peace, on the continuation of the peace process. His role is different from ours." Cemil Bayık was speaking from a position of confidence as he was aware that the PYD/YPG was now on the US' radar, which was in need of a land force on the ground against ISIL which strengthened its foothold in Syria after capturing Mosul. 'Brave Kurdish fighters' in Syria had become especially attractive after the fall of Mosul to ISIL on June 10th. We don't know how much Öcalan was aware of this situation, but Qandil was probably sure of it. There were only four months between ISIL's capture of Mosul and the US-PKK meetings in Paris and later in Erbil. Under the circumtances, the peace talks with Turkey had long lost its appeal for Qandil and later for Öcalan. In a sense, they needed to provoke a quarrel to undermine these talks and the Kurdistan Communities Union's (Koma Civakên Kurdistan or KCK) Executive Council statement on September 24th, 2014 was obviously made to provide that: "The Executive Council decided the state of no conflict had been effectively ended by the actions of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and resolved to step up the fight in every sphere and by using any kind of measure to reciprocate the war waged by AKP against our people." Kobani: A missed opportunity or a trap As Qandil was sending out the said messages, ISIL started to head for Kurdish town of Kobani (Ayn al Arab) on the Syrian-Turkish border in early September, 2014. Located between Afrin in the west and Jazira in the east, Kobani was one of the first cantons declared by the PKK/PYD side An ISIL-PKK clash was just around the corner. Turkey was faced with a critical decision when ISIL targeted Kobani. Would it rather see ISIL or PKK on its border? It certainly would not prefer to see any of them, but that was not the question. The question was whether Turkey was going to act to protect Kurds on the Syrian side of the border against ISIL as its search for peace with the PKK was ongoing. In other words, was Turkey going to protect a PYD-controlled canton against ISIL? Or as a country, which regards cantons with disfavour, would it be happy to see one of them destroyed by ISIL? At that point, statements from the PKK side started to come one after another. Member of KCK Executive Council, Sabri Ok said Turkish state's policies with regard to Rojava and Kobani would determine the fate of the solution process. However, neither Kobani nor Syria were among the top items on Turkish public opinion agenda. Turkey's priority was on the quest for 'peace with Kurds'. 'Who cares about Koban,' people were often heard saying. In a statement on September 30, Qandil said "If Turkey seeks peace inside, then it should help protect a PKK-controlled area in Syria against ISIL". This was Qandil's demand and prerequisite to continue the solution process. Turkish-Kurdish peace was now conditioned on Kobani. Turkey was making every effort on those days to have a 'secure zone' and a 'no-fly zone' established in northern Syria to protect civilians from the regime's attacks, reiterating this demand in every critical capital including Washington. This secure zone was going to include Kobani as well. If the US wanted to get ISIL out of these regions, Turkey was ready to take on responsibility. Ankara had expressed this repeatedly, but the US turned a deaf ear to these messages. Turkish Parliament was set to debate a cross-border motion around the same days. The government understood that the solution process, which they put a lot of effort into, could collapse onece again because of Kobani. That was the reason why Salih Muslim was invited to Turkey for the second time. On October 4th 2014 MİT officials met with Salih Muslim while Ahmet Davutoğlu got together with Selahattin Demirtaş in Ankara to discuss the matter. Muslim wanted a corridor to be established fromthe Jazira canton to Afrin and likewise from Jazira to Kobani. These regions were geographically disconnected, but clashes were continuing. Salih Muslim's demand was to send support to Kobani from other cantons via Turkey. Turkey was ready to allow PKK elements, with which it has been fighting against for the last 40 years, to cross its territory based on certain conditions, including abolishment of cantons and joint action with the opposition against the regime. Turkey had three demands from the PKK/PYD in Syria from the very outset: 1. Do not liaise with the Syrian regime, support the opposition. 2. Avoid declaring status quos that creates de facto situations in Syria. 3. Avoid actions on the border that would pose a security risk for Turkey. However, these demands were turned down. Davutoğlu talked about the messages they gave to the PYD back then in an interview in October 2014: "Look, the solution process is still on. We certainly do not see the PYD as an enemy. Indeed, we do not see any people in the region as an enemy, let alone Kurds, at a time when we are pursuing an integration strategy both in Turkey and in the region. We will do all that we can to ensure Kobani does not fall. Moreover, we are aware of the fact that the PYD is protecting Turkish borders, too, against ISIL. So let's continue in this path. It is not rational to 'directly' link Kobani to the solution process... The peace process is our national project. It means strengthening of our citizenship bonds. However, they pursued an indecisive and opportunist policy." "Turkey promised to provide unconditional humanitarian help and support. Of course, we will lend support to Kobani from our other cantons as well, but we need to be able to cross Turkish territory for that. Now we are waiting for Turkey to keep its promise," Salih Muslim said in his account of that meeting. Salih Muslim listened to Ankara's messages, but cherry-picking the ones that he wanted to hear and ignoring the others. They needed Turkey on the Kobani border back then and Turkey was saying it could provide that support. But there were certain conditions to it. On the other hand, the PYD side did not care about cooperating with Turkey and contributing to regional integration in the broader picture. Especially, they had no intention of giving up their canton policy. In an interview with Al Jazeera Türk, Salih Muslim said "Turkey's conditions are like blackmailing, which is unacceptable. We are not going to call off cantons. They will serve as an example when building the new Syria." Arguing against Turkey's efforts to create a 'secure zone', Muslim added "We would respect a secure zone if created by the United Nations, but if it would be created unilaterally - He means Turkey, G.Z.- we would take it as an occupation." He was saying that 'they would respect' a secure zone created together with other countries, but that they would not agree if Turkey created a secure zone on its own. Were they relying on their own power or did they have other powers to rely on when acting like that? We don't know that. But it was later revealed that Salih Muslim's next stop after Turkey was France where he had an extremely significant or even historic appointment. PKK, under the name of PYD, was set to hold a direct meeting with the United States for the first time in its history. We will talk about the details of these talks in proceeding pages. Turkey supported Syrian Kurds in Kobani not by carrying out a military intervention agains ISIL, but by opening its borders to tens of thousands of Kurds escaping from ISIL. Furthermore, in a more symbolic move, Ankara allowed a small number of KDP peshmerga, equipped with sophisticated weapons that were required on the ground, to cross through Turkey into Kobani to help YPG. However, it is open to question whether that was the right move for Turkey to make at that moment. Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was saying that 'Turkey was the protector of Syrian Kurds as well', but Turkey was not taking any steps to thwart the ISIL attack on Kobani. Ankara could have reinforced its basic arguments by at least tackling ISIL forces from the air. For one, defeating a threat faced by tens of thousands of Kurds right across its border would have been a deeply meaningful message for the Kurdish population in view of the ongoing Turkish-Kurdish peace process. At least, this was what one would expect from a country that said 'Turkey is the protector of Syrian Kurds'. Turkey's intervention at that point would also have been an effective response to the argument that 'Turkey was providing support to ISIL'. Apparently, the decision-makers in Ankara failed to reach an agreement on such a move and finally decided to 'stay out of it'. Turkey had lost that opportunity. Government's indifferent statements about Kobani during that period might have been considered as 'justified' by a part of Turkish public opinion, but for others it was problematic. Why was that? Because Kurds living in northern Syria shared very close family relationships with Turkey's Kurds. Most of them had immigrated to Syria from Turkey. People on both sides of the border were still in active contact with each other. This was 'an organic contact' which the decision-makers in Ankara probably could not notice. Failure to see or ignoring this organic link between the Kurdish population in Kobani and Kurds in Turkey was one of the biggest mistakes by Ankara. Moreover, President Erdoğan's words from his speech in Gaziantep on October 7th, 2014 that "Kobani was about to fall" were taken out of context to make him seem like he wished Kobani to fall. Turkey failed to make that move and ended up losing its vantage position, which produced adverse outcomes such as the government being criticized for allegedly supporting ISIL, preferring Kobani to fall into ISIL's hands and being ideologically close to ISIL. Turkey fell into the Kobani trap, but this time with its own hands. Öcalan was now speaking exactly like Qandil. The Öcalan, who called for a farewell to arms in March 2013 and agreed to a vision of peace in Turkey based on 'democratic autonomy', was gone. Now there was an Öcalan imposing Rojava as a condition to the momentous Turkish-Kurdish peace. In his statement on October 2nd, 2014, he was sending the message that 'Kobani was an integral part of the process' with the following words: "I remind once again that the Kobani reality and the peace process in Turkey are an indivisible whole and I call on everyone to defend this democratic journey and struggle for humanity that has cost everybody a lot." The crisis was gradually escalating with overwhelming effects on the solution process. In other words, the Syrian conflict started to undermine the Turkish-Kurdish peace. When the Turkish parliament authorized the government to carry out a cross-border military operation if required, Qandil labelled this decision as 'a declaration of war against the PKK': "This decision ends the peace process with Turkey. It is a decision equal to a declaration of war". However, Turkish parliament had been issuing that mandate since 1990 as part of the fight against the PKK, so it was not something new. The decision to include Syrian territory in the mandate was taken for the first time in 2012 when a mortar fired by the Syrian regime killed Turkish citizens. In other words, the mandate, which, according to the PKK, 'ended the solution process' was something that had been there for more than 20 years and renewed every year since the beginning of the peace talks. October 6-7 Kobani Incidents On October 6th, 2014, HDP made the following announcement: "This is an urgent call to our people from the HDP Central Executive Committee which is currently in session: The situation in Kobani is extremely critical. We call our people to take to the streets and support those, who took to the streets, to protest ISIL attacks and the AKP government's embargo on Kobani." This call, which would later trigger a series of incidents leaving more than 50 people dead, came only two days after Pervin Buldan's statement that 'the state and İmralı agreed on a road map'. This proved that the determining dynamic of the ongoing process was the development in Syria rather than the Ankara-İmralı talks. Apparently, the road map agreed with İmralı did not matter, but, that Salih Muslim or in other words Qandil could not get what they wanted from Ankara, did. According to Murat Karayılan "Turkey had promised Salih Muslim that a corridor would be opened, but did not keep its promise." This was a move by Qandil aiming to outmanoeuvre Turkey. HDP's call mobilized all the PKK militia in Turkey's southeastern provinces, wreaking serious havoc in these cities. Taking advantage of the tolerance shown towards them throughout the negotiation process, the PKK had stocked weapons and ammunition in many different locations and trained new recruits, which they used during the incidents, claiming the lives of more than 50 and injuring hundreds. PKK members destroyed over a thousand buildings in the region, trying to gain ground. Violence was everywhere. And all of these came after HDP, as a political party represented in the parliament, called people out on to the streets. The state was having difficulty in establishing control in cities where insurgence broke out. Curfew was declared in Diyarbakır. Primary and secondary schools were closed temporarily. But these did not help establish calm in the streets. The situation was spiralling out of control. During the incidents the PKK militants did not only target public buildings, but also the buildings where Hizbullah-linked Hüda Par's offices were located.