As an extension to the policy of interest and an attempt to win them over in the 2023 elections
"Erdogan" concludes a truce with the Kurds using the method of Ottoman treachery
The Ottomans and Turkish republicans have taken a well-known approach with Kurdish nationalism throughout history. Therefore, they always resort to soft language with the Kurds when they need them most, and as soon as they are finished with the Kurds and no interest is with them, they turn against them with their violent and repressive methods. This is what Selim I and his son Suleiman, and after them, the sultans of the Ottoman Empire, up to the republican era, in which Mustafa Kemal Ataturk approached the Kurds until the end of the political and international crisis at home, then turned against the Kurds and became his next target by pursuing and suppressing them.
Since his political emergence at the turn of the millennium, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current president of the Turkish Republic, has dealt intelligently, trying to convince those around him that he is different from his predecessors and does not act on the same principles as theirs. They had previously worked to obliterate the identity of the Kurds and change the names of their families and villages. Erdogan allowed them to rename their villages and regions, restore the names of their families, open a TV channel in the Kurdish language and tell them that he is against the racism and nationalism practiced by many Turks against them.
Erdogan took advantage of Istanbul’s fullness of Kurds after he was its ruler, as he continued to win over and sympathize with the Kurds, assuring them that he would restore their rights to them. He benefited from the great mixing between the Turkish and Kurdish races in society. The Kurds had a great deal of credit for Erdogan’s accession to the premiership in 2003 until he took power in 2014.
After Erdogan was able to reach the presidency of the Turkish state, he began to tyrannize and threaten the Kurds to crush them, and went beyond the order to interfere in the affairs of others when he threatened and announced his stand against any independence of the Kurds or giving them an opportunity to achieve this, whether inside or outside Turkey.
The Kurdish memory still preserves Erdogan's promises to its nationalism, and after it brought him to power since 2003, he turned against it.
Erdogan’s visit to the Kurds was not out of his desire to unite them, but the Turanian interest calls for it. During his visit to Diyarbakir in 2006, the Kurdish-majority region, Erdogan called for cooperation with Ankara. He warned that failure to do so would mean a loss for both sides. These statements by Erdogan were in the aftermath of unrest and violence in the Kurdish regions of Turkey.
When Erdogan was prime minister, he made a historic confession when he stated that his government was working to fix what he considered the mistakes of the past. Those sayings remain an illusion that he used to cover up. The stage of amending and manipulating the constitution was not new to Erdogan, and history is repeated when the confrontation of the Turkish generals with the Kurdish militants seeking their existence erupted. At that time, the Turkish leaders resorted to forcing the Erdogan government to amend the Anti-Terrorism Law to give broad powers to the army and security services, and they treated the events as terrorism, which is opposed by Turkish, European and Western human rights organizations in general.
The Turks are still dealing with multiple nationalities, including the Kurdish ones, with deceit and terrorism.
Contemporary and ancient Ottoman historians avoid dealing with the massacres committed against the Kurds during the history of the Ottoman Empire and its extensions in the present represented by the Turkish Republic currently and in the era of Erdogan in particular. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu followed this path in his book “The Ottoman Empire” when he completely ignored Kurdish rights in Turkish history.
The government of the Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) has taken a repressive approach towards the Kurdish political movement, and no matter how much the Kurds are subjected to repression and pressure, they will be a determining factor in the upcoming presidential elections of 2023. Erdogan knows this well, so it is expected that he will seek to appease the Kurdish side and achieve only a temporary peace, as was done by the Ottoman governments in the past and the Turkish Republic in its beginnings. After the Kurds are exploited to achieve the goal of serving political issues in the interest of the Turkish leaders, the soft language will change with the Kurds.
- Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, The Ottoman Empire: History and Civilization (Istanbul: Research Center for History and Arts 1999).
- Turgut Oglu, article titled “The influence of the Kurds in Turkish politics”, Tuesday, March 2, 2021, Independent Arabia.
- Sherzad Al-Yazidi, an article entitled “Escaping from crises, Erdogan resorts to the usual option to suppress the Kurds”, February 16, 2021, Sherzad Al-Yazidi, Sky News Arabia.
- Hussein Jamo, an article titled “The Ottomans and the Kurds… A Confused Alliance and a Renewed Bloody Legacy”, Saturday 16 May 2020, Independent Arabia.