Erdoğan says Turkey never had a Kurdish problem
“My brothers, there has never been any problem called the Kurdish issue in this country. Yet, there are intentional efforts to keep this on the agenda. … We ended it [the problem] in a speech I made in Diyarbakır in 2005 and that is it. My Kurdish citizens could have problems. They could have problems just like the problems of Turkish citizens. Thirty-six ethnic groups in the country have their own problems. There is constant talk about the Kurdish problem. Turkey has been kept busy with this for years -- 40,000 people have been killed in this country for this reason,” he said.
Erdoğan's statements came in Balıkesir province on Sunday where he traveled to attend a series of ceremonies.
“Now, when you take a look at them, they keep talking about a Kurdish problem. What are you talking about, brother? What Kurdish problem. … What have you not got? Did you have a president [of Kurdish background], did you have a prime minister [of Kurdish background], did you have ministers [of Kurdish background]? Yes, you did. Do you have [Kurds] in the bureaucracy, in the TSK [Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)]? Yes. What else do you want? For God's sake, what don't you have that we do, you have everything,” Erdoğan told Kurds.
In a speech he delivered on Aug. 12, 2005, Erdoğan, who was the prime minister at the time, had acknowledged for the first time, on behalf of the Turkish state, that Turkey had a problem often referred to as the Kurdish issue. He had pledged that Turkey would seek to resolve the issue through peaceful and democratic means. “The Kurdish issue is the issue of the entire Turkish nation. We will solve it through more democracy and greater welfare,” he said then.
On Sunday, Erdoğan also noted that the government has built roads and airports in the country's predominantly Kurdish Southeast for Kurds who have long complained about a lack of state services, but added that it has faced obstructions, which he implicitly attributed to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
“They [the PKK] burn down the equipment of businessmen, contractors. Why do you do that? We constructed one [airport] in Iğdır, one in Ağrı, one in Kars. Has this state discriminated against you? My brothers, they have a different agenda. We eliminated policies of rejection [of Kurds]. We eliminated assimilation policies because we said this, we said we love the created on the Creator's behalf, and we will do so,” added Erdoğan.
Erdoğan said every ethnic group in Turkey has its problems peculiar to them, but some people are playing a political game with their insistence on the existence of a larger Kurdish problem in the country.
“I also told this to my Roma sisters and brothers yesterday [Saturday]. Turks have problems, too; Roma people have problems, too. Bosnian people have problems, too; Laz people have problems, too; they all have problems.”
In another speech in Çanakkale province on Saturday, Erdoğan said people appearing on TV and talking about a Kurdish problem in the country are aiming to divide Turkey.
He said some people are making deliberate efforts for the continuation of the Kurdish problem to provide grounds for some to launch Molotov cocktail attacks and stir up unrest in the country.
“There is no problem in our country stemming from their [Kurds'] ethnicity,” Erdoğan said in Çanakkale.
Turkey's Kurdish question has existed since the first years of the republic, but it turned violent in 1984 after the establishment of the PKK. More than 40,000 civilians and security forces have been killed in clashes so far.
In an attempt to solve the decades-old Kurdish and terrorism problems, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government launched talks with imprisoned Kurdistan PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in late 2012. Despite widespread suspicions about the content of the talks, the government believes the settlement process will help urge PKK members to withdraw from Turkey and thus put an end to the country's PKK terrorism problem.
Erdoğan's remarks found contradictory
The president's statements have raised eyebrows among the politicians of the opposition parties who have accused Erdoğan of adopting the attitude of a “hypocrite” in order to shape public perception.
Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu has said Erdoğan is constantly denying his earlier statements, as well as AK Party policies and the statements of AK Party actors.
“Then one would ask him why there is an ongoing [settlement] process if there is no [Kurdish] problem?” Tanrıkulu said.
According to the CHP official, Erdoğan wants to create the perception that he is the only solution to all problems and that he has eliminated all the problems in the country. “He means to say, ‘Now, embrace me as a savior. Give 400 deputies [to the AK Party] and make me the president [under a switch to a presidential system]. I will eradicate all the problems.' He has an understanding which has nothing to do with solving a problem,” explained Tanrıkulu.
Erdoğan, who was elected to the presidency in August, is a strong supporter of a presidential system. He did not hide his aspiration to become the first president elected under a presidential system. Turkey currently has a parliamentary system. Although while president Erdoğan is required to be impartial, according to the Constitution, he asks the nation to support the ruling AK Party, Erdoğan's former party, so that it can win 400 seats in Parliament, giving the AK Party the numerical majority to press ahead with changing to Constitution and switching to a presidential system.
Hasip Kaplan, a pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), deputy has described Erdoğan's statements about a Kurdish problem no longer existing in the country as “incomprehensible” and “inconsistent.”
“Every citizen of this country has problems being an equal citizen. Kurdish citizens have a problem enjoying the same rights as Turkish citizens. The [Kurdish] problem will continue to exist until these legal and constitutional rights are maintained,” Kaplan told Today's Zaman.
Since the AK Party government came to power in 2002, some steps have been taken to expand the cultural and political rights of the Kurds, but they are said to be insufficient.
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) deputy group chairman Yusuf Halaçoğlu also accused Erdoğan of hypocrisy because he and the AK Party government are negotiating with the PKK on the one hand, and then he says there is no Kurdish problem in Turkey.
“Then, why are sitting around a table with the PKK, why are you making concession after concession? Which problems are you talking about with the terrorist organization, which you failed to convince to lay down their weapons, what bargain are you making? If the PKK does not have any connection with the Kurds, with what does it have a connection? Who is Öcalan? If he is not Kurdish, what [is he]? Are you holding talks about the Armenian issue in İmralı [the island on the Sea of Marmara where Öcalan is jailed]” he asked.
Halaçoğlu also said conflicting statements from Erdoğan and the AK Party government are aimed at confusing the public and shaping public perception in their favor.
“They have the ignorant belief that the nation will not understand the contradiction in their policies. Our nation will show them on June 7 that it fully understands everything,” said Halaçoğlu, referring to the date when Turkey will hold parliamentary elections.
Diyarbakır Mayor Gültan Kışanak also reacted to Erdoğan's statements on Sunday.
“It is correct. There is not a Kurdish problem in Turkey anymore. Kurds have become a fundamental force and dynamic of democracy. There are bad administrators resisting this,” she said, adding that the real problem in Turkey is administrators who do not think sufficiently democratically, pluralistically and in favor of the people.
But Kışanak also said Kurds still lack many rights, in particular, education in their mother tongue.
The use of languages other than Turkish in the public education system has long been debated in Turkey. The HDP and its predecessors have been calling for the right to an education in one's mother tongue for a long time, while the majority of Parliament opposes it.
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