Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is a hypocrite
Turkish PM is a hypocrite who has committed atrocities similar to Israel.
By Matt Kennard on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 - 806 words.
There has been a lot of crowing about Recip Erdogan’s performance at the Davos Summit when he stormed out of his panel discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres. Erdogan had taken umbrage at the tone of Peres’s defense of Israel’s two-week long assault on Gaza and the moderators apparent bias against the Turkish premier.
As Erdogan came home to Turkey the airport was surrounded by elated supporters who denounced Israel’s assault, waved Palestinian flags and told their PM, “Turkey is proud of you”. Erdogan’s stand against this vile war criminal Peres – who is strangely upheld as some sort of peacemaker in certain psychotic circles – was welcome and Turkey should be proud, but only for a moment.
For Erdogan had told Peres that, “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill,” which is true, but how many of those supporters outside the airport are aware that the Turkish premier also knows very well how to kill. On 17th January this year Hurriyet, the popular daily newspaper in Turkey, reported that in 2008 the Turkish military had killed 696 “outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK militants” in 2008. That’s just over half the number of people Israel killed in its ostensible war on Hamas, but only a moral retard will hold up such figures as a testament to Turkish humanity.
Like Israel’s invocation of Hamas in their defense of their attack on Gazan society, so Turkey have used the PKK as an excuse to attack Kurdish civil society. The PKK had started their (often brutal) terrorism campaign in 1984 with the aim of creating an independent Kurdistan (their goal has now softened to a just autonomy within Turkey).
In reaction to this campaign, the 1990s under the leadership of Ozal and Demirel saw massive atrocities and depopulation of the south-east of Turkey in a “war on terror” by the government ostensibly aimed at the PKK, but which largely didn’t discriminate between combatants and civilians who often lived in the same villages, like Gaza. And again like in Gaza, civilians were targeted as thousands of villages were destroyed and, although estimates vary, 30,000 is the figure that is usually quoted by aid agencies for Kurdish dead during this assault. Like the West Bank, Diyabakir and other centers of Kurdish populations became riven with secret Turkish police, and check-points dotted the area.
And like Israel, this was all done with US arms, which skyrocketed towards the end of the Clinton administration. Under Erdogan the attitude towards the Kurds has softened somewhat, with the first Kurdish-language media channel recently opening (it was previously illegal to broadcast in Kurdish), but under Erdogan Turkey has repeatedly made incursions into northern Iraq to “target the PKK” which inhabits the mountains there, alongside the local Kurds at the bottom of the peaks.
Hoshyar Zebari, Iraqi foreign minister, who is a Kurd, said of the prospective Turkish incursions back in 2007:
“This would be a unilateral decision and that’s why people are resisting that.That’s why the whole government of Iraq and the whole people of Iraq are united really not to see their sovereignty, their territorial integrity undermined by a friendly neighbouring country.”
But like Gaza, northern Iraq has absolutely no sovereignty and can be attacked at will by the Turks. In December 2007 a Turkish bombing campaign apparently killed 7 people, including a woman, while the UN said it made 2,000 people refugees. Another incursion two months later in February 2009, according to the Turkish military, killed 240 “militants”, while 27 troops died.
The Kurdish Regional Government, or KRG, has been one of the few success stories of the US/UK invasion, and this has scared the Turkish government who, like Israel with Palestine, does not want to see an independent Kurdish state coming to fruition in the area of northern Iraq as it might embolden Kurdish nationalists in south-east Turkey. Since the country was founded by its venerated leader Kemal Ataturk, the Turks have refused to accept the Kurds as a separate ethnicity with their own distinct language and culture, much like Israel has tried to denigrate and destroy the remnants of Palestinian civil society and culture.
The parallels between the national narratives of Israel and Turkey are striking, the former founded in 1948, the latter in 1923. In Turkey’s case, the Palestinians are the Kurds, Hamas are the PKK, and the West Bank is south-east Turkey. Maybe this is why Turkey and Israel have had such a strong bond through the second half of the twentieth century, traditionally their governments have sympathized with each other as they carry out massive atrocities as centurions of the US empire in the Middle East. So while Erdogan was right to take on criminals like Shimon Peres maybe he should take a quick look in the mirror and stop his own illegal incursions into sovereign countries to kill “militants” and civilians alike.
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Matt Kennard
26London
Matt Kennard graduated from the Journalism School at Columbia University as a Toni Stabile Investigative scholar in 2008. He now works for the Financial Times in London. He has written for the Guardian, Salon, The Comment Factory and the Chicago Tribune, amongst others. In 2006 he won the Guardian Student Feature Writer of the Year Award
mattkennard@thecommentfactory.com
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A good review but wrong conclusion. It is wrong for the following reasons:
- Turkey's military operation against PKK in Iraq is fight against an external enemy.
- However, in case of Israel it is different. Don't forget that Israel has occupied Palestinian territories and forced millions into refugee life. Hence, Palestinians have every right to fight against occupation, including using military means. Therefore, rockets that were, are and, most likely, will be thrown into Israel as a legitimate response to liberate the occupied territories.
-Israel's operation against Hamas in Gaza is against an external enemy. Hamas aren't operating in Israel.
- Turkey has not allowed the Kurds their cultural or political rights so is that not a valid reason for resistance. Turkey has made many thousands of Kurds refugees and occupied Kurdish areas with checkpoints etc.
I'm afraid the comparisons you're trying to make doesn't work and they're wrong.
I agree that Erdogan is a hypocrite – for the reason that he doesn't pay the same attention to other human crimes that take place in the world – like in Darfur (he purposefully welcomed Omar Bashir, a Muslim leader and president of Sudan, who ICC is trying to charge of war crimes) So, he cares about Gaza just because of his angry Islamist constituency and also because it's a Muslim case not because he cares about human rights.
"But like Gaza, northern Iraq has absolutely no sovereignty and can be attacked at will by the Turks." This sentence is ostentatiously wrong. Turkey was given the greenlight to only attack the Northern mountainous region on the Turkish-Northern Iraq border which is a very tiny little part of Northern Iraq and where PKK camps are located. To say that Turks can attack the whole region is completely fictitious. Under the current diplomatic climate, especially with a more stabilized Iraq, and with warmer relations with Northern Iraqi regional government, Turkey will never go to such an extend.
To compare the 2007 Northern Iraq PKK camp bombings to what happened in Gaza is ostentatiously wrong as well. The PKK camps in the mountainous area are completely separated from the villages where civilians live unlike the case in Gaza. During the bombings, PKK militants were killed not civilians so you cannot compare the civilian death numbers to the number of killed militants (Should you look at the number of CIVILIANS PKK killed in Turkey as well??)
It is true that the operation in Northern Iraq led to many displacements which I don't approve of and I don't approve of the incursion into Northern Iraq as well. But we have to ask ourselves one question, before the incursion into N. Iraq, PKK had three very bloody consecutive attacks in Turkey and the NRG didn't pay much attention to these attacks. Actually NRG is overlooking the existence of the PKK on their soil, much like Pakistan did with the Taliban.
I agree that the Kurds suffered a lot under the Turkish military, I agree there was ethnic cleansing in the area but I think to compare the cases of the Kurds to the Palestinians is misleading, especially what recently happened in Gaza to the incursion in 2007 in N. Iraq.
Few points.
- Sovereignty is a concept that covers a whole country. It doesn't matter if you only attack "a very tiny little part" of a country, it's still breaching its sovereignty. I suppose if you are Bulgaria attacking Istanbul would only be attacking a small bit of Turkey. Look at what Zebari said.
- Turkey has repeatedly bombed northern Iraq, so to say Turkey will never go to such an extent is wrong.
- I didn't compare the 2007 bombings to Gaza, I said the complete lack of care for international law and territorial sovereignty is mirrored.
- Civilians have been killed over and over again. Remember you are trusting Turkish military sources for your numbers. It's like asking the Israeli government for their figures.
- The PKK might have had bloody attacks, but so did Hamas. Did Turkey have thousands of rockets aimed their way?
- Hamas is overlooking their own terrorists too. So does that make the bombing of Gaza OK?
The reason you can't see any of this is you're Turkish. As George Orwell said, "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. "
Yes, I'm a proud Turkish person but that doesn't stop me from seeing or acknowledging the crimes that are committed in my country. And I don't read it from the internet, from Noam Chomsky or Christopher Hitchens writings, I live there, go through the Kurdish slums in Istanbul, talk to the Kurds etc. so don't patronize me on the Kurdish conflict.
All I'm saying is that every conflict in the world has to be evaluated in their own context. It is wrong to do comparisons in most cases. some people are doing this now with the N. Ireland conflict and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of Mitchell, which I also think is wrong.
The 2007 incursion into N. Iraq is a lot more different than what recently happened in Gaza and I listed the reasons above. And I agree about the hypocrisy issue but for different reasons which I also listed above.
Turkey will not invade N. Iraq and anyone who understands international diplomacy and politics will agree with that opinion.
"- Civilians have been killed over and over again. Remember you are trusting Turkish military sources for your numbers. It's like asking the Israeli government for their figures."
Civilians have been killed in other cases but not in 2007 bombings. You know very well that I never take the Turkish military as my source and you cannot present one source that shows otherwise – for 2007 bombings – because it does not exist.
Your other points are ridiculous – "Did Turkey have thousands of rockets aimed their way?" what is the difference between bombs, machine guns and rockets when it comes to the killing of civilians??
Again, I said many times that I don't approve of invading the sovereignty of countries, and I don't approve of what the Turkish military and government have been doing to the Kurdish civilians in Turkey but to deal with and compare the two conflicts is ultimately wrong and ignorant.
I think comparisons are often very helpful in exposing the hypocrisy of world leaders who can spout all this humane stuff about one conflict while ignore or in fact perpetrate their own atrocities. I think this is an important weapon.
2007 was different, I never said it wasn't. I merely highlighted the general lack of care for international law and the use of a Boogie Man to bomb.
Your point about Omar Bashir is a good one, although he only gave him diplomatic support or rhetorical support. The point about his incursions into Turkey is that his own administration is attacking a sovereign country against international law; this is not considered because it is so easy. If Iraq invaded south-eastern Turkey and bombed it because of the actions of the Turkish military you might get a different reaction.
I don't understand your point that Turkey will not invade northern Iraq. They ALREADY HAVE, so what are you saying?
My point about the rockets is a good one. It is perfectly reasonable for a population not to be inundated with thousands of rockets, like they shouldn't have to deal with suicide bombings. So are you saying that if you kill over a certain number of people then it's alright to bomb? Sounds weird.
There is no difference between rockets and suicide bombings if they kill civilians. You were the one saying it was different.
I don't think comparing two conflicts is wrong and ignorant. I see no rational basis for making that argument. By the laws of space and time everything is unique but things are often compared because territorial disputes often have similar dynamics. In Turkey and Israel these are quite striking, in my opinion.
Here are is a link to reports of civilian deaths in the incursion in 2007:
http://www.kurdishrights.org/2008/06/10/families-seek-re...target=”_blank”>http://http://www.kurdishrights.org/2008/06/10/families-seek-re...
It's hard to know how many are dying because of lack of human rights org and reporters there, but it is undoubtedly the case that civilians will die, like they did in 1995.
And this doesn't mention the hundreds of Kurdish politicians, writers, nationalists languishing in Turkish jails, just like Israel imprisons thousands of Palestinians in their jails.
Turkey killed MILITANTS! not childeren! THAT is the god dam difference
abs:"Turkey killed MILITANTS! not childeren! THAT is the god dam difference "
abs; I suggest you to study the turkish history if you are not illiterate by any chance ;and you will find yourself the nature of the turkish state and its atrocitiy and inhuman barbaric policy/politics against kurdish nation/people and eventually you ll see how many kurdish children they ve killed in this coherence.
if you are not able to do so I can also send you internet documentations about political events in turkey in correlation to kurdish issue.
Israel also killed militants ,most of the the deaths were of militants.
turkey is umpteen time worster than isreal when it comes to human rights.
if kurds had isreal as enemy instead of turkey they now were free and have had their own state.
few examples:
turkey did not recognize kurds and kurdish entity untill present; while isreal never did something similary stupid to palastinians.
PKK do not attack civilians while hamas do not make any difference between children woman old young innocent whatsoever.
kurds /pkk s demands are basic human rights such as kurdish language; traditions;cultural and ethnical identity while hamas willing to anihilate the state of isreal and the nation of isreal and establish palastina as single state.
pkk is a secular party while hamas is an ultra-religious party.
in turkey you can t even give kurdish names to your children while in isreal nobody cares whether you give arabic names to your chilren or not.
in turkey you can t use kurdish alphabet /letter such as "x" ;"w";"q"etc while in isreal nobody cares whether you are writing in arabic or any other language …
turkey is simply big time worst er than isreal in this context;if we wanted to compare these two states.
………..
"PKK do not attack civilians" ?? Are you serious? I think you should do some history reading yourself.
Moreover arabic is the second formal language in Israel.
this is a great article
Well done Matt, You have said true and highlighted the important of the issue. I think the issue between Kurd/PKK and Turkey will be solved once Turkey has enough smart and educated people how could have heart to get up of their back side and looking at realities. PKK from my understanding has many times declared a unilateral ceasefire, but turkey responded with war and killing innocent children and woman.
PKK has freed the capture turkish soldier in war, but Turkish government put the freed soldier in jailed and punished them because why? Because the Turks did not have heart to believe and admit of their wrong doing by denying Kurdish cultural right..
Turkey has media and they are very well controlled by turkish army and give wrong figure about killing the civilian..
about the occupation, Turks even not belong to ME and they are the occupier of Kurdistan and they should go back to China where the origin is.
self defense is right of PKK. Turks are losing the battle and they just would like to cover up by showing their powerful army (in minds only). They do not want to admit with all technological equipment and defense, but they still lost a big time in 9 days battle against PKK.
You can't really compare Turkey to Israel on many different levels. For instance, Israel only attacked Gaza on behalf of defending their sovereignty even though I don't approve of their approach. However comparing Turkey to Israel is like comparing a pitbull to a poddle. For instance, Leyla Zana a kurdish politician got sentenced to 10 years to prison for saying the PKK is not a terrorist organisation, this just show how narrow minded Turkish government (or should i say millitary) is. Letting Turkey into the EU would be a disgrace to the Eu's laws.
There is a civilized way to massacre babies and there is a barbaric way to massacre babies. When Jews and Christians massacre muslim babies they massacre them politely.
As far as Muslims they are just barbaric for questioning the Judeo Christian murderers.
. I really loved the way the Judeo-Christian audience politely and cheerfully clapped at Israel's defense of massacring muslim children. How dare barbaric Erdogan express outrage at Israel's civilized way of blowing up muslim babies . What is so uncivilized about hundreds of muslim baby body parts landing on the face of their parents.
Please don't call Erdogan a retard. It takes away any credibility you have.
where did i call him a retard? don't be retarded
I believe you called him a moral retard. You showed your true maturity by your sophmoric reply.
"That’s just over half the number of people Israel killed in its ostensible war on Hamas, but only a moral retard will hold up such figures as a testament to Turkish humanity."
If you think that's calling Erdogan a retard, then I'm sorry, you are a retard.
in this article you make a comparison to check the sincerity of Erdogan. But I think, your comparison -even I am with you in lots of your accusations against turkish governments- to support your argument against Erdogan does not work.
Because, you are wrong to use the kurdish policy of Turkey against PKK which has gone on for more than 25 years and has several domestic policy dimesions- as a proof of Erdogan's hypocrisy while his government was blockade for to the incursions to N. Iraq after the attacks of PKK by the nationalist parties, media, military and by the public . Otherwise you can not explain how and why his party had the majority of votes from the kurdish region of Turkey in the last election. (despite the harshenings in his expressions about kurdish issue depending on the domestic politics)
it is clear that he has instantaneous reactions especially when the issue related to the islamic world and from the same reason he is sentimental about palestine. but here also he did nothing to change policies between israel and turkey. in other words, his policies surrendering the military policies are all negatively consistent in both N. Iraq and in being an ally of Israel.
thus, for me, it was just an enjoyable moment when he did tell at least sth. against Peres in an international meeting while the audience were clapping their hands. I believe to accuse him to be a hypocrite departing from this point and judging his position in an international issue by comparing a much more domestic policy must be due to your bias.
you can really find several inconsistency in his words but in this case we should give him his due.
It's true that Erdogan has been better than his predecessors on the Kurdish issue. But his actions in northern Iraq are a disgrace.
I was in the Kurdish part of Turkey during the 2007 elections when many Kurds voted for Erdogan's party. There was a lot of division among Kurds, even inside families, about this vote. Religious Kurds voted for the AK Party for its religious stand and many of the poorest Kurds voted because they were given gifts of food. This latter situation infuriated many of my not-particularly-political Kurdish friends who saw this as just another example of the shortsightedness of Kurds that, together with internal dissension, will never bring them to stability and dignity.
How is he a hypocrite? The PKK kill innocent civilians everyday! The Kurds voted for Erdogan so should live with his policies. I recognize he helped Saddam gas his own people in 1988, but try name a Asian leader who hasn't. Also Erdogan's civil rights record is second to none, not only did he encourage mixed race schools in the 1980's – way before his western counterparts. He has also established an incredible mass transit system that has improved the air pollution in Ankara by 72%. Finally his policy toward the PKK and Al- Queda mirror that of the USA, so how can it be shortsighted? Correct me if I'm wrong but aint the US the only superpower in the world by over 60% according to recent UN figures. So maybe the PKK should remember these facts before they criticize Erdogan!
What are you on about, the PKK is no way in the same category as Al-quadia research and find out. Also yes Erdogan is a hypocrite he says why isn't no one givin hamas a chance haha just look at Erdogan and Turkeys policies mate he should clean up his garden before he tries to clean others
I think that its extremely important for you to make this comparison because of the facts, as mentioned by you, the Kurds have experienced many atrocities, greater than that of Gaza, even though there is no price on human life.
Second, the case of PKK is not an external threat, it is actually an internal threat, because most, if not the majority of the members are local Kurds from within Turkey, they might be on the run in Iraq, as it is claimed by the Turkish army. But never the less, the PKK are Turkish grown.
oo Peres "vile war criminal" – hahaha the entertainment never stops here does it?
I always say that the Palestinians are very very lucky that they were never treated as badly by Israel as the Kurds were by Turkey. Though please note one major difference: Kurds want independence, Palestinians want to destroy Israel… hm?? never get tired of pretending that is not the case. Actualy research into what the Turks did in Kurdistan during the 90s (demolition of entire villages without any concrete military reason) – is very very different from the effective intelligence collection that is carried out by Israel.
Great Article Matt, more comparisons are needed to understand what kind of world we live in.