Turkey’s involvement into the active struggle against Islamic State and a parallel operation of Turkish special services against militants of PKK, who earlier announced the end of ceasefire which was signed in 2013, remain in the center of attention of the German media and political experts. Even though, PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization in Europe, the public opinion in Germany supports the Kurdish militants. In 2011, when the current President Erdogan was the prime minister of Turkey, he publicly accused German charity funds of financing Kurdish militants.
The big Kurdish community of Germany is one of factors which are considered by German politicians, when they decide on their position on the Kurdish-Turkish issue. They even make jokes in Berlin that every döner bought in the city is a financial support of PKK, hinting that some Kurdish owners of numerous snack-bars, i.e. imbisses, help PKK with money.
The Germans have fellow feelings to PKK also because they don’t like the political course provided by the Turkish President and Erdogan personally. “No government would live with the terrorist attack in Suruc and PKK’s attacks at policemen and the militaries,” an expert of DGAP, Magdalena Kirchen, told Tagesspiegel. “But the Turkish government is reacting at PKK’s activities by military measures and inadequately. The double escalation against ISIS and PKK is an attempt to show that both organizations are equally dangerous and show the West that it is an anti-terrorist struggle in both cases,” Kirchen added. According to the expert, the current situation enables the ruling Party for Justice and Development to improve its positions in the possible new parliamentary elections.
Meanwhile, the number of Turkish soldiers and policemen who were killed by Kurdish militants is more than several decades. That’s why there is a logical question, what measures Turkey should use, if not military ones, to react murders of its soldiers and civilians by Kurdish militants, as well as regular attacks at strategically important infrastructural facilities. What would the German state do, if members of the organization which is thought to be terroristic in the EU began to blast German highways, while suicide bombers blasted police offices and military posts?
Regarding statements by the political leadership of Germany, FRG would react “moderately” at such activities. For example, Chancellor Angela Merkel told her Turkish colleague Ahmet Davutogly by the phone that Germany supported the anti-terrorist struggle, but at the same time, she urged him not to stop a peaceful dialogue with the Kurds and “to be moderate in using necessary measures.” The German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed understanding of Turkey’s activities against people who were responsible for attacks in recent days, urging to prevent a break of the peacemaking process between Turkey and PKK. Very quite pro-Turkish sounds in the statement by the experienced diplomat, which were absent in Merkel’s words, seemed to be connected with the internal political situation. The ethnic Turks who live in Germany present a significant part of the electorate of the SDPG; and being a social democrat, Steinmeier considers this.
An expert on America of DGAP, Josef Braml, assumed in an interview to Deutschlandradiokultur that the US and Turkey made a deal. The Americans guarantee that there will be no independent Kurdish state on the territory of current Syria. According to Braml, after a series of fails in the Middle East policies, the USA returned to the uncompromised Real Politics. A moderator of the interview, Nana Brink, noted that the deal which ruled out appearance of a Kurdish state fundamentally contradicted the Europeans’ whishes. Brink stated it clearly and directly: Germany wants the Kurdish state to appear, but it is absolutely unacceptable for Turkey. And excited comments by German editors-at-large and articles by leading periodicals of the mainstream on the pro-Kurdish Democratic Party of Peoples, which managed to get into the Turkish parliament in the last elections, were caused by this fact. This is another central aspect in the context of which Turkish European integration prospects seem to be more prosaic.
Not everybody in Europe is satisfied with Erdogan’s vision of Turkey as a regional leader with distinct Turkic-Muslim identity, developed economy, and powerful army. And the policy of permanent attempts to restrict Ankara will continue by the EU – whether it concerns the Armenian issue, the Kurdish issue, or a deficit of democracy.
