Turkey’s Chief of Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug, left, and Land Forces Commander Gen. Isik Kosaner, center, are seen amongst unidentified army officers, as they arrive for a security meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip. Turkey’s leaders met Thursday to discuss increasing the military’s powers to combat Kurdish rebels following a surge in attacks, some launched from rebel bases in northern Iraq.
(AP Photo)
Will the commander resign?
After the attack on the Aktütün military outpost on Oct. 3, killing 17 soldiers, something new has happened; for the first time people are openly starting to question the General Staff.
Insulting Kurdishness (And Even More Than That)
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News] As you would have known, “insulting Turkishness” has long been a criminal offence in the Turkish Republic. But this lovely republic, which is so eager to uphold the honor of Turkish identity, hardly cares about other groups. “Armenianness” or “Greekness,” if you will, has often been humiliated by officials and the civil likeminded. And so has Kurdishness. This ethnic identity, to which 12 to 15 percent of Turkish citizens subscribe, has been not just banned but, also, repeatedly insulted by the official ideology. The Kurdish people were denigrated as “a bunch of tribes,” their language was defined as “primitive,” and their history was mocked. The only good Kurd, in this mindset, was the Turkified one.
A clear and almost-present danger: ethnic conflict
MUSTAFA AKYOL
A brief history of Turkey’s conflict in Southeast
At Ankara University in 1978 leftist student Abdullah Öcalan formed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and led a separatist conflict and terrorism in the southeastern provinces in Turkey.
Will the government fall into the trap by MEHMET YILMAZ
In essence, every terrorist act is political, as are the messages of such attacks. Terror organizations seek to change local and global political balances through their violent and bloody acts.
Civilians’ military responsibility
The military is definitely responsible for the latest attacks of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists on the Aktütün outpost in the southeastern province of Hakkari.
Listening to Deniz Baykal…
I observe the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal carefully after each critical event to see whether he will change. May be I am too naïve.
Questioning the military
It seems that the latest attack on the Aktütün outpost will be a turning point in terms of Turkey’s fight against PKK terrorists.
Messages to the Kurdish regional government from Helsinki
MENSUR AKGÜN
Steps and measures under ‘ostrich politics’
Should we believe that there will be some unexpected measures by the government in the aftermath of the bloody attack against the Aktütün military outpost? Yesterday, it was confirmed that the two missing soldiers were dead.
Thinking about the PKK attack
Turkey woke up last weekend to dreadful news. The outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) had attacked a military outpost with heavy weapons and fighting with Turkish security forces lasted for over seven hours.
Motives behind PKK attack
A heinous attack perpetrated by the terrorists of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on the Aktütün military outpost in Hakkari last Friday, which claimed the lives of 17 soldiers, continues to dominate the agenda, with everyone discussing whether there were security shortcomings, what message the PKK was trying to send through this attack and what the timing of the attack means.
An open letter to Gen. İlker Başbuğ by EMRE USLU & ÖNDER AYTAÇ
We, two private citizens, who happen to study terrorism and the transformation of Kurdish identity politics, may have different views on the current counterterrorism policies predominantly led and conducted by the Turkish military.
Not an easy job
After the latest terrorist attack claimed the lives of 17 soldiers and injured more than 20, the public expects a powerful military response to those terrorists.
Is PKK a ‘subcontractor organization’?
Ever since it was first established, the outlawed PKK has constantly been accused of being a "subcontractor organization." Interestingly, the people or powers said to be controlling the PKK change constantly in accordance with political developments within Turkey and throughout the region.
The decline of the nation-state and plural citizenship
Lately many scholars have proclaimed the death of citizenship tied to territorially defined nation-states. They argue that the spread of international norms is decoupling citizenship from the rights bestowed by the state.
Socialism and nationalism converge
Turkey’s nascent socialism and its Kemalist heritage made uncomfortable bedfellows for student activists in the late 1960s and early ’70s, though all sides continued to draw inspiration from
Turkey’s ’68: A painful path toward revolution
Encased in glass are an old, small table and a wooden chair. A green parka hangs casually from the chair’s upright back. For the uninitiated, this migh
t seem to be no more than a bad attempt at
The Media War in Turkey
The conflict and mudslinging between the AKP government and the Turkish media giant Dogan is escalating. The bone of contention is the Dogan Group’s critical reporting on a charity donation scandal in Germany involving high-ranking AKP members, which is causing a ripple effect throughout the media. Ömer Erzeren reports from Istanbul for qantara.de (click here). An excerpt:
Discover more from Erkan's Field Diary
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.