Moving the Weapon Elsewhere Is Not Laying It Down

“If the only tool in your hand is a hammer, you begin to see everything as a nail.”

The process we have supported with high hopes and which we have carefully watched is at a critical threshold. On 8 October, the organization announced that it had withdrawn all its armed elements inside Turkey and those that could be considered close to the border. Turkish intelligence also confirmed a few days later that four key bases in Northern Iraq had been evacuated. I do not underestimate these steps. But moving the weapon from one place to another does not mean laying it down.

Here we are speaking of three separate stages: withdrawal, laying down of arms, and organizational dissolution. Withdrawal is the departure of armed elements from a certain area. Laying down of arms means that the weapons and ammunition are removed from the organization’s control and subjected to a verifiable handover process. Dissolution requires the termination of the armed structure, the chain of command, and the organizational mechanism that can reproduce this structure. Progress achieved in one stage does not mean that the others have also been completed.

The withdrawal statement contains neither a number nor an inventory. Looked at within this framework, the real question facing the process is whether the organization that has declared its own dissolution will genuinely accept an unarmed identity. When concepts such as democracy, the democratic transformation of the state, and civilian politics are presented not as the purpose of laying down arms but as conditions expected to be realized before arms are laid down, they carry the risk of turning into a justification for keeping the weapon in hand.

The Logic of the Law: First Determination, Then Implementation

In recent weeks, statements have been coming both from the organization’s cadres and from some politicians whose essence is “the law has been passed, the organization has done what falls to it, now the state should implement the law.” Duran Kalkan argued that the movement had taken important decisions in a two-year period but that the state had not taken the corresponding steps. Similar statements are also coming from the DEM Party front. In addition, there is an attempt to open the MGK’s authority over implementation to debate.

These statements aim to create pressure in the public opinion that the state is not doing what falls to it. However, this discourse overlooks the sequence envisaged by the law: The stage at which the state’s obligations come into effect is not independent of the conditions the organization is required to fulfill. The framework law deliberately established a sequence: Even though the law is in force, the provisions concerning the deferral of investigation, prosecution, and penalties can only be applied after the security institutions determine that the organization has ended its de facto existence and has handed over all weapons and ammunition. The MGK must also confirm this determination with a decision to be published in the Official Gazette. Saying “the state should implement the law” at this stage means reversing the sequence established by the law. Because the state’s implementation of the law is contingent upon the organization fulfilling the condition of the law.

Let us recall how this sequence emerged. The commission established by the Parliament worked for approximately six months, listening to different segments, and in the report it prepared, it set out the need for a legal arrangement. The report was debated in the public, and then a comprehensive debate took place on the draft law that was prepared. The text given its final form was submitted to the TBMM as a bill, discussed in the Justice Commission, debated again in the General Assembly, and adopted with the votes of 467 deputies. That is to say, the condition of determination and confirmation is part of the will put forward by the Parliament with broad consensus. The MGK is the authority that implements this will. Today everyone knows what needs to be done, in what order, and under whose responsibility within the framework of the adopted law. Reopening this sequence for debate, trying to present it as a fait accompli, or giving different messages to the public while spreading responsibilities over time means not taking seriously either the will of the Parliament or the mind of the people who are following the process with great sensitivity. A sound approach begins with accepting that the public reads the process at least as well as those making such statements.

This sequence is the guarantee of the process. Because the issue is not only when the law will be implemented, but how the steps taken by the parties will be verified. In a process where trust has not yet been fully established, concrete criteria that everyone can evaluate should take the place of political statements. When there is no clear answer to questions such as which weapons have been handed over, whether the armed units have ended their activities, and whether the organizational chain of command continues, the same development can be interpreted in different ways.

The fact that the withdrawal declared in 2013 could never be reliably verified was one of the heaviest weaknesses of the previous process. As someone who observed that period from the inside, I can say this: Every unverified step carries the seed of the next crisis. The determination and confirmation mechanism is a lesson drawn precisely from this experience. Dissolution is a declaration; the handover of weapons is a fact. Putting the declaration in place of the fact does not strengthen the process; it reproduces the fragilities of the past.

The Weapon Is Seeking a New Meaning in the Region

The second and deeper risk is the organization’s search to load a new meaning in the region onto the weapon it holds. The clearest expression of this search came from the organization itself: KCK executive Bese Hozat argued that there was no need to hand the weapons over to the state and claimed that they could be used for “self-defense” in other places of the region. This statement clearly shows what the attitude of “we have taken the weapon out” means. That is, the weapon is not being laid down; its place is being changed.

In the background of this attitude is the war in the region. The war launched by the US and Israel against Iran is reviving the calculation among a section within the organization that it could once again carry meaning in this war. This calculation is not new. National Defense Minister Yaşar Güler stated that the organization’s Iranian wing, PJAK, had prepared itself for the collapse of the Iranian regime during the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran, but that the conflict did not develop as PJAK desired and that Iran inflicted heavy losses on the group. Washington’s announcement that it would launch a new attack on Iran before the midterm elections has created the expectation that the front could become active again after the elections. This expectation also feeds the calculation within the organization. The Israeli Foreign Minister’s definition of the Kurds as “natural allies” also prepares the ground for this calculation.

The organization’s tendency to seek a new meaning for itself in Iran inevitably recalls the 2013-2015 solution process. At that time, the PKK leadership thought it could obtain new gains through the relationship it established with the US in Syria, and this expectation was decisive in the collapse of the process. A similar tendency also emerged during last year’s Iran-US+Israel war. However, Öcalan’s intervention and the state’s determined stance prevented the organization from evaluating this development as a strategic opportunity that would derail the process in Turkey. Today, the new picture created by the war being waged against Iran, PJAK’s activity, and reports that organizational elements are turning toward the region are bringing the same debate back onto the agenda under different conditions.

All of this does not, by itself, prove the existence of a specific agreement or joint operational plan. What is decisive is not so much in which direction the war will actually develop, but whether the organization will use such a possibility as a justification for postponing disarmament or for continuing its armed existence in another field. Such an attitude is a risk that must be taken into account for the future of the process.

Yet the region also shows that a different path is possible. The entry of the SDF in Syria into an integration process with Damascus shows that armed elements can be integrated into state institutions within a negotiated framework. Of course, the conditions in Syria and the conditions in which the PKK finds itself are not exactly the same. However, these differences cannot be presented as a justification that makes the indefinite preservation of an armed presence obligatory. Therefore, the PKK’s preservation of its weapon for a new regional conflict is not an inevitable necessity but a political choice. But this choice has a cost: Keeping the weapon for a new war in the region means tying the process in Turkey to the uncertainty of that war. Peace in Turkey cannot be indexed to the outcome of a war in a neighboring country.

The Real Problem: An Unarmed Identity

These two approaches may appear different from each other. One prioritizes the implementation of the legal arrangement, the other cites regional developments as justification. However, the point at which the two intersect is the same: Laying down of arms ceases to be an obligation that must be completed on its own and turns into an issue dependent on other developments. Thus the process moves away from the question of whether the weapon has really been laid down and becomes stuck in the debate over which political or regional conditions must be formed. Yet a lasting solution requires the sequence to be clear. Disarmament must progress concretely, and legal and political arrangements must also be put into practice within the established framework.

This intersection is a reflection of a more fundamental problem. For an organization that has defined itself through the weapon for more than forty years, building an unarmed identity requires, above all, a mental transformation. Whether this transformation has taken place cannot be understood solely from the concepts used by the leaders. The real criterion is which concrete decisions these concepts turn into: Is the chain of command of the armed units ending? Can the handover of weapons and ammunition be verified? Is the organization giving up the option of continuing its armed existence in another geography and of defending its political goals by relying on the weapon? The answer to these questions will show whether the discourse of democracy and peace points to a real transformation or whether the old strategy is being continued with a new language.

But it would not be right to turn this into a blanket judgment directed at the entire organization. Murat Karayılan, known as one of the names most distant from the process, while criticizing the absence of Öcalan’s freedom and the concept of democracy in the framework law, said, “We genuinely want to end the enmity with Turkey and carry our struggle onto a legal ground.” There are sections within the organization that want this transformation. The problem is that the section insisting on the weapon has the power to hold up the entire process and that the organization’s leadership has not taken a decision to overcome this attitude.

Protecting the Process

In the face of this picture, the easy thing is to lose hope in the process. The difficult thing is to advance the process without leaving it hostage to the attitude of the section insisting on the weapon. Two steps are required for this.

The first is the uncompromising protection of the determination and confirmation mechanism. Softening this mechanism under public pressure may appear to accelerate the process in the short term, but in the long term it makes it fragile. A solution built on unverified disarmament will collapse at the first regional shock.

The second is that disarmament must be comprehensive. The decision to lay down arms is the organization’s decision. Therefore, the measure of the process is also the organization’s handover of its entire armed capacity. “Accepting as much as has been handed over” gives the organization the opportunity to hand over part of its armed force while keeping another part in reserve for other areas. This can turn today’s process in Turkey into part of another war in the region tomorrow. For this reason, the handover mechanism that has been established must also take into account the risk of weapons being shifted to another conflict area.

At this point, an important responsibility also falls on the DEM Party. The party, which is part of the process, has so far preferred in its statements reflected to the public to mainly voice demands for the state to take steps. It has not made an open call to the organization to fulfill the conditions of the law. The DEM Party’s openly telling the organization that disarmament should not be postponed, that regional developments should not be used as a justification for this, and that political demands should be defended independently of armed capacity would make the greatest contribution both to the process and to the party’s own claim of civilian politics. Because the first step that will open the way to the implementation of the law is the fulfillment by the owner of the weapon of its obligations.

The dissolution decision was a threshold. The weapon-burning ceremony and the framework law were also important steps in this process. However, the threshold is crossed not by the relocation of the weapon, but by the verification that the weapon has been laid down. Saying “we have taken the weapon out” shows that there is still a fundamental issue that needs to be resolved in front of the process. When the organization abandons the calculation of preserving its weapon for a new conflict in the region and fulfills the obligations envisaged by the law, the legal process will also be able to advance. What is expected from the state is also to implement these stages in a predictable manner and without delay. The day the organization accepts that the only tool in its hand is not the weapon, the greatest obstacle in front of lasting peace will also have been removed.

Source: perspektif.online.com