| |
Kurdroj-Ankara:
Turkish authorities said May 23 they believe
a Kurdish suicide bomber carried out the May
22 bombing in Ankara. Blaming a Kurd, along
with the blast's timing, will allow the
Turkish military and ultra-secularist
political forces to undermine the ruling
Justice and Development (AK) Party, accusing
it of being soft on the Kurdish issue. The
bombing thus will intensify the struggle
between the AK and its opponents ahead of
July parliamentary polls.
Analysis
Investigators believe the May 22 bombing in
Ankara, Turkey, was the work of a suicide
bomber, Ankara Gov. Kemal Onal said May 23.
He added that the explosives and equipment
used resemble those used by Kurdish
militants. For his part, though Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not
directly accuse the Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) of involvement in the bombing, he
suggested the PKK -- Turkey's largest
Kurdish separatist organization -- was a key
suspect. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul convened an emergency meeting
to discuss new security measures.
The bomber probably was not directly linked
to the core PKK, though the perpetrator
could have been linked to a smaller group.
The PKK has not claimed responsibility for
the attack, and has not carried out a
suicide bombing in eight years. Moreover,
when the PKK has staged suicide attacks, the
targets were different, such as security
forces, police and the Turkish government,
not civilians.
The military and secularists have good
reason to accuse the Kurds rather than
Islamist militants, for whom suicide
bombings are a calling card. Turkey, and
especially its secular military, prides
itself on being able to contain militant
Islamist elements in the country, and fears
the impact of Islamist militant activity on
foreign investment. More important, the
perception of a resurgent Kurdish militancy
can provide great leverage for promoting
opposition to the ruling Justice and
Development (AK) Party. Kemalist Turks are
already up in arms as much as possible on
the issue of Islamism.
Though it is odd that Gul and not the
interior minister presided over a meeting
relating to domestic security, it is not
completely surprising. Gul, who in late
April and early May narrowly failed to win a
presidential vote, is worried about the
bombing's implications for the AK in
parliamentary elections set for July 22.
Even before the presidential election
fiasco, Gul and Erdogan had a war of words
with military chief Gen. Yasar Buyukanit
over the Kurdish rebel issue.
The country's Kemalist military
establishment and anti-Islamist political
parties, especially the main opposition
Republican People's Party, have been using
Kurdish separatism -- an issue about which
the Turks are highly sensitive, to put it
mildly -- to attack the AK government.
Accusing the Erdogan administration of a
weak stance against the PKK and other
Kurdish rebel groups, the military went so
far as to create tensions between Ankara and
the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in
northern Iraq.
While the government also maintained a tough
attitude toward the KRG's allowing Turkish
Kurdish rebels to operate from northern
Iraq, it stuck to diplomacy to try to get
Iraqi Kurdish authorities to stop PKK
activity in its territory. The army, on the
other hand, issued statements threatening
cross-border military strikes if the KRG did
not rein in the PKK. The issue was less
about the PKK than about using the rebel
group to weaken the AK ahead of the
presidential contest.
Now with parliamentary elections coming, it
can be expected that this suicide bombing
will be an even bigger stick with which the
military and its political allies can beat
the AK. Already there have been a number of
massive rallies nationwide in recent weeks
against the alleged bid by the AK to
de-secularize the Turkish republic; they
will prove mild-mannered family picnics
compared to the rage the Kurdish issue can
stoke.
Though this could weaken the AK's
parliamentary strength, the ruling party is
still likely to re-emerge from the new
elections as the single largest party in the
legislature -- an outcome AK's opponents can
live with for now. Ultimately, the AK's
opponents would like to send the party back
into opposition -- or perhaps even have it
banned. But for now they would like to block
it from taking the presidency. In essence,
the AK remains the power to beat in the
coming elections, though issues like this
have brought about the downfall of more than
one Turkish power group.
|
|
