Oct 9, 2014

In Turkey, people primarily remember two organizations when recalling southeastern Turkey in the 1990s, when state authority had been badly eroded: the leftist and staunchly secular Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the militant, Sunni Islamist Kurdish Hezbollah. Their bloody clashes left behind some 500 unsolved murders, many of them executions.

The scenes from recent violent street clashes in many parts of Turkey protesting the Islamic State (IS) siege of Kobani, across the border in Syria, and Turkey’s inaction toward it make one wonder whether PKK-Kurdish Hezbollah fighting might be on the verge of escalating. Armed violence between the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), the PKK’s armed youth wing, and Huda-Par, successor to Kurdish Hezbollah, have already resulted in fatalities that might bode ill for the Kurdish political movement. Huda-Par had been trying to become a political actor, steering clear of armed violence.

A call bound to escalate tensions between Huda-Par and the PKK appeared Oct. 7 through a Twitter account said to be belong to the YDG-H. It read, “To the attention of all our security units in Kurdistan and Turkey. Arm yourselves. Hezbollah-contra-Huda-Par members are to be executed wherever they are seen.” After the tweet, YDG-H members began attacking Huda-Par religious centers, associations and party premises in Diyarbakir, Batman, Bitlis and Siirt, where they are known to be strong. Huda-Par responded with arms, and the clashes intensified.

Diyarbakir Mayor Gultan Kisanak referred to Huda-Par’s use of arms as the “government's Plan B,” claiming that Huda-Par was counterattacking with the knowledge of the government and under the protection of the police. Meanwhile, Huda-Par spokesman Sait Sahin was quoted as accusing the PKK of trying to import the chaos of Syria into Turkey. He stated, “The government turned over the southeast to the PKK so as not to harm the peace process. In that vacuum, the PKK is extorting money and has set up its own courts. They dominate the region. When our party was attacked, nobody intervened for hours. If there is no viable state, then the citizens will implement their own security measures.”

There have been reports, especially out of Istanbul, that armed gangs of the PKK’s urban organization, the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), have been pursuing and executing people thought to be Islamists, accusing them of being IS members, and attacking associations supporting the Syrian opposition.