Washington Kurdish Institute

February 25, 2020

The Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI) interviewed MerveTahiroglu, the head of Turkey’s Program at the Project of Middle East Democracy(POMED). Tahiroglu spoke about the Kurdish question in Turkey, the Syrian refugees, and the administration’s policy toward Turkey and its President Racep Tayyip Erdogan. Prior to joining POMED, Tahiroglu was a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). She focuses on Turkey’s domestic politics, foreign policy, and relationship between Washington and Ankara.Tahiroglu has authored several monographs on Turkey and published articles at the Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other major media outlets. Born and raised in Istanbul, she earned her Master of Arts in History from Georgetown University.

For full transcription of the interview click HERE.

Summary of the interview:

From warm welcome and calling them “Brothers” to forcing them back to war zones! What drives Erdogan’s policies toward the Syrian refugees in Turkey?



Merve Tahiroglu: This is a major humanitarian crisis, of course, there are about 4 million, Syrian refugees at this point in Turkey. Turkey’s approach to welcoming these refugees early on from 2012 onward, was something that earned it a lot of praise. Turkey was able to deal with it or seemed to be able to deal with its refugee crisis, pretty well, especially compared to other neighboring countries early on. But over the past few years we’re seeing that the refugees have become a big political weapon almost for Erdogan. He’s been using them to sort of re-insert himself into the great power conflict that I think is really held to describe the Syrian civil war at this point and the dynamics there. Especially both to extract some money and other political concessions from European partners because Erdgoan has repeatedly threatened Germany and other European partners in the past with opening the doors and letting all the refugees flood into Europe in order to extract political concessions from them. So on the one side, he’s playing this card against Europeans and on the other hand, he’s trying to resend these refugees to parts of Syria as part of what seems to be his plan for demographic changes in Syria. That’s again forcing his own hand into the Syrian theater. Unfortunately, I think we have to see Erdogan’s approach to the refugees at this point is just very highly political.

The Turkish opposition and the Syrian refugees.

Merve Tahiroglu: It’s actually difficult to see because the AKP has been in power now for 17 years. So we don’t actually know if an opposition party were in power, how they would really approach it. But the main opposition CHP [The Republican People’s Party] was very critical of the Turkish government’s handling of the refugees from early on because as much as government agencies were locating, putting these refugees in various camps, this was not a transparent process. opposition deputies were not really allowed to go visit these camps to assess the humanitarian situation. So from early on, the government’s approach to this has been quite closed and not at all transparent, which I think is a valid critique. Now from a social point of view, the fact that there are up to four million refugees right now, hundreds of thousands in places like Istanbul, they’re very visible. They become very visible and unfortunately with that, over the past, especially the two years, there’s been increasingly, racist remarks coming out of Turkish society against Syrian refugees. Unfortunately that’s a whole new political consideration now that both the opposition and Erdgoan needs to consider.

The European Union (EU) and Syrian refugees.

Merve Tahiroglu: The EU’s approach to this is also similarly very calculating. They just don’t want to deal with the problem of taking in refugees anymore because we see a rising right wing populism all around Europe as well. So they have to deal with that problem. And in part, the way they’re seeing this is that if the refugees just stay in Turkey and we can give Turkey a bunch of money to take care of them and they won’t be our burden anymore. but I mean that approach hasn’t been working either. The EU has paid Turkey a lot of money from this but again, how that money has been spent is also not been transparent. So they also have reasons to see that, despite all of this cash flowing into Turkey, Erdogan is still not able to cope with the refugees himself and will on occasions especially when there are political crises with European partners, will again, use the fact that there are all these refugees in Turkey as a threat against them. So it’s a really difficult situation.

Why should the Kurds support the Turkish opposition if they continue to support Erdogan’s invasions against the Kurdish region in Syria?

Merve Tahiroglu: I think this was a big consideration for Erdogan before he launched this operation in October. I just want to remind our audience that Turkey just went through a major local election last year when the main opposition party won multiple provinces back from the AKP. And especially the, the new mayor of Istanbul who is a part of the main opposition, the CHP. He led his campaign, which was a really important victory for the Turkish opposition, especially in the last 20 years. He led his campaign with this rhetoric of inclusiveness and a broad approach to the Turkish opposition, embracing all of Istanbul residents and Turkish citizens of all stripes. Part of the promise that he brought when he won Istanbul last June was that he could become a new leader that Turkey has been desperately missing after a leader like Erdogan for 17 years. A new leader who would be all embracing. The Kurds of Istanbul played a major role in winning [Ekrem] İmamoğlu this election. And so there was a major promise that he could be a figure that perhaps brings Turkey’s opposition, which is very much fractured together. Now Erdogan by launching this war has played a Kurdish card, so to speak, in order to throw a wrench in this brewing alliance line. When I say brewing alliance, I want to be very careful with it. There’s still major problems, but the CHP is Turkey’s main opposition party. The HDP [Pro-Kurdish peoples’ Democratic Party] which is a predominantly Kurdish party is its second largest opposition party. If these two parties could in fact come together and their supporters could unite they could, pose a formidable threat to Erdogan, a serious political threat to Erdogan. So by launching this war and basically forcing, or I don’t want to say force because I don’t want to take the agency away from the CHP, but putting the CHP in a position where it has to either support what Erdogan characterize as a national security operation, he was able to again, stop this brewing alliance from the onset and divide again the Kurds who had supported İmamoğlu versus the Turks supporting him. It was a very smart move from Erdogan when we look at it from that domestic political context.

Why should the HDP fight for Turkey’s democracy and not for the Kurdish rights?

Merve Tahiroglu: A lot of HDP supporters are asking right now, especially nationalist Kurds. I think it’s really important to look at the origins of the HDP. I mean, it was a big departure when this party came together, assembled together, around 2014/2015 when they had a major political win in June, 2015 elections by becoming the first Kurdish party to effectively cross the 10% nationwide election threshold and made it as a party into parliament. This was a major departure, no other, Kurdish political party or candidate had previously been able to reach so much of a broad Turkish population Selahattin Demirtas very charismatic leader of the HDP who has been in jail now for three years? I’m afraid it might even be four! He was able to reach 13% of Turkish society.

Now when we look at that 13%, in the 2015 elections, that was a major success. That was getting a predominantly Kurdish party to actually appeal to a much broader segment of Turkish electorate. I think that just shows that the HDP’s approach of trying to launch itself not as a Kurdish party but as a party for all the peoples of Turkey is so important because this is exactly what Turkey needs and this is what many Turkish citizens feel thatTurkey needs, not just the Kurds. And so I think by broadening its party platform into a democratizing Turkey first kind of agenda, it really works. It really appeals to a lot of people and Erdogan and the Turkish government are slandering the HDP for being Kurdish nationalist and are actually worse for associating them with “terrorists” or “Kurdish separatists.” It won’t work because that is exactly antithetical to the point that the HDP is trying to make with its mission, its party, and its composition. When we look at its members, when we look at its candidates, it’s just so clear.

The Turkish government the Turkish frees philanthropist Osman Kavala for two hours only.

Merve Tahiroglu: Well that good news that came was overshadowed of course, a couple of hours later when the prosecutor decided to issue a new RS warrant for the prominent philanthropists Osman Kavala in the Gizi trial. I mean, just hours after the court had acquitted all defendants in an incredibly ludicrous and prosecution to begin with into human rights defenders. But this move that we saw after a long unjust trial that ends with acquittal, especially for Kavala, who had been in jail for more than two years and only hours later for the court to issue rearrest him on other charges. We’ve seen this before. Turkey did this before to Selahattin Demirtas the leader of the HDP. Both of these moves came after the European court of human rights reviewed the cases of both of these men and asked for their immediate release.

In the Turkish court system, they have to follow the European, because Turkey is party to the European convention on human rights. It has to follow the decisions of the European court of human rights. So this is a way by the Turkish courts, by creating new cases to rearrest these men. They’re effectively circumventing the, European court of human rights decisions. it just goes to show how the judiciary in Turkey has become so politicized and is being used by the government as a weapon against Erdgoan’s critics and opponents as Selahattin Demirtas is one example or small Kaval is another. So unfortunately, there’s two hours of joy coming out of Turkey yesterday after this court decision for Kavala, only to be then reversed.

How the EU and the United States should approach the Turkish government and the control of the media in Turkey?

Merve Tahiroglu: First of all, I think the EU and the United States, they have to be clear on what’s going on in Turkey. As long as the domestic repression is out of control. And they need to recognize that it’s exactly this kind of domestic repression, which allows Erdogan to have a very aggressive foreign policy, which then irritates Turkey’s European partners and NATO allies. The idea to separate what Erdogan is doing within Turkey with this rise of authoritarianism and what he’s doing outside Turkey’s borders with his foreign policy is just doesn’t work. We have to recognize what it is and these governments, Turkey’s partners need to be supporting. The increasing the Turkish opposition and civil society who are working very hard, under increasingly harsh circumstances to bring Turkey back into a democratic track. That is the only way a democratic Turkey can be an effective partner to its transatlantic allies. These governments need to recognize that and support these segments.

How to stop Erdogan?

Merve Tahiroglu: The first order of business is for the United States to start recognizing and speaking out about the expression inside Turkey. We’re not seeing that right now. The US government is not factoring in Erdogan’s authoritarianism into its discourse on Turkey in any way. We do have critical statements sometimes coming out of Congress on Turkey, but even all of those are foreign policy related to because of Turkey’s relationship with Russia or purchasing S-400 all of which are very important problems. And they’re really important for the bilateral relationship. But if we only address those and sort of let go of what else of the changed Erdogan is taking Turkey through, then one day we might wake up and Turkey looks entirely different. In fact we are there.

We are at this point, 17 years on, under Erdogan’s leadership. We’re no longer looking at the same Turkey. I think that’s going to become an increasingly difficult challenge for governments like the United States. So we have to start somewhere. We have to be consistently trying to support democracy in Turkey: the rule of law, speaking out against these politically motivated cases, these unjust trials, total lack of due process and the complete breakdown of rule of law. Increasing censorship and Turkish media, the government’s full control and effort to monopolize the public information, all of these things are the United States as the self-declared defender of democracy in the world should be defending in Turkey as well.