Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question

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1 ARTICLES MAKALELER Vol:3, No:6, 9-33, December, 2014 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question Dr. William Hale* Abstract Biographers concentrate on their subjects, while historians tend to paint a broader picture, taking in the subject s environment, and the role of other actors and institutions, as well as broad social, economic and cultural determinants, to explain historical events. This paper aims to combine both approaches. It starts by assessing the role of Turgut Özal s own political development, personality and ideas, in so far as they affected his actions in a crucial area of foreign policy, and the related question of Turkey s Kurds. In the subsequent section other factors which helped to determine his policies in particular, the relationship between Özal himself and the other domestic institutions and groups which were instrumental in shaping Turkish policies, and the changing external environment - are brought into the picture. The narrative component is divided into three sections, covering the periods , , and respectively. This periodization puts far more weight on the last part of Özal s political career than on the previous years, but this can be justified by the argument that his role in the Gulf crisis of was particularly critical, and raises a host of unanswered questions as well as potentially significant conclusions. Keywords: Turgut Özal, Gulf Crisis, Middle East, Kurdish Question Turgut Özal, Ortadoğu ve Kürt Sorunu Özet Tarihsel olayları açıklamada; biyografi yazarları konularına odaklanırken, tarihçiler kapsamlı resim yaparak, konuya önemli aktörleri ve kurumları da ekleyerek sosyal, ekonomik ve kültürel faktörleri de dâhil ederler. Bu yazı bahse konu olan işin her ikisini de yapmaya çalışacaktır. İlk bölümde Turgut Özal ın kişiliği, fikirleri ve siyaset yolu; dış politikayı özellikle Kürt Sorunu ile ilgili olan kısmını etkileyen yönleri ile ele alınacaktır. Devam eden bölümde, Özal ın siyasetini tanımlamaya yardımcı olacak; Türk siyasetini şekillendiren ulusal kurumlarla ilişkileri resmedilmeye çalışılacaktır. Anlatı üç döneme ayrılmıştır; , ve Çalışma üç dönemde ele alınmış olsa da, Özal ın kariyerinin son dönemleri diğer dönemlerden daha fazla yer edinmiştir. Bu durumda dönemindeki Körfez Krizi ve Türkiye nin bu krizde edindiği yerin öneminin etkisi yadsınamaz. Çalışma, Körfez Krizinde Türkiye siyasetine ve cevaplanamayan sorulara odaklanmaya çalışacaktır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Turgut Özal, Körfez Krizi, Ortadoğu, Kürt Sorunu * Emeritus Professor, wh1@soas.ac.uk

2 Dr. William Hale The Personal Factor Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 Turgut Özal was arguably the first national leader of Turkey for whom personal Muslim belief and practice was an important part of his makeup. However, he was far from being a dogmatic Muslim conservative, and before he entered politics his profession had brought him into close contact with western ideas, of which he had a good understanding. In the 1950s, he had spent some time in the United States, to complete his training as an electrical engineer, followed by some three years in Washington during , where he worked at the World Bank as a special projects adviser in industry and mining. His sojourns in America endowed him with a deep regard for American pluralism, and the American understanding of secularism. In essence he believed that Islam as a religion could be combined with modernity, within a liberal perspective. In the United States, people of different faiths had sought and found religious as well as political freedom. Their faith endowed Americans with a live morality. The state could be secular, but not individuals, who were left free to practice their religions. 1 This principle could be equally applied in foreign policy. Politicians should not exploit religion, in external any more than in domestic politics, but that should not prevent them from personally adhering to religious norms, and allowing others to do so. In an illuminating paper, Berdal Aral suggests that, since the days of Adnan Menderes, the centre-right in Turkey had been committed to a blend of western and Muslim values which rejected the systematic application of the Islamic state system or international order, and was willing to embrace a western-oriented foreign policy and a xenophobic nationalism that mistrusts most of Turkey s neighbours (Aral, 2001). Özal could be said to be an inheritor of this tradition, with the exception that his nationalism was not xenophobic. In the classic liberal mode, he saw free trade and economic cooperation as keys to the establishment of international peace. Moreover, the Muslim nations should follow Turkey in adopting secularism, liberal democracy and pro-western foreign policies. In the Middle East, as in other regions, he advocated the adoption of an economic pact providing for free trade and economic cooperation. This approach may have been unrealistically optimistic, but it seems to have been firmly held nonetheless, and was combined with the belief that, in Turkey s case, there were no fundamental contradictions between Turkey s interests and those of the West the United States in particular. In this way, Özal was willing to fit into US strategies which saw Turkey as a bulwark against militant Islamism, headed by post-revolutionary Iran (Aral, 2001). 1 See, for instance, his statement at a press conference of 9 March 1989, quoted at length in Hasan Cemal, Özal Hikayesi (Ankara and Istanbul, Bilgi, 1989) pp.161-2, and M Sait Yazıcıoğlu, Özal ın İslam Anlayışı ve Dini Özgürlükler, in İhsan Sezal and İhsan Dağı, eds., Özal: Siyaset, İktisat, Zihniyet (Istanbul, Boyut, 2001) esp. pp

3 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question While Özal appears to have been committed to these broad beliefs throughout his political career, it is also suggested that his attachments changed somewhat between the early years of his premiership during the mid-1980s, and the final years of his life during the early nineties. Muhittin Ataman, in particular, suggests that during the early period he was essentially attached to the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis the doctrine which acquired some official support during the military regime of , and which attempted to reconcile Islam as a set of personal and moral values with Turkish nationalism by arguing, among other things, that the Turks had been the main champions and protectors of Sunni Islam, so that national and Muslim traditions were essentially the same. During the second phase, Ataman suggests, Özal moved over to what was called Neo-Ottomanism. This was not an attempt to recreate the political institutions of the Ottoman Empire, or the empire as a geographical entity, but to re-establish the cultural diversity of Ottoman society (Ataman, 2001). One can guess that Özal s adoption of this doctrine probably derived less from a priori intellectual conversion than the fact that, by the early 1990s, the Kurdish question had moved to the top of Turkey s political agenda, and that Özal wished to adopt effective and innovative ways of addressing it. What is important in the present context is that this shift was partly caused by, and was the cause of, important changes in Özal s policies towards the Middle East. Interestingly, also, several of these principles were taken up and elaborated by Ahmet Davutoğlu, in his attempts to re-direct Turkish foreign policy after International and Domestic Political Determinants Besides Özal s personal beliefs, his policy towards the middle east, like that towards other regions, was inevitably directed by other, more material determinants. These would have affected the policies of any Turkish government at the time, whether or not Özal had been at the head of it. The chief of these was the external environment, over which Turkey had relatively little control. As a middle-ranking power, Turkey had some ability to determine political outcomes in immediately neighbouring states. However, it was not until the end of the cold war (which, it will be remembered, occurred several years after Özal assumed the premiership at the end of 1983) that Turkey acquired more room for manoeuvre, in this as in other theatres of policy. Even after the cold war ended, maintaining military, economic and political links with the West was a major priority, partly because Turkey s economic dependencies mainly ran in that direction (a factor enhanced by Özal s strategy of integrating the Turkish economy into global markets), partly because Turkey s membership of NATO still had huge political and military advantages, and partly because Turkish ambitions to eventually gain membership of the European Community were revived by Özal himself (Özal, 1991). Turkey s strategies in the middle east between 1984 and 1993 have to 11

4 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 be seen in this context which meant, essentially that regional policies still had to be determined in the light of the effects they were likely to have on Turkey s relations with the United States, and western Europe, as well as on its economy. Naturally, Özal s ability to map out and execute his own policies in the region or, indeed in any other was shaped and frequently limited by domestic power structures. At the beginning of his period as Prime Minister, he had to tread carefully. Democratic government had only recently been restored, and no-one could be too certain that it would be thorough or lasting. Once in office, Özal had to respect the military power and retain at least the appearance of cooperation with it, while also attempting to extend his authority within the state system. Besides the military, the professional diplomats in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had traditionally played a major role in foreign policy determination. So far as one can judge, they continued to do so throughout Özal s period as premier or at any rate, it does not appear that there were any major clashes between the Prime Minister and his officials in the foreign ministry. As is usual in most democracies, the Ministry s role was probably greatest in those matters which did not stir up domestic political passions, or were themselves of a complex or technical nature. This pattern appears to have changed only during the Gulf crisis of when, as will be seen, Özal attempted to strike out on his own, at the cost of stirring up opposition among the more conservative officialdom. Turgut Özal and the Middle East: The First Phase, At the time Özal came into office at the end of 1983, and until the end of the 1980s, international politics in the Middle East were dominated by events of the previous four years. In the Lebanon, the civil war dragged on until In 1982 the Israeli occupation of Beirut had forced the Palestine Liberation Organisation to withdraw its headquarters to Tunis. As leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat was obliged to revise his organisation s previous strategy of total opposition to the existence of Israel, a shift which eventually resulted in his adoption of the twostate solution as a Palestinian objective in Further east, events were dominated by the after-effects of the Iranian revolution of Until his death in 1989, Ayatollah Rouhullah Khomeini officially committed Iran to a policy of rigid Islamisation at home, and the principle of exporting the Islamic revolution to other regional states, besides vehement opposition to the USA and its regional allies. This provoked conflict with Iraq, and Saddam Hussein s rash invasion of south-west Iran in September The seemingly endless and apparently unwinnable war between the two countries dragged on, at appalling cost to both, until 1989, though fortunately without pulling in any other of the Middle Eastern states as outright belligerents. Turkish policies towards the Middle East were inevitably shaped by these events, and its own experiences in the region since the 1950s. During the 1960s 12

5 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question and seventies, successive governments adhered to the view that Turkey must avoid trying to take on any regional leadership role, given the failure of the Baghdad Pact. Hence, Turkey attempted to uncouple its alliance with the western powers from its regional alignments, concentrating on the development of bilateral relations with the main middle eastern states rather than multilateral alliances, and carefully avoiding involvement in either inter-state or civil conflicts. The enhanced role of the Middle Eastern oil-producing states in the world economy, flowing the dramatic leap in oil prices during , and Turkey s international isolation after its intervention in Cyprus in 1974 also forced Turkish policy makers to strengthen their relations with the regional countries (Bishku, 1992). The main lines of Turkey s policy towards the Middle East during the 1980s had been established during the previous decade. In the context of the Arab-Israeli contest, these included a more pro-palestinian tilt in Turkish attitudes (Aykan, 1993). Turkey also became far more reluctant than previously to support US actions in the Middle East, except where these could be justified on humanitarian grounds. Thus, during the Yom Kippur war of 1973 it refused to permit the US air force to use the key NATO air base at İncirlik, near Adana, for anything more than routine missions. Similarly, the US was not allowed to use bases in Turkey for the abortive attempt to rescue the US embassy hostages in Tehran in 1980 (Kuniholm, 1983). At the regional level, in 1969 Süleyman Demirel s government also began Turkish participation in the Islamic summits organised by the Islamic Conference Organisation (ICO) (Aykan, 1993). This diversionary description of Turkish policy towards the Middle East before 1983 has been given primarily because it can be argued that, between 1984 and 1990, Özal did not break with a trend which had already been well established since the late 1960s. On these grounds, it seems difficult to sustain Muhittin Ataman s proposal that Özal regarded other Muslim countries as Turkey s natural partners (more natural, by implication, than those of Europe or North America) or that he was more of an Easternist than a Westernist, more of an Islamist than an Americanist (Ataman, 2001). Instead, he preferred to play both cards at once, recognising that, initially at any rate, his own ability to put his own stamp on foreign policies was limited by internal and external realities. As he put it in a newspaper interview in January 1984, soon after coming into office, It is impossible for us to refrain from playing a role in the Middle East. [But] the extent of this role will be determined, on the one hand, by our general foreign policy and on the other, by the way the situation develops in the region (Aykan, 1993). Under Özal, Turkey continued to play an active role in the ICO, but its appeals related mainly to issues other than the middle east in particular in opposing the Bulgarian government s campaign against the Turkish minority in Bulgaria in 1985, (Uzgel, 2001) or in demanding the lifting of arms embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina (in effect, against the Bosnian Muslims) in 13

6 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December (Robins, 1994). Within the ICO, Turkey s main achievement was to secure community representation in the organisation for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1991 (Aykan, 1993). In the event, none of these steps had any concrete effect, since none of the other Muslim states took what would have been the crucial step of granting diplomatic recognition to the TRNC, and none of them (except Iran) had more than a passing interest in the problems of fellow-muslims in the Balkans. In effect, Özal s policies towards the ICO could be seen essentially as a continuation of previous strategies, and failed to produce any important or positive results for Turkish diplomacy. Under Özal, Turkish policies towards the Israeli-Arab contest also followed the pattern set previously, and hardly support the view that he had pronouncedly pro-islamic (by implication, pro-arab) approaches. In fact, during the mid-1980s, his government began to take the first steps towards a political re-accommodation with Israel. In 1985, relations with Tel Aviv were quietly restored to mutual representation at the level of charge d affaires, the status they had had before 1980, and in 1987 the Foreign Ministers of the two countries met at a meeting of the UN General Assembly the first such contacts for many years. Later, in 1991, the Turkish government continued its even-handed approach by granting recognition at the ambassadorial level to both Israel and the PLO simultaneously (Aykan, 1993). At the bilateral level, Turkey s most problematic relationship with the Arab world was that with Syria. The problems which caused it dated originally from the Turkish annexation of Hatay (Alexandretta) from Syria in 1939, but were intensified by events of the 1980s. After the establishment of the military regime in Turkey, Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which had been the most militant of several armed Kurdish groups of the late 1970s, took refuge in Syria. In 1984, with logistical support from the Syrian authorities, and using bases in the Bekaa valley of the Lebanon, then occupied by Syria, his organisation began a campaign against the Turkish security forces, with horrific terrorist attacks on civilian targets, which reached its peak in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, Turkey had commenced large-scale exploitation of the Euphrates River, which flows from Turkey into Syria, and on which both Syria and Iraq are dependent for an important part of their total water supplies, beginning with the Keban dam (completed in 1975) and the Karakaya dam, completed in In 1983 work was begun on the far bigger Atatürk Dam. This was to be the centre-piece of the giant South-East Anatolia Project which, among other things, was expected to irrigate over a million hectares on the Turkish side of the Euphrates basin, drawing off around 330 cusecs (cubic metres per second) or around one third of the total flow, which would otherwise have passed over to Syria (Kut, 1993). A clear conflict had thus been set up, with Turkey accusing Syria of sponsoring terrorist movements causing thousands of deaths in Turkey, and 14

7 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question the Syrians responding that Turkey intended to throttle its southern neighbour by cutting off essential water supplies. In July 1987 Özal tackled this problem head-on when he visited Damascus, in the first visit to the Syrian capital by any Turkish premier. In talks with President Hafiz al-assad, he appeared to have scored a diplomatic coup, by securing a protocol stating that Both parties undertake to prevent the activities of organisations, groups and individuals carried out on their territories aimed and threatening or undermining the security and stability of the other party (Alaçam, 1994). 2 Strictly speaking, this was a mutual obligation, but since Syria had been the only party clearly not adhering to it in the past, the concession effectively came from the Syrian side. In return, Turkey agreed to maintain an annual average flow of 500 cusecs into the lower Euphrates during the filling up period of the Atatürk Dam reservoir and until the final allocation of the waters of [the] Euphrates among the three riparian countries (that is, Turkey, Syria and Iraq) (Alaçam, 1994). 3 Unfortunately, this did not remove the basic mistrust between the two countries, heightened by the fact that Hafiz al-assad subsequently showed no sign of abandoning hıs support for Öcalan (which he unconvincingly claimed he had never given in the first place) until 1998 (Bölükbaşı, 1993). Thanks to the Iranian revolution of 1979, and the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, handling Turkey s relations with Tehran and Baghdad was a trickier problem, both for the military government of , and for Özal, than it had been for their predecessors. On the first score, most Turks were unlikely to feel ideological sympathies for the Islamic Republic of Iran, set up after the revolution of 1979, but Turkish governments realised that they could not dictate the form of government in a neighbouring state, and thus adhered to the traditional policy of not interfering in its internal affairs. This policy was strengthened by the fact that Iran was a fairly important trading partner, and that the Iranian government could have created problems for Turkey if it chose to do so by, for instance, giving allout support to Kurdish rebels in Turkey, as it did in Iraq. It was adhered to even when an Iranian hand was detected in terrorist attacks by ultra-islamist groups in Turkey in January-February 1993, near the end of Özal s life (Pope, 1998). Hence, for political as well as economic reasons, in 1980 Turkey refused to follow the United States in enforcing a trade embargo on the United States, following the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran by Islamist militants. Relations with Iraq had traditionally been closer, mainly because both governments had a perceived common interest in repressing Kurdish nationalism. These considerations governed Turkish policy during the Iran-Iraq war of , when both countries became significantly dependent on Turkish goodwill 2 Article 5 of Protocol of Cooperation on Matters of Security between the Arab Republic of Syria and the Republic of Turkey, Damascus, July 17, Article 6 of Protocol on Economic Cooperation between Turkey and Syria signed by Prime Ministers Turgut Özal and A.R.Kassem, Damascus, July 17,

8 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 for trade and transit traffic, due to the difficulty of maintaining normal traffic through the Gulf. By maintaining strict neutrality, Turkey won important economic benefits, as its total exports to the two countries increased from $220 million in 1980 to $2,040 million in 1985, at which point they accounted for over a quarter of Turkey s exports. These figures fell back in , but this was due to the fact that the two belligerents began to run short of funds, rather than any policy shift by Turkey. For Iraq, the pipeline running from its northern oilfield at Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Yumurtalık, near İskenderun, was a vital connection, given the closure of its normal export routes through the Gulf, and its capacity was expanded to 1.5 million barrels per day in 1987 (Barkey, 1989). Strategically, the Turks were also lucky that neither of the belligerents were able to win an outright victory, which might have left them free to adopt more aggressive policies towards Turkey (or, in the case of Iran, cut off the Kirkuk-Yumurtalık pipeline, which was of value to Turkey as well as Iraq). On the other hand, the war gave an opportunity for the Iraqi Kurdish leaders to re-start their armed struggle against Baghdad and thus, indirectly, allowed the PKK to use bases in northern Iraq for attacks in Turkey. Accordingly, in February 1983, the military administration had concluded a Frontier Security and Cooperation Agreement with Iraq under which the two governments were entitled to carry out hot pursuit operations against armed groups in each other s territory. The Turkish forces made use of these arrangements in 1983, 1986 and 1987 (Fırat & Kürkçüoğlu, 2001). However, Turkish policies changed at the very end of the Iran-Iraq war. In March 1988, Iranian forces captured the town of Halabjah, in Iraqi Kurdistan, raising fears on the Turkish side that they might go on to take Kirkuk. In the following July, Iraqi forces recaptured Halabjah, subjecting the town to a horrific poison gas attack in which about 5,000 innocent civilians died. Iran then accepted a UN brokered cease-fire, and the war was formally at an end. Saddam Hussein used this opportunity to wreak his revenge on the Kurds. In a savage campaign, 800 Kurdish villages were destroyed, about 250,000 people were forcibly resettled in the south and centre of Iraq, and the Turkish-Iraqi border region was left uninhabited. In August, the Iraqi forces again used chemical weapons against remaining Kurdish militia who were fleeing to the Turkish frontier. Initially, the Turkish authorities refused to allow them into the country but then, realising they faced a humanitarian catastrophe, they relented. The Iraqi government claimed the right to pursue the refugees into Turkish territory, under the 1983 and 1984 agreements, but this was refused by Özal s government, which replied that they would be disarmed and prevented from carrying out any further operations against Iraq. In response, Iraq unilaterally abrogated the hot pursuit agreements. By September 1988 some 63,000 Kurdish refugees had been settled temporarily in Turkey, in twelve refugee camps in south-east Anatolia. Officially, they were not given the status of refugees, and 16

9 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question their treatment by the Turkish authorities was a source of frequent criticism by western humanitarian organisations (McDowall, 1996). However, the incident had forced the Turkish government into the realisation that the Iraqi Kurds would not inevitably be enemies. It also seems to have produced an important effect on Özal s attitude towards Saddam Hussein. According to a later statement by Güneş Taner, who was operating as Özal s chief of staff at the time, the events of 1988 upset him seriously. Özal came to the conclusion that the Iraqi dictator was a despot lacking in normal human values, and that he could use his horrific weapons against anyone, including Turkey. He would eventually have to be purged (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). The Second Phase: Özal and the Gulf Crisis, August 1990 to January 1991 There can be little doubt that the crisis caused by Iraq s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 was a turning point in Özal s policy towards the Middle East, and his position in international politics. The reasons are not too hard to identify. In the first place, it has to be remembered that the invasion had not been generally expected (although Özal himself apparently had some expectations of the kind several months previously). Even if they had thought previously that Iraqi aggression against Kuwait might occur, none of the regional or global actors appear to have decided in advance what their reactions would be, or how they would coordinate their approaches. Policies had to be formulated rapidly and on the hoof, with many previous assumptions hastily abandoned. Second, as is usual in such situations, crisis management in unexpected situations put a premium on instant decisions. Turkey s traditional foreign policy making mechanism, which assumed the forging of a consensus between the President, the government, the foreign ministry and the armed forces commanders, was poorly adapted to coping with this situation, especially if there were disagreements between them. As head of state, and a more experienced politician than any other member of the government, Özal emerged as a powerful foreign policy maker, whose frequent contacts with other world leaders appeared to place him in the driving seat. This threatened to reverse the normal, and constitutionally legitimate situation in which the Prime Minister and the cabinet, not the President, are the final decision makers. Telephone diplomacy put Özal in constant contact with President George Bush and other world leaders, who evidently expected him to make decisions on behalf of Turkey. However, his policies were poorly coordinated with other decision makers in Ankara. The result was that Turkish policies tended to be a compromise between Özal s visions, and the limitations and corrections imposed by Turkey s international situation plus the demands of other actors in the Turkish government. 17

10 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 As Nicole and Hugh Pope remark, the crisis caused by Saddam Hussein s invasion of Kuwait was a godsend for Turgut Özal, since it enabled him to deflect attention from his domestic failings at the time, and to inject into foreign policy the dynamism and ambition which had characterised his economic reforms during the 1980s (Pope & Pope, 1997). It also enabled him to demonstrate Turkey s continuing strategic value to the western powers, in spite of the ending of the cold war. Apparently, he hoped that full support for the western powers in the crisis would strengthen Turkey s case for gaining eventual accession to the EU, and that Turkey would be able to play an important role in the post-war security of the Gulf. However, it is not fully clear how he intended to achieve this. Inevitably, policies were formulated in accordance with the expectations at the time, which were not always born out. In particular, it appears that by the late autumn of 1990, both Özal and President Bush expected that military action to expel the Iraqi forces from Kuwait would be inevitable, and that it would be successful. More crucially, according to a later admission by Bush, they both expected that Iraq s military defeat in Kuwait would bring about the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by his own people, and hence a radical change in the Middle Eastern political system as a whole (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). Özal s actual and attempted policies towards Iraq during the crisis have to be seen in the light of this unrealised expectation, which also helps to explain some his more controversial ambitions. Throughout, however, Özal seems to have believed that there was complementarity between Turkey s national interests and the policies of the United States. Since it was assumed that the western coalition would win a war against Iraq, Turkey could best promote those interests by working with Washington, rather than independently. Turkey must also play an active part in helping to deal with the crisis. As he told the opening meeting of the Turkish parliament on 1 September 1990: We should not turn a blind eye to events which could occur in the region during the crisis, or the negative effects on our country of potential changes which could emerge after the crisis. Hence, we should apply a dynamic foreign policy, so as to arrive at a position which will ensure that we have an effective [influence] over these developments and changes... Otherwise, we will obviously lose the chance of becoming an influential country in a situation involving Turkey s vital interests (Gözen, 2001). It appears that, some months before the fatal events of August 1990, Özal warned President Bush that Saddam Hussein would be a serious danger, and that he might invade Kuwait. By late July, the Iraqi dictator was massing his forces on his border with Kuwait, suggesting that an invasion was imminent. However, on 27 July Bush informed Özal that the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had assured him that Saddam would withdraw his forces without mounting an invasion, and that this was confirmed by intelligence reports from the US embassy in Baghdad. 18

11 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question On 1 August, at Bush s suggestion, Özal left Ankara for what turned out to be a brief holiday. The following day, when the invasion was announced, he quickly returned to the capital with his advisers, and immediately called a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC), bringing together the President, Prime Minister, other government ministers, and the armed forces chiefs (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). 4 Initially, and in spite of Özal s later decision to adopt a more active policy, the government s reaction was hesitant. At meetings of the cabinet and the NSC between 2 and 6 August it was decided to take a wait and see attitude. Meanwhile, on 5 August, Taha Yasin Ramazan, the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, visited Ankara and tried to persuade Özal that Turkey should oppose the expected economic embargo on Iraq. Özal was unmoved, urging that Saddam should immediately withdraw from Kuwait, and warning of the consequences to Iraq if he failed to do so. On the following day (6 August) the UN Security Council passed Resolution 661, imposing an economic embargo on Iraq until it withdrew from Kuwait. This prompted a positive response from Ankara two days later, when Özal officially announced on British and US television that the Kirkuk-Yumurtalık pipeline had been closed, and an embargo on trade with Iraq was applied (Gözen, 2001). The main events between then and the opening of Gulf War II on 17 January 1991 can be quickly summarised. As the likelihood of a war between Iraq and the coalition powers (essentially, the US) became ever stronger, it became apparent that the Bush administration would make three main requests to Turkey, apart from the maintenance of the economic embargo against Iraq: first, the use of airbases on Turkish soil for attacks on northern Iraq: second, a build-up of Turkish forces along the Iraqi-Turkish frontier, so as to draw part of the Iraqi army away from the southern front: third, the participation of a Turkish contingent in the coalition forces which were expected to be fighting in the Gulf (Uzgel, 2001). If he had been able to decide policy purely by himself, Özal would have been happy to accept all three conditions, and maybe more: as it was, he was only able to apply the first two. If Turkey were to take any direct military action against Iraq, or allow the coalition powers to do so, then parliamentary approval would have to be obtained, under Article 92 of the constitution, unless Turkey were subjected to sudden armed aggression when parliament was not in session. On 12 August the assembly was hastily reconvened, and Prime Minister Yıldırım Akbulut asked for these powers. However, the government faced serious objections, not only from the opposition parties, but also an important part of the Motherland Party s parliamentary group, led by former Foreign Minister Mesut Yılmaz. This reflected strong public reluctance to allow Turkey to get involved in a war in 4 Statements by Güneş Taner and Kaya Toperi. 19

12 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 the Middle East. Accordingly, parliament voted through the resolution, but only with the rider that the government could only exercise these powers if Turkey were attacked. On 5 September, after parliament had reconvened for its normal autumn session, Akbulut repeated the government demand for special powers under Article 92. This time, the motion was passed, but, according to Akbulut, the government would only have been able to send Turkish troops abroad if Turkey had been attacked (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). 5 Hence, parliamentary opposition to direct involvement in a war in the Gulf had been made clear. The probability of such a war loomed closer during the following two months, as the US built up its forces to around 400,000, and Saddam showed no signs of withdrawing from Kuwait. On 29 November, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 678, effectively authorising the US-led coalition to launch military action against Iraq if it failed to withdraw by 15 January Meanwhile, Turkey increased its forces along the frontier with Iraq to around 120,000 troops, and the US sent a detachment of Patriot missiles to the main NATO air base at İncirlik, near Adana, to improve the Turks inadequate air defences. The air war against Iraq began on 17 January. On the same day, the Turkish parliament passed its own Resolution 126, drafted by the government, to support UN Security Council Resolution 678 in effect, to allow coalition air forces to use the İncirlik and other bases in Turkey for offensive operations against Iraq (Uzgel, 2001). These duly began on 18 January. This bald narrative leaves many details obscure, and important questions unanswered. On the first score, it is clear that, besides his frequent contacts with President Bush and other western leaders, Özal and the government played an active part in helping to persuade other Middle Eastern rulers to support coalition policies, or at least not oppose them actively. Following the passage of Security Council Resolution 661, there were reports that Iran, Jordan and Egypt were not enforcing the economic embargo against Iraq, and Özal immediately contacted those governments, urging them to enforce the UN s decision. These contacts were followed up by the Foreign Minister, Ali Bozer, who visited Syria, Jordan and Egypt in August 1990, arguing that the only way to secure a peaceful resolution to the crisis was to ensure that the embargo was enforced. The position of the USSR was also crucial. On this score, Özal was encouraged by a visit to Ankara on 3 August by Soviet First Deputy Prime Minister Lev Veronin, who assured his hosts that the USSR would cooperate with Turkey to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. As the prospect of war grew closer, the Soviet government did not oppose the stationing of US forces in Turkey or the use of NATO bases against Iraq - a critical gain for Turkey from the ending of the cold war (Gözen, 2001). The problems which the government faced in persuading parliament to give it the powers it needed to support the coalition campaign has already 5 Yıldırım Akbulut, statement in Birand and Yalçın. 20

13 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question been mentioned. Besides this, however, it is clear that there was widespread resentment of Özal s tendency to take matters into his own hands, and shortcircuit the normal procedures. A public row erupted at the end of September, when Özal visited Washington for talks with President Bush, but without his Foreign Minister Ali Bozer. This provoked Bozer s resignation on 11 October 1990, to be followed by that of the Defence Minister, Safa Giray, seven days later, and finally, and most startlingly, that of General Necip Torumtay, the Chief of the General Staff, on 3 December (Uzgel, 2001). Disputes continued up to the start of the Gulf war: as Akbulut relates, Özal argued that it would not be necessary to go to parliament for a special Resolution to allow coalition air forces to use Turkish bases for attacks on Iraq, but the Prime Minister successfully overruled him on this (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). 6 In his resignation statement, General Torumtay explained rather cryptically that he had left his command because I see it as impossible to continue my service under the principles and perception of the state which I believe in (Torumtay, 1994). However, it later became clear that his resignation did not simply derive from the fact that he had been cut out of the decision-making loop, but from real policy differences with Özal over Turkey s reaction to the crisis. His reservations were apparently shared by several members of the government, including the Prime Minister. The first bone of contention was Özal s desire to send a detachment of Turkish troops to the Gulf, to join the coalition forces lining up against Iraq. In a television interview in January 1991, Özal confirmed that he had wanted to do this (Summary of world Broadcasts, 1991). On his side, Torumtay later related that the government did not give any specific orders to that effect, but that Özal simply floated the idea, and the likely gains and losses evaluated by the Foreign Ministry and General Staff (to what effect is unclear) (Torumtay, 1994). A more controversial claim by Necip Torumtay is that Özal wished to open up a second front against Iraq, by launching a land invasion of the north of the country if the coalition was involved in military action in the south, with the objective of capturing and occupying the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. According to Güneş Taner, who by this stage was a Minister of State in Akbulut s government, Özal wanted a second front, to be at the table of the wolves when they were dividing the spoils after the battle, although he personally opposed the idea (Pope & Pope, 1997). Torumtay s claim is also confirmed by Yıldırım Akbulut, and Hüsnü Doğan, who succeeded Safa Giray as Minister of Defence (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). 7 In his memoirs and subsequent statements, Torumtay makes it clear that he strongly opposed any such operation, partly on these grounds. If Turkey occupied Mosul, then it would be as guilty as Saddam of occupying the 6 Statement by Yıldırım Akbulut, in in Birand and Yalçın. 7 Statements by Necip Torumtay, Yıldırım Akbulut and Hüsnü Doğan in Birand and Yalçın, eds. Nicole and Hugh Pope also relate that, in a visit to the Washington Press Club shortly before the Gulf war, Özal spent most of the evening briefing correspondents at his table about Turkey s rights to northern Iraq 21

14 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 territory of a foreign country. This would be opposed by the United Nations, which would force Turkey to withdraw, leaving it with no gains. Militarily, the Turkish forces would have been capable of capturing Mosul, he judged, but occupying the region on a long-term basis would have been a different matter. The Kurds of the region would have mounted resistance, worsening the problem which Turkey already faced in fighting the PKK. Preparing for such an operation would have taken as long as three months, but since the idea was only broached by Özal at the end of November 1990, the time was unavailable. It would also have meant reducing Turkey s defences against the USSR, opening up other dangers. Finally, Torumtay strongly objected to the way the proposal was delivered. Two days before his resignation, Özal had sent him a directive (presumably about his plans for operations in northern Iraq) but this had not been discussed or signed by the cabinet, and ignored the fact that he had to take his orders from the government, not the President. This short-circuiting of the constitutional procedures was evidently the straw which broke the camels back for Torumtay (Torumtay, 1994). Significantly, it is clear that Akbulut and his government also opposed the idea of an operation in northern Iraq, undermining the common notion that the Prime Minister was no more than Özal s puppet (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). 8 Against this, some commentators argue that Özal did not intend to launch a military operation in northern Iraq, and had no designs on the Mosul province. In an interview in Tercüman newspaper, published on 8 December 1990, Özal dismissed the idea for some of the same reasons as those advanced by Torumtay that is, that the major powers would never permit it, and it would upset the regional balance of power (Gözen, 2001). This message was repeated in an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, published on 22 February 1991, in which Özal stated categorically that we will not enter the war so long as we are not attacked by Iraq. We are not thinking of taking even a centimetre of Iraq s territory. Will Turkey take Mosul and Kirkuk? No, it will not (Gözen, 2001). In a separate conversation with the Turkish journalist Cengiz Candar, he also pointed to the probable opposition of neighbouring states (presumably, Syria and Iran) if Turkey tried to take over any part of Iraq (Gözen, 2001). Nor is there any certain or direct evidence that President Bush asked Özal to open a second front in the land war against Iraq, although Özal did get permission from Bush to send Turkish forces into Iraq if either Saddam, Syria or Iran invaded Turkey (Üzgel, 2001). 9 It is hard to see how Özal could have ignored this obstacle without losing the rest of his broad policy objectives. To explain this apparently contradictory evidence, two proposals can be advanced. The first would be that, during the November and early December 8 Yıldırım Akbulut, statement in Birand and Yalçın, eds. 9 However, Nicole and Hugh Pope quote Güneş Taner as saying of Özal s plan to open up a second front that the Americans were all for it : Turkey Unveiled, p.220. The writer does not know of any clear evidence to confirm this. 22

15 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question of 1990, Özal did seriously consider a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq with the occupation of Mosul and Kirkuk, if a Gulf war broke out, but then abandoned the idea, in view of the objections raised by Torumtay and others. The second derives from Özal s apparent expectation that Saddam would be defeated in Kuwait, and would then be overthrown in his own country. This threatened to produce a power vacuum in Iraq, in which either one of its other neighbours could intervene, or the Iraqi Kurds might try to establish an independent state, either by themselves or with the help of another government. As Özal claimed in his interview with Die Welt, a Turkish military intervention might be necessary to prevent this. For Iraq, and for the Iraqi Kurds, the best solution would be a democratic regime in which its different ethnic and religious communities could coexist (Gözen, 2001). The journalist Cengiz Candar confirms this by relating that Özal told him in January 1991 that if Iraq fell apart after the war, then Turkey should act to prevent Iran or Syria from filling the power vacuum in the north of the country. Even if Iraq did not disintegrate, then it will have a new power structure, it will not be the old Iraq I must establish what sort of Iraq it should be, since it is my neighbour and I have security problems At this testing time, I must be on the inside, I must be active, so that I can have my say (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). 10 The Final Phase: January 1991 to April 1993 Between 17 January and the middle of March 1991 events proceeded much as expected. The coalition air forces made regular use of İncirlik and other bases in Turkey to attack targets in northern Iraq, and the Turkey s military build-up along its frontier with Iraq pinned down about eight Iraqi divisions which could otherwise have been used against coalition forces in the south. The coalition ground offensive began on 24 February, the Iraqi forces were ejected from Kuwait, and on 3 March the two sides agreed to end hostilities. After that, however, the crisis developed dimensions which neither President Bush or President Özal had expected. Contrary to their predictions, Saddam was not overthrown, and when rebellions broke out in the south of Iraq and in Iraqi Kurdistan, he had enough remaining forces to repress them savagely. In the latter case, Saddam s counteroffensive drove around 500,000 destitute refugees to the Turkish border at the beginning of April, with an even bigger number fleeing to Iran. As Özal admitted on 9 April, The Gulf War has confirmed that even if wars solve problems, they also often create new ones 11 The Turkish government did not want to admit the refugees into Turkish territory, since, as Özal put it, we do not want another Palestinian camp on our border, 12 and because their presence would inevitably 10 Cengiz Candar, statement in Birand and Yalçın, eds. 11 President Turgut Özal s Address to the Global Panel sponsored by the European Studies Centre in Amsterdam : text reprinted in Studies on Turkish-Arab Relations: Special Issue on the Gulf Crisis (Istanbul, Foundation for Studies on Turkish-Arab Relations, annual, Vol.6, 1991) pp The words quoted are on p Ibid, p

16 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 have exacerbated Turkey s own internal Kurdish problem. On the other hand, it could not ignore their desperate plight, which was shown nightly on the world s TV screens. According to his own account, on 2 April Özal telephoned Secretary of State Baker about the crisis, and Turkey was instrumental in the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 688 three days later. Among other things, this required Iraq to allow immediate access by international humanitarian organisations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq. On 15 April Özal called President Bush, and urged that As a first step these people should be temporarily settled in suitable flat areas in Iraq, near the Turkish border, until security is provided. 13 Following an initiative by the EU, originating from the British Prime Minister John Major, Özal s original idea of a limited security zone was expanded into that of establishing a larger safe haven which would allow all the refugees to return to their homes. Accordingly, on 17 April, the coalition powers launched what became known as Operation Provide Comfort, under which an international force of 20,000 troops was established at Silopi, near the border with Iraq, and the safe haven was established in the north-east of the country. This allowed virtually all the refugees to return to their homes by the end of May. From July 1991 untıl 2003, coalition air forces, based at İncirlik, enforced a no-fly zone in northern Iraq, as far south as the 36 th parallel. This prevented Saddam s forces from entering the Kurdish area. The İncirlik operations were dependent on special permission from the Turkish parliament which has been regularly renewed, normally at six-month intervals (Kirişçi, 1996). 14 Operation Provide Comfort was highly successful in solving the immediate refugee crisis, but it also raised several serious problems for Turkey. In the first place, the creation of the safe haven, outside the control of the Iraqi government, went against the firm Turkish principle that the territorial integrity of Iraq must be preserved. More immediately, the power vacuum in northern Iraq certainly allowed the PKK to establish bases there, from which it could attack targets in Turkey, much as it had done during the Iran-Iraq war of For Özal, also, the outcome of the crisis had a significant effect in inducing him to reverse one of the previous ground-rules of Turkish policy, that Turkey would maintain no contacts with the Iraqi Kurds. On their side, the Iraqi Kurds were dependent on Turkey for essential supplies, and for maintenance of the Provide Comfort operation which provided vital relief assistance and kept Saddam Hussein s forces out of Iraqi Kurdistan. In effect, Turkey was the essential middle-man in their links with the USA, their main protector. On the other side, Turkey needed access to first- 13 President Özal s TV Speech concerning Turkish Help to Iraqi Refugees (31 May 1991): text in ibid, pp The passage quoted is on p.210. For the full text of Resolution 688, see ibid, pp See also Mahmut Bali Aykan, Turkey s Policy in Northern Iraq, , Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.32, No.4 (1996) pp Originally, the relief operation was referred to as Operation Provide Comfort, with the İncirlik-based operation known as Poised Hammer, but Provide Comfort was later used as the title for both. From the beginning of 1997, it became known as Operation Northern Watch. 24

17 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question hand information about what was going on in the region and, above all, wanted to prevent the PKK from operating from bases in Iraqi territory. Given that Turkey could not take over direct control of northern Iraq, these objectives could only be met by establishing a working relationship with the Kurdish leaders who, it was correctly assumed, would not necessarily see eye-to-eye with Abdullah Öcalan and his followers. According to Cengiz Candar, who evidently played an important role as an intermediary, Özal first raised the possibility of striking up contact with the Iraqi Kurdish leadership in February 1991, while the war in the Gulf was still raging. About two weeks later Candar met Jelal Talabani and Muhsin Dizayi, a representative of Masud Barzani, in London. Talabani asked him whether a meeting could be arranged with between himself, Barzani and Özal. This led to a visit to Ankara by Talabani and Dizayi on March, in which they talked with officials of the foreign ministry, although not to President himself (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). 15 Significantly, these contacts took place before the eruption of the refugee crisis or the establishment of Operation Provide Comfort. At this stage, Özal was evidently very cautious, since he only admitted that the visit had taken place some days later, pointing out that everyone else is talking to them, why not us? We must be friends with them as much as possible. 16 However, he had a direct encounter with Talabani in June 1991, when the PUK leader paid a visit to Istanbul for a meeting of the Socialist International, and then went on to Ankara. In early August 1991 a crisis erupted between the two sides, when a PKK gang killed nine Turkish gendarmes stationed at Samanlı, in the remote province of Hakkari, and carried off another seven to their base in Iraq. In response, Turkish ground and air forces launched a counter-attack which lasted until 19 August. 17 Meanwhile, Talabani and Dizai returned to Ankara, evidently trying to end the attacks as soon as possible and prevent further civilian casualties, and to secure food and other supplies from Turkey. However, it was noticed that they did not publicly condemn the Turkish operation, and undertook to prevent the PKK from launching further raids from their territory. In effect, they appeared willing to trade material assistance for a common front against the PKK. These contacts developed during Within Iraq, the most significant step taken by the Kurds was the election in May of that year of what was known as the Kurdistan National Assembly, and a local government structure in which the KDP shared power with the PUK. This naturally provoked strong suspicions on the Turkish side that the two organisations were on their way to establishing an independent Kurdistan. To gain regional support, Turkey organised a meeting in November 1992 with Iranian and Syrian representatives, declaring joint opposition to establishment of a Kurdish state. Meanwhile, Turkey granted 15 Statement by Cengiz Candar, in Birand and Yalçın, eds. 16 Quoted, The Independent (London) 15 March The Guardian (London) and The Independent, 14 August

18 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 Turkish diplomatic passports to the two Iraqi Kurdish leaders, and later allowed them to open representative offices in Ankara. Moreover, relations with the KDP improved markedly during the summer and autumn of 1992, after the PKK halted the flow of trucks across south-eastern Turkey into Iraqi Kurdistan, prompting the KDP to demand the withdrawal of PKK units from Iraqi territory. During October- November the Turkish armed forces joined the peshmergas of the Iraqi Kurds in a campaign against the PKK, after which its presence in Iraq was moved to a camp at Zalah, on the Iran-Iraq border, and about 130 km south of the frontier with Turkey (Pope, 1992). Meanwhile, in the course of a visit to Ankara in July 1992, Jelal Talabani tried to develop his relationship with Turkey by suggesting that Iraqi Kurdistan might be brought under Turkish protection, or even that it might federate with Turkey. As he put it at the time, either we become a part of Iraq or a part of another Middle Eastern government The Kurdish people will look for the best possibilities We think that in this turning point of history there is a very good historical chance to revive the historical relations between the Kurdish people and the Turkish people. 18 According to Kaya Toperi, Özal s adviser, Talabani had earlier suggested that if the Kurds set up an autonomous administration in Iraqi Kurdistan, then Turkey might annex it, and asked Özal are you our elder brother? (read, protector ). This was apparently connected in Talabani s mind to the belief that Özal favoured some sort of federal structure, or at least devolution of power, in which Turkey would be divided into a series of around regions (eyaletler) each with its own administration and parliament, although Talabani does not make clear whether he thought Iraqi Kurdistan should be part of this new structure (Birand & Yalçın, 2001). 19 Certainly, such idea can be seen as part of Özal s contemporary conversion to the idea that Turkey should abandon the commitment to monolithic Turkish ethnic nationalism, opting instead for a pluralistic, multi-cultural identity, which would embrace the Kurds and other ethnic groups (Ataman, 2002). However, later commentators like Ertugrul Özkök argue that Özal never seriously adopted the idea of a federal structure for Turkey, but simply suggested that the idea should be discussed. On the question of a federal relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan, Kaya Toperi categorically denies that Özal approved of the project. According to his account, when Talabani suggested it to Özal, the President replied Yes, you cannot survive without Turkey. Turkey is your only connection with the outside world. However, Turkey has never had any idea of adding to its territory My advice to you is that, within Iraq s frontiers, within a homogeneous [mütecanis] and democratic Iraq, you should establish a similar system, respecting the rights of the Turcomans in the north. (Birand & Yalçın, 2001) Quoted, Briefing, (Ankara, weekly) 27 July 1992, pp Statements by Kaya Toperi and Jelal Talabani, in Birand and Yalçın, eds. 20 Statements by Ertugrul Özkök and Kaya Toperi, in Birand and Yalçın, eds. 26

19 Turgut Özal, the Middle East and the Kurdish Question Apart from the establishment of Operation Provide Comfort and of relations with the Iraqi Kurds, the most significant effect of the Gulf crisis of was economic. As already noticed, Iraq had been one of Turkey s most important trade partners in the 1980s. Transport and trade across the Iraqi frontier had also been an important source of income and employment in the impoverished provinces of south-eastern Turkey, most of whose inhabitant were ethnic Kurds. Hence, the imposition of sanctions against Iraq was very costly for Turkey, both nationally and locally. Estimates made by the writer at the time suggested that the cost to Turkey s balance of payments, caused by lost exports, pipeline royalties, and other invisibles, was around $2 billion per year, although other estimates put the loss at far higher than this (Gözen, 2001). 21 In return, Turkey received compensation aid from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait of around $2.2 billion in 1991, tailing off to around $900 million in 1992, and apparently ceasing thereafter. 22 The substantial net loss to Turkey is sometimes cited as a criticism of Özal s policy during the Gulf crisis (Gözen, 2001). On the other hand, it has to be remembered that Turkey could not have ignored a mandatory decision by the UN Security Council, and that the application of sanctions would almost certainly have been inevitable, regardless of whatever other policies Özal might have adopted during the crisis. In the broader sphere, it is also apparent that Özal s role in policy making, and the role of the Middle East in his overall approaches, began to shift during the last two years of his life. In the general elections of October 1991 his former Motherland Party was defeated, leading to the formation of a coalition government headed by his old rival, Süleyman Demirel. From this time on, Özal lost much of his domestic power base, and began to act almost as though he was part of the opposition rather than of the government. The defeat of George Bush Snr. in the US presidential elections of 1992 also removed a powerful friend in Washington. Meanwhile, Özal s foreign policy focus, like that of the Turkish government generally, shifted away from the middle east, and towards Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans, where the dismemberment of both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia created a host of new problems as well as some opportunities for Turkey. In the Middle East, the beginning of the Arab-Israeli peace process in 1991 was welcomed by Turkey, but Ankara had played virtually no part in achieving it, and the process did not begin to bear fruits until after Özal s death. As previously, Turkey s most immediate concerns in the region derived from its internal Kurdish problem. These reached a critical juncture in the spring of 1993, when Abdullah Öcalan proclaimed a ceasefire by the PKK. The story needs 21 Estimates by the writer in 1991, for the Economist Intelligence Unit, London. Against this, Ramazan Gözen, for instance, estimates Turkey s total losses between 1990 and 2001 at over $30 billion, or an annual average of around $3 billion. 22 Calculated from Turkish balance of payments figures, in Briefing, 27 July 1992, p.24 and 10 May 1993, pp

20 Dr. William Hale Volume:3 Number:6 December 2014 some examination in the present context, since it was apparently linked to Özal s relations with the Iraqi Kurds in particular, with Jelal Talabani. On 17 March Öcalan announced that his organisation would declare a unilateral ceasefire between 20 March and 15 April. This was largely observed, and on 16 April the PKK leader went further by announcing that the ceasefire would be extended indefinitely. Coincidentally, Özal died of a heart attack on the following day (17 April). Öcalan s move left Demirel s government in a state of indecision (Anon., 1993). The Turkish armed forces did not entirely cease their operations against the PKK, although on 30 March Demirel announced that a large-scale campaign, which had been planned for the spring, would be dropped (Summary of world Broadcasts, 1991). Meeting under the temporary premiership of Erdal İnönü on 24 May, 23 the National Security Council announced that there would be a partial amnesty law, giving immunity to those who had joined the PKK but not committed acts of violence. 24 However, on the same day, the PKK itself ended the ceasefire, when a gang under the command of Semdin Sakık, the PKK s local commander in Bingöl province, attacked a bus carrying unarmed soldiers and civilians, killing 31 soldiers and six civilians in cold blood. İnönü promptly announced that the proposed amnesty was suspended, and the military campaign against the PKK was resumed at full scale. 25 While the main events in this apparently missed opportunity are not disputed, it also appeared that the PKK s ceasefire had not been launched without some previous peace-feelers between Özal, and perhaps Demirel also, to the PKK, and that Özal s contacts with Jelal Talabani played a vital part in this. These apparently continued after the ceasefire was declared. In a letter to Özal, delivered on 5 March, Talabani stated that Öcalan had offered to abandon his campaign of violence in return for the opening of a fraternal dialogue with the Turkish government which, he suggested, could be conducted through the medium of Kurdish members of the Turkish parliament, rather than directly with the PKK itself. He stated that Öcalan had abandoned his previous goal of establishing an independent Kurdish state, and accepted democracy, human rights and cultural and administrative rights within the unitary Turkish entity. A passage in the letter also suggests that Talabani had previously acted as intermediary in indirect negotiations between Öcalan and Özal, in which Özal had put forward proposals which had then been rejected by Öcalan. 26 Another version of these events was later related by Talabani, to the effect that he visited 23 Demirel had resigned from the premiership on 23 April, in preparation for his election as President of the Republic on 16 May. His True Path Party (DYP) did not elect Tansu Ciller as Chair of the party, and thus Prime Minister, until 13 June. As Deputy Prime Minister, İnönü took over as head of the government in the interim. 24 Briefing, 24 May 1993, p.8 25 Ibid. 26 The passage reads: I put forward to him [Öcalan] my well-known suggestions those which I had explained to Your Excellency [Özal] in the past and which I brought to him and he rejected at the time. For what is said to be the full text of the letter, see Mideast Mirror, 15 March 1993, p