The root economic cause of terrorism in Turkey and the PKK reality

Turkey has faced intense terror attacks in recent days. This situation, which goes beyond Turkey's economic and social realities, is a regional and global phenomenon. With a decision made by then Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2008, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) updated and reinitiated the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) in eastern and southeastern regions. This project did not only aim for infrastructure investments, such as the construction of dams and highways, it also encapsulated a chain of far-reaching investments that would reduce unemployment with the construction of universities, hospitals and airports in all cities in the region. In short, since 2008, Turkey has taken major steps toward removing the income and developmental differences between the western and eastern parts of the country. This economic rise accompanied political and democratic steps as well. For instance, the Kurdish language and identity were officially admitted. Turkey's first national Kurdish language television station was opened within the body of TRT, the national public broadcaster of Turkey and universities opened Kurdish-language departments. The cultural and folkloric traditions of the local community were reinvigorated and the region started to attract global investments. In parallel with these developments, the government launched negotiations with the representatives of the Kurdish political movement and the reconciliation process was initiated in 2010 in order to resolve the Kurdish question. Indeed, this process was reminiscent of the processes initiated by all countries that are rocked by separatist terrorist organizations across the world. As is known, more than 100 peace negotiations were held in the world between 1990 and 2010. Most of the peace talks that started in different parts of the world during the 1990s ended in success. Perhaps, this was a direct consequence of the world economic system. Nowadays, economies that have survived thanks to wars and nourished traditional sectors, such as the arms industry and nasty finance, relegate these areas rapidly and are being equipped with new knowledge-based sectors. The rapid growth of such sectors is leaving its mark on the process. During the early 1980s, the U.K. and the U.S. liquidated the social aspect of the state-based economy and put militarist statism and war into effect as a remedy to overcome the crisis. These two countries supported coups and incited civil war processes in all countries where peace negotiations were held in the 1990s. However, this was a bad policy that dragged these countries to the brink of the abyss. The 1990s started with crisis dynamics that would also rock developing countries, since markets were shrinking, new investments could not be made and traditional sectors supported by the U.K. and the U.S. could never recover. In those days, countries that break records in production and R&D investments today, such as South Korea, called on their citizens to submit their gold to the central banks to handle the crisis. Turkey went through these years of crises, military coups and a climate of intense conflict.

The knowledge-based capital, which would leave its mark on the 21st century, revealed that supporting traditional structures and sectors and further militarizing nation states would not work out. While conflicts and crises caused by the war economy continued in the 1990s, a new process started in the world, particularly in South Africa. This new process prioritized knowledge-based sectors and wanted individual demand to be prioritized in underdeveloped countries. Thus, it raised a new power that did not base its economy merely on the nation state's armament of billions of dollars and on the economic cycle, but wanted to eradicate nasty financial balloons created by this economy, and tried to uphold a legal market cycle in the world. This power revealed itself first by bringing Barack Obama to power in the U.S. Remember that more than 100 peace processes have begun in the world over the past decade, while juntas, gangs and arms lobbies have begun decelerating and information technology-based sectors have begun coming to the fore. This is a development indicating that the bloody history of the 20th century, which was one of the most unfortunate times in history, has ended. As a result of years of struggle, global financial circles have also acknowledged this reality. This is undoubtedly the acquisition of peace and democracy.

What Turkey is experiencing these days seems to go against this overall picture. Certainly, as mentioned above, this situation does not stem from the fact that the Turkish state, or the government in the strictest sense, does not carry out necessary democratic reforms or does not take the necessary steps, considering that the government, and Erdoğan in particular, has taken strong and resolute steps to handle the Kurdish question since 2008. Today, the PKK has ceased to be an organization that is produced by Turkey's socio-economic and political dynamics and it no longer resembles the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the U.K., Basque nationalist Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in France and Spain, or the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. Just like the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is a paramilitary organization that the regional and global war industry pushes to the front as an apparatus of a war on sharing. From this point of view, the PKK's assault on Turkey is not a state of political violence arising from Turkey's domestic affairs.

This is a new and multi-faceted war strategy that brings Turkey under fire. This being the case, for Turkey, there is no difference between ISIS's terrorism and the PKK's terrorism. As I mentioned in my previous articles, this obviously is a multiple-state war on market and energy sharing. Turkey knows the states that support the PKK and their objectives, just as it knows those what support ISIS and the motives behind ISIS's attacks. Those who support these two terrorist organizations should know that Turkey is not and will not be an Egypt.

Source http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/cemil-ertem/2015/09/11/the-root-economic-cause-of-terrorism-in-turkey-and-the-pkk-reality