Turkish security challenges in the 1990s

Abstract

This study will use the term “security” to refer primarily to its external dimension rather than internal, and to the political-military aspect of security rather than its purely political, diplomatic, and social aspects. It is nobody’s secret that Turkey is faced with a domestic challenge to its territorial integrity in the form of Kurdish separatism led by the the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) since 1984. It is also widely known that the Kurdish question has negatively penetrated several areas of Turkish foreign policy, souring Turkey’s diplomatic and military relations with many of its traditional friends and allies. Two developments in September 1998 have caused a deep sense of disillusionment in Turkey: the re-sponsorship by Washington of preparations for Kurdish autonomy in Northern Iraq, and the meeting of the so-called “Kurdish deputies” at the Italian parliament with several Italian parliamentarians on September 29. This paper will limit the discussion of the role of the PKK for Turkish security to those cases where its manipulation of the external environment to enhance its ability to weaken the Turkish resolve to resist has been narrowing the threshold of human and material damage acceptable by Turkey. The sanctuary and direct assistance provided to the leadership of the PKK by Syria is the most glaring example of such cases. For years Turkey has maintained that the freedom enjoyed by the PKK in Syria and the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon allows it to consolidate its power base so as to inflict increasingly greater, and therefore unacceptable, damage to Turkey. In early October 1998, Turkish and Syrian troops stood face-to-face across the border following the Turkish warning of October 1 to Damascus that it either cease to nurture the PKK or else face the consequences. This paper will first survey the main features of the new security environment for Turkey, then follow with a discussion of the specific challenges as seen by it.