PKK fighters start withdrawing from Turkey but families are doubtful on peace

Kurdish families of fighters say should the Turkish state fail to take steps to improve Kurdish rights after the withdrawal, the fighting is likely to restart. Thomas Seibert reports from Istanbul

ISTANBUL // Two years ago, Asye Kilic watched her 16-year-old son leave their home in a poor Istanbul suburb to join Kurdish rebels fighting the Turkish state.
She may never see him again, but she speaks proudly of the choice made by her son, whom she did not name for fear of possible reprisals by Turkish authorities.
"I have no regrets that our children are in the mountains" to fight the Turkish military, Ms Kilic said this week. "If we were young enough, we would join them."
Ms Kilic said her son decided to join the rebels after being harassed by police because of his political views. She said she did not put much hope into a peace process between the government and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that is aimed at ending a conflict that has raged for almost 30 years, killing more than 40,000 people and driving millions from their homes.
Following a call by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been negotiating with Ankara since December, the first PKK units started their withdrawal from Turkey yesterday, according to Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the Party for Peace and Democracy (BDP), Turkey's biggest legal Kurdish party.
"We know that they have started moving," Mr Demirtas told the Agence France-Presse news agency. There was no word from the PKK itself.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 PKK fighters were expected to leave Turkey for rebel camps in Iraq. Mr Demirtas said on Tuesday that the withdrawal would be completed in three to four months.
Turkish and Kurdish politicians hope the move will lead to a permanent end of the violence that has plagued eastern Anatolia since the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and western countries, took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in 1984.
But people like Ms Kilic remain skeptical. "The Kurds have been betrayed for a thousand years," she said. "If there is a real peace, we will support it, but if they are trying to fool us, we will not."
Meeting in an Istanbul apartment, Ms Kilic and two other Kurdish women spoke of Turkish police harassment and of the discrimination they experienced in their daily life.
Ayse Yavuz, whose husband is a PKK fighter and whose son has been in jail for three years for PKK membership, said that police called her several times a year to ask about her husband.
She also said ordinary Turks were looking down on Kurds like her.
"My neighbour says he does not want to see any Kurds," Ms Yavuz said. "Turks do not want to live with Kurds."
The women said that only their respect for Ocalan gave them faith that the peace process was genuine.
"We can only trust Mr Ocalan," said Mrs Yavuz, whose husband is a PKK fighter and whose son has been in jail for three years for PKK membership. "We do what he says."
She said had heard from her husband recently, but she did not think that he would return home as a result of the peace process.
"He is not coming back," she said. Should the Turkish state fail to take steps to improve Kurdish rights after the withdrawal, the fighting would start again, she added. "Of course the guerilla will return to Turkey then."
Ms Yavuz said support for the fighters among Kurds remained strong. "Everybody here has children or a husband in the mountains."
What will become of the PKK fighting force once the withdrawal is completed is one of the many unresolved issues of the peace process.
According to news reports quoting government sources, the rank and file could be allowed to go home once the organisation has officially given up the armed struggle. Rebel leaders could be sent to exile in European countries.
It is also unclear what kind of political concessions the Turkish government is prepared to offer the PKK.
Kurdish politicians have called for constitutional guarantees of political and cultural rights of Turkey's 13.4 million Kurds, who make up about 18 per cent of the country's population. That would include the right to receive Kurdish language education from primary school level onwards. There have also been calls to relase all Kurdish political prisoners.
For Kurdish women like Ms Yavuz and Sultan Basdas, whose brother has been in jail for PKK membership since 2009, the demand for a release of all Kurdish prisoners is another priority.
"All should be free, including Ocalan," Ms Basdas said.
Kurdish language education and freedom for Ocalan are anathema to Turkey's nationalists, who accuse the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, of selling out to Kurdish separatists. Mr Erdogan has sought to allay such concerns by insisting repeatedly he would not put the unity of the country at risk.
But families of PKK members say Mr Erdogan's political manoeuvres show that the prime minister is not sincere in his promise to end the Kurdish conflict.
"Only three months ago, Erdogan spoke of a single flag and a single language," for Turkey, Ms Kilic said. "How are we supposed to believe in peace?"
The Kurds' lack of trust is not limited to Turkish political leaders. Several people at the meeting spoke of discrimination by normal Turks.
"My neighbour says he does not want to see any Kurds," Ms Yavuz said. "Turks do not want to live with Kurds."
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