“We Do Not Know the Road Map for the Resolution Process”

I had completed the Special Officer Advancement Courses we took before starting at the War Academies, handed over my post as Ankara Çankaya District Gendarmerie Commander and gone on my 15-day transfer leave. When I heard the news on the radio, I had set off by car for my hometown and, on a hot July day, had only just reached the Kayaş area of Ankara.

Like everyone else, I was surprised. The BBC would announce the news as “Turkey: Army Commanders Resign En Masse”. According to behind-the-scenes information, the soldiers had made a resignation manoeuvre so that General Aslan Güner could become Chief of General Staff. But this manoeuvre would be foiled by General Necdet Özel, then Commander of the Gendarmerie.

Güner, known to the public as the general who left his place in the protocol line so as not to shake hands with Hayrünnisa Gül, wife of President Abdullah Gül, was in the view of some circles a general who represented the army’s sensitivity to secularism.

In June 1987 two generals, Necdet Üruğ and Necdet Öztorun, had carried out an operation, known as the “Necdets operation”, to shape the top command of the Turkish Armed Forces against then Prime Minister Turgut Özal; this time the command echelon had done something similar against Prime Minister Erdoğan. But this time, by a twist of history, the operation would be foiled not by the prime minister but by another Necdet: General Necdet Özel.

Because of the way he came to office, Necdet Pasha was at first seen as the government’s man, but he had a successful record both in his one year as Commander of the Gendarmerie and in his four years as Chief of General Staff. His commitment to the law and avoidance of unlawful action in particular, though they may have pleased the government at first, and his firm stance towards the end of his term did not please the AKP government much. He maintained this stance against the government’s wrong policies in the resolution process too.

When General Özel took office, he found the “Resolution Process” in his lap. In this process, which the government had launched in mid-2009 with the Oslo talks:

• On 19 October 2009, at Abdullah Öcalan’s call, 34 PKK members entered the country through the Habur border gate and surrendered. About 50,000 people gathered in the Silopi district of Şırnak to greet them.
• On 21 February 2010, Prime Minister Erdoğan met 62 artists to explain the democratic opening and the resolution process and to gather support, saying: “Put your shoulder to the opening.”
• On 12 June 2011 the AKP won the parliamentary elections with 49.83 per cent of the vote, further strengthening its hold on power.
• On 19 October 2011, 24 soldiers lost their lives when the PKK opened fire with heavy weapons on police and gendarmerie buildings and security points in the Çukurca district of Hakkari province.

On 13 September 2011 an audio recording allegedly from a meeting in Oslo between officials of the National Intelligence Organisation (MİT) and PKK members was published online. The recording indicated that Hakan Fidan, on the instructions of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and as his “special representative”, had met both Öcalan and PKK members. The government was continuing to conduct the “Resolution Process”, believed to have begun in mid-2009, without anyone’s knowledge. Despite all warnings, above all the criticism from the Turkish Armed Forces, NGOs and opposition parties, the government conducted this process of uncertainty in secret from everyone.

During this process the Turkish Armed Forces continued their fight against terrorism with all their strength. Just then the Roboski incident happened. A blow was dealt to the Air Force operations carried out as part of the fight against terrorism. With this incident, still debated as to whether it was “an MİT plot against the Turkish Armed Forces”, serious moves began to come from the government to halt the ground operations as well.

Against the steps taken to halt the operations, the Turkish Armed Forces continued to inform the government during this process of how the terrorist organisation was rearming inside the country, what was really intended by creating terrorist cemeteries, and how the KCK courts set up in the region created a mechanism of pressure on the local population and conducted parallel trials. The government, during the resolution process, continued on the one hand deliberately to turn a deaf ear to the information conveyed to it by the Turkish Armed Forces and, on the other, to take steps to halt the operations conducted by the Turkish Armed Forces.

During this process, provincial governorates in the region began to refuse the operation requests submitted to them. Thereupon, on General Necdet Özel’s orders, records were kept of the operations that were not permitted. The refusal of operation requests, which peaked in 2013-2014, coinciding with my time at the General Staff headquarters, was conveyed to the Prime Minister by the Chief of General Staff at every meeting. After that date, in my view, the governorates, at the government’s direction, began not to respond to operation requests at all or to give evasive and laughable answers such as “request the operation after the intelligence obtained has been further developed”.

Despite all criticism, the government continued to conduct the resolution process in secret from everyone and to block the operations the Turkish Armed Forces wanted to carry out. Just then the Chief of General Staff made a statement no one expected. At the 30 August reception in 2014, Necdet Özel said of the resolution process: “We do not know the road map for the resolution process; we are not part of that work. If our red lines are crossed, we will do what is necessary.” With this statement by the Chief of General Staff, the question of why this process, which all sections of the country once again concluded was not being conducted properly, was being carried out in secret began to be asked again.

The real intention of the process, which Erdoğan shelved for good after failing to win the June elections a year later, would be made public by İhsan Arslan, who had been close to Erdoğan since the founding of the AKP, in an interview with Ece Göksedef of BBC Türkçe: “When we needed the Kurds’ votes, we kept their demands on the table.”

The answer to the question Lieutenant Colonel Mehmet Alkan asked, with a human attitude, at the funeral of his brother, the fallen Captain Ali Alkan, “What happened to those who until yesterday said resolution, that they now say war to the end?”, appears to be: “Because the AKP could not get votes from the Kurds, it turned to nationalist votes and decided on war.”

It was in such a process that Turkey began the trench and barricade operations. In another article we will look at how the governors who were doves in the resolution process turned into hawks in the trench and barricade operations.