Election Rhetoric Raises Tensions With Kurds

By AYLA ALBAYRAK

ISTANBUL—Election violence and political rhetoric increased tensions with the Kurdish minority in Turkey, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the main Kurdish political party of involvement in an attack on his campaign convoy.

At election rallies Thursday ahead of the June 12 poll, Mr. Erdogan described members of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, as “subcontractors” for Kurdish terrorists he said were responsible for the ambush.

Mr. Erdogan’s broadside followed an attack Wednesday on his bus and its police escort by a group armed with guns and a grenade as the convoy was returning to Ankara from a rally in Kastomonu in the Black Sea region. One policeman was killed and another is in critical condition. Reports said the attack seemed to target only the security detail.

The prime minister wasn’t in the convoy, having been flown by helicopter from the rally. No one has taken responsibility for the assault.

The attack, and allegations of Kurdish involvement, have hit a sensitive area in Turkish politics and could shift some voters toward more nationalist parties on both sides, analysts said.

Media speculation on who was responsible for the attack focused on the militant Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, after the BDP failed to condemn the ambush, which appears to have triggered Mr. Erdogan’s comments.

On Thursday, Erdogan Bektas, governor of the region where the ambush took place, said an initial assessment suggested the attackers weren’t aware of any campaign buses and were targeting police.

Mr. Bektas said in an interview by telephone taht a group of five or six people “acting in the name of the PKK,” appears to have been responsible. He declined to clarify his statement.

Kurdish political leaders and parliamentary candidates convened an emergency meeting Thursday in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, to discuss a response to the prime minister. Speaking by telephone, Kurdish election candidate Aysel Tugluk said that some participants called for an election boycott, but that there would be no immediate decision.

Last month, a decision by Turkey’s election commission to disqualify seven Kurdish candidates triggered streets riots and a tough police response in cities across the southeast and in Istanbul. The election commission later reinstated all but one of the candidates.

“Acts of violence, together with these attacks, and the protests staged in the east, the southeast and in big cities, are not a coincidence,” Mr. Erdogan said in a speech in Osmaniye, in southern Turkey.

“This is not the way to rights and freedoms,” he added. “On the 12th of June, there will be elections, take your rights and freedoms at the ballots.”

The PKK has fought an insurgency against Turkish security forces since 1984. The fighting has claimed some 30,000 to 40,000 lives, but in recent years had subsided to a lower level conflict as both sides made overtures aimed at moving toward political solutions to the conflict.

Those efforts have stalled. Earlier this year, the PKK said it was ending a unilateral cease-fire. More than150 Kurdish officials are on trial charged with supporting terrorists, and in recent weeks there have been escalating skirmishes between Turkish security forces and PKK militants.

“If the tension goes on like this, I don’t see how we can hold elections in Dyarbakir. Yesterday there was a funeral for four PKK members and banks shut their doors in the city,” said veteran Kurdish journalist Bayram Balci. Mr. Balci said he didn’t believe the PKK were responsible for the attack as they hadn’t claimed responsibility.

via Election Rhetoric Raises Tensions With Kurds – WSJ.com.