Image: Kurdish Struggle/CC BY-2.0
This could open the way for a new peace process in the Kurdish question – if other European governments also follow the ruling
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK is not a "terrorist organization", but a party in an armed conflict. This was the final verdict of the Court of Cassation in Brussels on Tuesday, confirming the decision of the Court of Appeal in March 2019. The Court of Cassation is the supreme court of Belgium and thus the last instance in civil and criminal proceedings.
The Prosecutor General at the Court of Cassation in Brussels had already ied a recommendation to this effect two weeks ago. While the first or second decision of the Court of Cassation is not legally binding, the present third judgment is unquestionable and binding on all parties. Back in September 2017, the Brussels Court of Appeal ruled, as the europa.blog writes, "that there is an armed conflict in Turkey and that the PKK is a party to the conflict in this intra-Turkish armed conflict. The decision states that the PKK does not terrorize citizens, but fights for the rights of the Kurds. Citizens are not targeted by the PKK, according to the appeals court, even if there are civilian victims in attacks on military targets. Consequently, the appeals court said, the PKK could not be classified as a terrorist organization, nor could presumed members of the PKK be sued as terrorists."
In addition, the PKK had recognized the Geneva Conventions. Thus the PKK commits itself to recognize the regulations of the humanitarian people right. This includes, among other things, the humane treatment of prisoners. The same is true, by the way, for the Turkish government, which also recognized the Geneva Conventions… In November 2018, the EU court concluded that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was wrongly included on the EU terror list between 2014 and 2017. "The EU court declared", according to the Tagesschau, "The underlying resolutions of the EU states were declared null and void due to procedural errors. According to the court, the Council of Member States has not sufficiently justified in necessary regulations and decisions why it has included the PKK on the list." It also affirmed that the listing of the PKK as a terrorist organization was due to geopolitical interests.
A new chance for the Middle East peace process
Now, with this ruling, there is at least hope that this ruling will lead to a rethink in the other European countries. In Switzerland, for example, the PKK is not listed as a terrorist organization because the PKK is not on the United Nations list of terrorist organizations. If the governments were to adopt this legal ruling, there would be a chance to solve the Kurdish question and thus Turkey’s war against the Kurds on a political level.
If you take a closer look at the conflict between the various Turkic governments and the PKK, which has been going on for decades, it is not a conflict in which Turkic soldiers on one side and PKK fighters on the other are killed in battles. From the beginning, the Kurdish population, especially in the rural area in the southeast of Turkey, was taken into clan custody. Numerous massacres by the Turkish army, expulsions by burning thousands of Kurdish villages in the 1990s have documented this.
A Spiegel article from 1995 describes the historical context and the question of the recognition of the Kurds as an ethnic minority in detail and accurately. The double standards of the German governments at that time are also shown and tell us that nothing has changed until today. German Chancellor Angela Merkel provided proof of this last Friday in Ankara, when she held out the prospect of supporting Erdogan’s settlement policy in northern Syria and with it the expulsion of the resident Kurdish and Christian population.
In the end, every person, whether a Turkic soldier, PKK fighter or Kurdish farmer, who dies in this unnecessary war and leaves behind a grieving family is one too many. Unnecessary because recognition of the Kurdish population as an ethnic minority and the preservation of minority rights as well as a certain autonomy status for the Kurdish regions, such as in Sudtirol, would have led to immediate peace.B. in Sudtirol would have led to immediate peace. It is primarily due to the Turkic nationalism of almost all parties represented in parliament – including the Kemalist CHP – that this path has been blocked to date.