Washington Kurdish Institute
March 3, 2023
Turkey has had a tough start to 2023. The country – and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) – are still reeling from the earthquakes that struck Turkey, Syria, and their Kurdish regions in February, compounded by the 7,242 aftershocks recorded since the initial 7.8-magnitude quake. Two of these aftershocks at magnitudes of 6.4 and 5.8 on the Richter Scale struck near Maras on February 20. With elections looming, a dire and ongoing humanitarian situation, an intimidating but much-needed rebuild campaign, unrelenting attacks against actors to Turkey’s south and east, economic woes, unstable regional power dynamics, and ethnically-motivated violence and discrimination against Kurdish minorities throughout the country, there does not seem to be any relief on the horizon for Erdogan’s Turkey in the coming months.
The Earthquake’s Physical Impacts
The death toll from the earthquakes and their aftershocks has climbed to 44,374 in Turkey, while 5,951 have been reported dead in Syria. 100,000+ people have been reported injured in Turkey, and over 1 million people across the country’s south are living in tents amid below-freezing temperatures. These casualties undersell the crisis: more than 26 million people need assistance in Turkey and Syria, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Over 1.2 million people have been evacuated from disaster zones, and the region has suffered immense structural damage. Roughly 118,000 buildings, which include over 412,000 residential units, have entirely collapsed or must be demolished due to extensive damage. Due to the infrastructural devastation, the proximity of earthquake survivors, and overstretched medical apparatus, the WHO is readying for several epidemics – the most high-risk of which include Cholera, Hep A, “food and water-borne diseases,” respiratory infections, and vaccine-preventable infections.
The Earthquake’s Social Impacts
Beyond the physical destruction, Kurdish and Syrian minorities have faced interpersonal persecution and abuse. The Kurdish community recently criticized the Erdogan regime’s treatment of Kurdish-Alevi minorities in the earthquake-affected areas of Southern Turkey. The February 6 quake’s epicenter was in Maras, a Kurdish-Alevi region that has been subject to pogroms against Kurds since 1978. The Turkish government has withheld aid from and discriminated against Kurdish citizens during the region’s earthquake response, and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Parvin Bulden said that the number of victims in the Kurdish town of Urfa is “much higher” than those announced by authorities. Ahmet Turk, a veteran Kurdish politician, blamed the government’s delayed response in the area. “The absence of the state for two days and the subsequent intervention of NGOs, unfortunately, led to increased deaths,” said Turk. Emergency evacuations from the area face poor compliance from locals, who view the evacuations as a continuation of the decades-old forced-relocation policies targeting Kurds in Turkey. The “Trustees” appointed by the government following the removal of several elected Kurdish mayors, have implemented strict policies preventing Kurdish organizations from distributing aid to the victims on several questionable pretexts. Though Turkey’s Kurds have faced these injustices before, they are not alone in the persecution provoked by the quakes’ aftermath.
The 1.74 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey currently face another crisis, as the government has attempted to deport them back to an active, though largely static, warzone. Turkey claims that refugees are willingly returning to their homeland, but migration experts have discovered that thousands of migrants were forced by authorities to sign voluntary return forms without fully understanding what the documents mean and have pointed out that many face violence from officials and Turkish residents, many of whom – in the wake of disaster – feel the refugees have finally overstayed their welcome. As we’ve reported previously, Turkish proxy forces like the Syrian National Army (SNA) and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who are in de facto administrative control of much of Northern Syria, where many refugees will be forced to resettle, represent a severe threat to civilian safety and access to humanitarian relief.
Turkish Violence, From Beatings to Bombardments
In the Turkish city of Hatay, local Turkish gendarmerie extrajudicially tortured and killed two Kurdish brothers, Ahmet Gureşçî and Sabrî Gureşçî, and potentially a third victim. While individual incidents of violence continue to occur, it’s also crucial to remember that Turkey has a history of weaponizing natural disasters against Kurds. These policies within Turkey’s borders are reinforced by attacks against Kurds in Iraq and Syria despite the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) declaring a unilateral ceasefire out of respect for the earthquake’s toll. Concurrently, the majority-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have given aid and assistance to humanitarian relief efforts in the region. Turkey responded by shelling civilian areas in Tel Rifaat with heavy artillery on February 7, killing an SDF fighter on February 12 via a guided missile launched from a drone near Kobani, and targeting Kurdish fighters in Cemco and the village of Sida on February 20 with air and artillery bombardments that included phosphorous munitions – weapons whose use is restricted under international law and which may not be used in civilian areas.
So How Will This Impact the Elections?
Erdogan has an eye on his reelection bid in the 2023 General Election. Late last year, in an effort to restrict Kurdish opposition parties’ preparedness, the AKP moved up elections from June 18 to May 14. This move was challenged by HDP, the main Kurdish opposition party in parliament. Now, though, the AKP is attempting to walk back that earlier decision. Where before Erdogan wanted to rush through elections to limit his opponents’ preparations, the tables seem to have turned. Erdogan, who gained power following a public outcry against government mismanagement of the 1999 Izmit earthquake, is in a tough spot. Even a proposed return to the original June date may be devastating to the AKP, which has steadily lost public support over the past six months.
The Turkish government consistently encouraged a construction “boom” across the country over the last decade, and the industrial response was robust. According to Transparency International, however, between 2013 and 2022, Turkey’s growing corruption drove them from the 53rd to the 101st least corrupt country in the world. Now, as suspects are rounded up, and 113 contractors, engineers, and construction companies face charges for flouting building regulations, Kurdish-led opposition groups in the government have shone a light on Erdogan’s government as contributing to the shoddy construction throughout the country. Additionally, sixty-one lawyers from Halkci Hukukcular (Lawyers for the People) filed a criminal complaint against Turkish President Recep Erdogan and dozens of other officials.
An AFAD report in 2022 noted some of these issues, and observers have tied the recent quakes’ devastation to a regime mired in nepotism, opacity, and corruption – where billions of dollars are unaccounted for over the last decade, including the revenue from a tax increase organized in the wake of the disastrous 1999 quake. Erdogan may be trying to preemptively bolster his election chances by chasing easy scapegoats, but as Sinan Ciddi, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, so eloquently put it: “The Buck Stops with Erdogan.” While reporting continues to uncover incriminating practices that the government either perpetrated or failed to stop, Turkish authorities have harassed reporters and arresting journalists critical of the government, in a trend that international watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) labeled, “unacceptable.” Kurdish journalists, especially, have been threatened, beaten, and arrested.
The Turkish lira has been chronically undervalued, damaging citizens’ economic outlook. While inflation was falling through late 2022 and January of this year, the disaster will likely undo much of the Turkish Central Bank’s progress, as $3b-$4b of foreign exchange reserves per week are being funneled towards easy credit to fund reconstruction efforts. Though the former leader of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtas, has been illegally imprisoned and denied from holding public office alongside thousands of HDP members, elected mayors, and lawmakers since 2016, the party is well-positioned to offer an alternative to Erdogan’s mismanagement and repression. HDP still enjoys the most robust support from the population, having several civil organizations that can rectify some of the daily inhumanity the earthquake victims face.
Kurdish Aid Organizations and the United Nations
Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and Tahrir al-Sham( HTS) actors have been unwilling to offer unrestrained assistance to those Kurds within their territories. As requested by Kurdish authorities in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), multiple border crossings have been opened between Turkey and Syria and within the occupied territories of northern Syria. As of March 2, a total of 423 United Nations (UN) trucks transporting aid to northwest Syria have passed through the three border crossings with Turkey. The Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Stephane Dujarric, announced that 47 health facilities had been damaged in northwest Syria alone, and the UN has appealed for $1.4 billion in additional funding to address the ongoing crisis. Further, the UN has acknowledged, “Assistance to some 4.6 million Syrians living in the rebel-held northwest has been slower than in government-controlled areas. It took nearly five days for the first UN aid to arrive due to restricted access.”
Given the discriminatory policies targeting Kurds and other minority groups by the Turkish government, the UN and its partnered organizations must ensure a fair delivery of aid directly to those areas most affected and that all victims receive them regardless of creed, ethnicity, or religion. To the extent possible, the international community should continue to provide expertise, labor, and financial support for recovery and reconstruction operations. We must work to ensure, however, that this assistance is distributed equitably, and not based on party lines or ethnoreligious identity. As we’ve reported above and before, this means cooperating with organizations outside the influence of the ruling AKP or its fascist ally – the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). Above all, we hope that the people impacted by this disaster – and those throughout the region – can work towards a better future. This may hinge on whether Turkey sees a new leadership profile after 2023’s elections.