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Coup in Turkey shows neither side is democratic enough, Kurdish movement says
On Friday night, HDP immediately voiced its opposition to the coup. In a statement signed by the party's two co-leaders Figen Yüksekdag ans Selahattin Demirtas, HDP said it was "opposed to any kind of coup under any circumstances and as a principle." The statement further read: "Turkey immediately needs to embrace a pluralist and liberal democracy, domestic and external peace, universal democratic values and conventions."
HDP's opposition to the coup takes place in a context of great conflict in North Kurdistan, which since July 2015 has witnessed renewed violence between Turkish forces on the one side and PKK-linked militias on the other. The escalation has left thousands dead including soldiers, police officers, militia members and civilians. The Turkish artillery has destroyed city centres such as those of Amed (Diyarbakir), Cizîr (Cizre) and Nisêbîn (Nusaybin).
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan's authoritarian drift on the Kurdish issue since the July 2015 election has been described by Demirtas as a "civil coup". The HDP co-leader again used that same word when Erdogan forced in May the resignation of prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, amid deteriorating relations between the two AKP politicians. Binali Yildirim was picked as new prime minister.
But despite the recent crackdown under Erdogan, many Kurds are staunchly opposed to the notion of a military coup under whatever circumstances, as memories of harsh repression against the Kurdish movement after the 1971 and 1980 coups remain alive. The underlying idea is that a multi-party scenario will be less unfavorable for Kurdish aspirations.
KCK sees coup as struggle between "despotic forces"
The Union of Communities of Kurdistan (KCK, an umbrella organization for all PKK-linked groups) reacted with a stronger language than HDP's. In a statement, KCK said that portraying Erdogan and AKP "as if they were democratic after this coup attempt is an approach even more dangerous than the coup attempt itself," since that "would only serve to legitimize the existing fascist and despotic government." According to KCK, the coup revealed a "fight for power among authoritarian, despotic and anti-democratic forces."
The organization also holds that AKP, in fact, started a de facto coup way before the military: "Political power's control over the judiciary, the implementation of fascist laws and policies through a parliamentarian majority, the removal of parliamentarians' immunities, the arrest of co-mayors, the removal of co-mayors from their positions, and the imprisonment of thousands of politicians from the HDP and DBP constitute more of an actual coup," the text reads.