According to a Hürriyet daily report on Saturday, governors of three provinces where the PKK is most active accepted in 2014 only eight out of 290 demands by the military for authorization to conduct an operation against the PKK. "Those responsible for that must be called to account before the Supreme State Council," Oktay Vural, parliamentary group deputy chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), told the Zaman daily on Sunday. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently admitted that the PKK had stashed guns during the settlement process and that the local governors did not authorize the operations against the PKK during the process because of the instructions they had received. The settlement process was launched by the AK Party government, headed at the time by Erdoğan, at the end of 2012 to resolve the country's terrorism and Kurdish problems. Around 130 members of the security forces have been killed by the PKK since the end of July, when the settlement process was de facto ended by a PKK attack. According to Hürriyet, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) requested, only last year, authorization to carry out 110 operations against the PKK in Şırnak, 100 in Hakkari and 80 in Tunceli. The Bugün daily said on Sunday that 49 of the security forces martyred by the PKK since the attacks began on July 20 were killed in these three provinces. Giving the total number of members of the security forces killed by the PKK as 129, the Bugün daily said 26 of these were killed in attacks in Hakkari, 18 in Şırnak and five in Tunceli. According to Vural, the governors rejected as many as around 1,240 military demands for operations against the PKK since the process was launched. Noting that the report reveals that the PKK was protected by the AK Party government during the settlement process, Vural added, "This is an outright constitutional crime." The Constitutional Court takes on the role of the Supreme State Council when it tries top state officials. The terrorist organization is particularly active in the country's southeastern provinces, which are predominantly Kurdish. When well-planned terrorist attacks by the PKK began some time after the general election in early June, eyes turned to the AK Party, which is accused of turning a blind eye to the PKK gaining power in the Southeast for the sake of the process. Levent Gök, a parliamentary group deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), accused the AK Party government of having seriously neglected its duty by turning a blind eye to PKK activities when the settlement process was on. Noting that the PKK has been killing members of the security forces with the weapons it had stacked during the process, he said in remarks to the Zaman daily, "The president and the AKP [AK Party] government carry a big responsibility for this picture." The AK Party government was in power until the general election in June, when it failed to obtain the parliamentary majority to come to power alone. The current interim government, to remain in place until the early election on Nov. 1, is also mainly composed of members of the AK Party, which emerged as the leading party in the June election. According to the Hürriyet report, the TSK informed the governors of the three provinces in detail on their planned operations, which were recorded one by one by the General Staff's Operations Unit as well as brigade commands in the region. However, the governors allowed only three operations in Şırnak and Hakkari each and two in Tunceli. "These figures may be a few more or a few less. However, those operations permitted were not the kind of operations that would deal a severe blow to the terrorist organization. The political will might have seen this as appropriate at that period. However, some assessments that hold the TSK responsible for the recent spike in terrorist incidents sadden the TSK staff," Hürriyet quoted military sources as saying. İlyas Burunak, a former police chief who was recently retired, told Today's Zaman that the authority of the state got weaker in the region during the settlement process. Drawing attention to the PKK attacks in urban centers in recent months, Burunak, who also served in Diyarbakır for five years in the 1990s when the fighting was intense, said: "Those who came down from the mountains used to carry out the attacks in cities in the 1990s. But the terrorists have now gotten stronger both in rural and urban areas." He added: "They can easily take guns into urban areas. That's what the latest attacks indicate." In the past, the PKK usually staged attacks against military posts in rural areas, while attacks in urban areas were relatively few in number. In sharp contrast, 56 of around 130 members of the security forces who were killed by the PKK since the end of July are police officers. What Burunak says reveals -- as President Erdoğan also admitted -- that the government deliberately turned a blind eye to the PKK getting stronger during the process. It is not possible for the state to fail to detect the stashing of weapons by the PKK, he said. According to Mehmet Bekaroğlu, a CHP deputy chairman, the AK Party does not have the right to say that it was deceived by the PKK. In remarks aimed at the AK Party government, Bekaroğlu told the Zaman daily, "What were you doing when all this happened?" Remzi Çayır, deputy chairman of the Grand Unity Party (BBP), underlined that the PKK had planted mines and reinforced its forces in the Southeast because of the then-government's policy of not meddling with the PKK. He told the Zaman daily, "It is they [the AK Party government] who are responsible for each of those martyred because of their neglect and their cooperation with the terrorist organization."
