Turkish Chief Assails West’s Pressure on Kurd Problem : Politics: President Demirel sides with right-wing hawks against ethnic and reform policies of prime minister.

ISTANBUL, Turkey —  President Suleyman Demirel on Tuesday attacked the West for pressuring his nation to solve its bloody Kurdish problem and sided with right-wing hawks against the democratic reforms of Prime Minister Tansu Ciller.

Unleashing an unusual broadside in several newspaper interviews published here, the veteran Turkish leader singled out for criticism a letter from Secretary of State Warren Christopher urging Turkey to find a political solution for its 12 million ethnic Kurds, who make up about one-fifth of this nation’s population.

“When I read Christopher’s letter I felt as if boiling water was being poured over my head,” Demirel told the Sabah newspaper. “The man is saying, ‘Stretch out your arm.’ I ask, ‘Why?’ He replies, ‘Because I’m going to cut it off.’ I can’t just say, ‘Yes, I’ll stretch my arm out, but please just cut it off at the wrist.’ ”

Demirel raised the old Turkish fear that forces in the West want to carve an independent Kurdistan out of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.

His intervention in the debates here on Turkey’s ethnic policy and its democratic reforms was calculated to cause maximum embarrassment for Ciller.

In a visit to Washington earlier this month, she told President Clinton that prospects for peace in a Kurdish guerrilla war that has killed 15,000 people in 10 years lie in democratic reforms. She also said Turkey would soon end its six-week anti-rebel incursion into northern Iraq.

“As long as this bloodshed continues, there is not much Turkey can do,” Demirel said, standing by a controversial earlier remark that Turkish troops could be crossing in and out of northern Iraq for a year or more. “The problem here is the fact that the border is wrong. It must be fixed. We have to bring it down (south). If our border is at the bottom of the mountain, there will be no concentrations” of rebels in the heights, he said.

A front-page editorial in the progressive Istanbul daily Yeni Yuzyil criticized the Turkish president for his statements, as did many senior columnists.

Ciller, meantime, had just maneuvered Parliament close to a decision that would remove the notorious Article 8 of Turkey’s anti-terrorism law. Based on this passage, judges have put scores of writers and journalists in jail for simply expressing their beliefs. Removing the article would go a long way toward persuading the European Parliament not to block a free-trade pact with Turkey when it comes up for discussion in October.

But Demirel’s action will give new energy to a substantial block of deputies in Parliament who oppose such reforms, not to mention opponents entrenched in the military and security apparatus.

Diplomats say one reason for Demirel’s broadside is simply that Turkey’s two most powerful civilians have been at loggerheads for months. Though Ciller, 48, was once such a close protege of Demirel’s that they called themselves father and daughter, the two now barely speak to each other, even at public gatherings.

Another reason for Demirel’s attacks on the West is that he and other Turkish leaders have found it expedient to whip up nationalist feeling among the majority in the country who see themselves as ethnic Turks.