By Halil M. Karaveli (vol. 3, no. 17 of the Turkey Analyst)

At this stage, the Turkish government remains unprepared to commit itself to the kind of constitutional changes that the Kurdish movement requests. Yet a dialogue has presently gotten under way between the Turkish state and the Kurdish movement. If that dialogue can be sustained over a longer period of time, the prospects for a resolution of Turkey’s intractable conflict would look brighter than ever.

By Halil M. Karaveli (vol. 3, no. 13 of the Turkey Analyst)

After the failure of the Kurdish opening and the offensive of the PKK, Turkey gropes for a way out of its Kurdish impasse. Recent statements by the Turkish Chief of the General staff General İlker Başbuğ suggest that a major military incursion into northern Iraq to stamp out the PKK is being considered. Yet it is unlikely that the Turkish state leadership truly believes that there is a military solution to the challenge posed by the demands of the Kurdish population. The moment when that challenge will have to be properly addressed is only being postponed.

By Gareth H. Jenkins (vol. 3, no. 12 of the Turkey Analyst)

On June 19, 2010, eleven Turkish soldiers were killed and sixteen wounded in an attack by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on a gendarmerie outpost in Şemdinli, close to Turkey’s border with Iraq. The death toll was the highest in a single PKK attack for nearly two years and came amid increasing evidence of an intensification and a broadening of the organization’s 26 year-old insurgency, including both new methods and new categories of target. 

By Halil M. Karaveli (vol. 3, no. 8 of the Turkey Analyst)

The recent physical attacks on politicians in Turkey raise the specter of destabilization. The Turkish government speculates that the attacks are coordinated by forces within the state security establishment. The incidents obviously occur within a wider context of ideological manipulation. Turkish ultra-nationalism has developed and spread during the last decade. It seems that the punch, rather than the outstretched hand, and irrationality are set to define the future of Turkish-Kurdish relations.

By Gareth Jenkins (vol. 2, no. 23 of the Turkey Analyst)

For a party which has frequently expressed its opposition to the closure of political parties, the muted response of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the outlawing of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) spoke volumes. Few appear to have mourned the banning of a party which in recent months had broadened its support base in southeast Turkey at the AKP’s expense. However, the AKP appears unlikely to be able to exploit the closure of the DTP for its own electoral advantage.