By Gareth H. Jenkins

September 19, 2016

The Turkish government’s recent dismissal of elected Kurdish officials from local authorities in the southeast and its preparations to prosecute Kurdish members of parliament risk exacerbating social tensions at a time of already severe domestic political turbulence.

Ali Bulaç in Zaman observes that the “Kurdish problem” is at the center of the massacres that have taken place in Diyarbakır, Suruç and Ankara. The mass killings are in fact targeting a development that had promised to yield a peaceful solution. The deep forces within the state who do not want the Kurdish problem to be solved, international actors and certain elements of the PKK dislike that the HDP, after its surge in the June 7 election, has embarked on a path toward embracing the whole of Turkey. They started their disgusting terror just after the HDP had 80 deputies elected to parliament. I do not think that the AKP, the government or those state levers that sincerely hope for a solution of this problem have had anything to do with the restart of the terror. But I do not think that it would be right to dismiss those who suspect that the coup makers who have regained strength during the last two years, deep groups, foreign powers and certain elements of the PKK are in collusion as conspiracy theorists. The explosion in Ankara targeted the whole of the country, and sought to blow up the hope for peace. They are setting a trap for all of us.

Ahmet İnsel in Cumhuriyet writes that the October 10 attack was not perpetrated against Turkey. Neither was it made against the state or the AKP. The October 10 massacre was perpetrated against the forces of freedom, democracy and peace in Turkey. This was not a blind act of terror. Its victims were purposefully selected beforehand.  Just as in Suruç and Diyarbakır, it was the people who are waging an unflinching, determined struggle for peace and democracy against the clique of Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP’s hegemony who were killed. The November 1 election is going to be a critical date, measuring both the determination to hold the power accountable and to stop those who want to drag us toward civil war. Every vote that is cast for the parties of the peace and freedom front on November 1 will be a slap on the face of those who perpetrated the October 10 massacre, who planned it, who hope to reap the benefits of the atmosphere of terror and chaos that they have created, and who are so satisfied with the sight of this barbarity that they are not even able to feign sorrow.