Turkey Moves Toward a Grand Bargain with Kurdistan
By Micha’el Tanchum (vol. 7, no. 19 of the Turkey Analyst)
On October 20, Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu announced that “Peshmerga” fighters from the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) are going to be allowed to transit Turkish territory to reinforce the beleaguered Kurdish forces of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) defending the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS.) The Turkish government had previously turned down requests for it to open a land corridor. Turkey’s policy u-turn means that it now has a unique opportunity to rehabilitate its failed Kurdish policy and arrive at a grand bargain to secure its national interests along its borders with Syria and Iraq. To create a more amenable constellation of Kurdish political allies, the Turkish government will need to offer a meaningful accommodation of Kurdish demands within Turkey.
The Failed Promise of AKP: The Bourgeois Revolution That Never Was
By Halil Karaveli (vol. 7, no. 19 of the Turkey Analyst)
Liberals expected the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to be a democratic reformist bourgeois party, because unlike its predecessors of the right, it was deemed to represent an “authentic bourgeoisie.” However, the liberals not only read too much into the AKP as a bourgeois party. They also invested too much hope in the “authenticity” of the said bourgeoisie. The case of Turkey stands as an example that bourgeoisie and state authoritarianism can be mutually reinforcing.
Yesterday's Wars: The Cause and Consequences of Turkish Inaction Against the Islamic State
By Gareth Jenkins (vol. 7, no. 18 of the Turkey Analyst)
On October 7, 2014, Turkey was swept by some of the most violent civil unrest in a generation. At least 23 people were killed and hundreds injured in an eruption of Kurdish nationalist anger at Ankara’s perceived indifference to the apparently imminent capture by the Islamic State of the predominantly Kurdish Syrian border town of Kobane.
Without Constitutional Amendment, Erdoğan is Unlikely to Remain an All-Powerful President
By Kemal Kaya (vol. 7 no. 18 of the Turkey Analyst)
The Turkish political system is parliamentarian. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may have succeeded in neutering of the role of the constitutionally designated executive, the government, but that is only temporary. Sooner or later, the dynamics of the political system are going to assert themselves. The prime minister, even Ahmet Davutoğlu, if he retains the post after the 2015 general election, is set to eventually reclaim power from the president.
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