By Gareth H. Jenkins (vol. 5, no. 9 of the Turkey Analyst)

On April 22, 2012, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the center of Diyarbakır, the largest city in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey, for a celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth. The event was organized by a coalition of NGOs affiliated with the radical Sunni Islamist organization known in Turkey as Hizbullah (which is unrelated to the Lebanese Shia organization with the same name), which many assumed to have been crippled by the killing of its founder Hüseyin Velioğlu in January 2000. However, Hizbullah’s ability to mobilize such a huge number of people suggests that it has not only recovered but is now stronger than ever. Its ability to combine a strong commitment to conservative Islamic values with an advocacy of Kurdish cultural and political rights looks set to pose a serious challenge not only to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) but also to more secular Kurdish organizations such as the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

By M. Kemal Kaya (vol. 5, no. 9 of the Turkey Analyst)

Turkey may be headed toward an unexpected presidential election in August 2012, as the Constitutional Court is set to rule on the constitutionality of a temporary law that stipulates that the term of incumbent president Abdullah Gül ends in 2014, and which bars him from seeking reelection. It is however unlikely that Gül would, in that event, stand any chance of mobilizing support within the AKP for a presidential bid. The most likely scenario is that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan chooses to seek the presidency two years earlier than anticipated.

By Halil M. Karaveli (vol. 5, no. 8 of the Turkey Analyst)

The trial of the two surviving members of the junta that seized power on September 12, 1980, in a coup that altered Turkey’s course, is an historic event, but it does not reflect any desire to settle accounts with a regime whose framework, on the contrary, is preserved. What would amount to the ultimate conviction of Kenan Evren would be if the constitution that bears his signature were to be scrapped and replaced with a democratic one. But instead, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to concentrate even more power into his hands than Evren once did.