By Nicholas Danforth

October 17, 2016

Turkey's July 15 coup attempt has transformed the country's politics, and notably it has deepened a dangerous pre-existing dilemma. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faces rival challenges from a Kurdish nationalist movement with a longstanding commitment to violence and a nationalistic Turkish electorate which opposes the concessions that will be necessary to make peace with the Kurds. This triangular tension means that Turkey will face a series of trade-offs, setting the country's embattled prospects for peace and democracy against one another.

erdo-small

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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.

ocalan1

Published in Articles

Kadri Gürsel in Cumhuriyet notes that in the new war that started in July 2015, cities inside Turkey’s border are being demolished. More than twenty years ago, it was the villages that were burnt down and emptied of their inhabitants. The path that was to lead on to the new war of destructing the cities was engaged in the fall of 2013. In September 2013, PKK accused Ankara of not taking necessary steps in the peace process and declared that it was halting the withdrawal of its armed elements from Turkey. After this, both sides used the so called process to gain time to improve their own position. Yet, a real and dynamic political solution process was necessary in order to bring about a positive and permanent change of PKK’s violent political culture. The solution process was a fake and for this reason, the natural inclination of PKK – in accordance with its goal of autonomy – was to organize an armed, urban resistance, and engage in the “war of the trenches.” The method that the regime chose to dislodge the PKK and its base from the cities is the worst possible one in terms of the future of the country. The scorched earth tactic of the 1990’s is carried on with burnt down and erased cities. When the villages were burnt down, their inhabitants flocked to the cities where HDP’s vote is around ninety percent. Time will tell what we will face now that these cities in turn have been erased. This is not a sustainable policy. If the holders of state power persist with this attitude, they might one day decide to target the people directly, after first having targeted their villages and now their cities. Then, Turkey will become unsustainable. That’s what I fear.

Tuesday, 05 April 2016 15:03

Is Erdoğan Turkey’s Only Problem?

By Halil Karaveli

April 5, 2016

The outsize personality of President Erdoğan obscures the systemic dynamics that sustain his exercise of power. Erdoğan’s push for an executive presidency corresponds to the “logic” of Turkish state power. Erdoğan’s personal ambitions and raison d’état coincide to reinforce authoritarianism. Ultimately, democracy in Turkey is crippled because no major political force, representing the Turkish majority, challenges the dominant mentality that holds that the survival of the state requires the checking of ethnic and cultural diversity.

 

Published in Articles
Tuesday, 22 March 2016 18:30

Öney: Turkey’s ethnic cleansing

Sezin Öney on the Haberdar news site notes that President Erdoğan on March 11 stated that “We are going to build a new Southeast.” It seems that the state is executing a specific project. Since last summer, a “military-civilian coalition” or what should perhaps more accurately be called a “comradeship-in-arms” has been established at the highest echelons of the state. The different elements of this coalition or comradeship may not see eye to eye on every issue, but there seems to be an agreement between them regarding the execution of a specific project aiming at the reconfiguration of the Southeast. Why was the need felt to send in all the elements of the security forces, deploying excessive violence, into the city centers? The area is being “cleaned,” to use military terminology. According to the estimates of the Union of the Municipalities of the Southeast, close to two hundred thousand people have migrated – whether temporarily or permanently -- from the urban areas that are subjected to military operations. Meanwhile, the Human Rights Association suggests that the internal migration could possibly number around three hundred to four hundred thousand people. The military operations that have led to this refugee flow seem to be the expression of the “allergy” of the state to Kurdish developments: first the “democratic autonomy” that was declared in Rojava and subsequently the fact that HDP crossed the threshold to parliament in the June 7, 2015 general election. It seems that “raison d’état” calls for a “cordon sanitaire” in order to contain what the state fears is a “contagion” of Kurdish identity and political aspirations.  The policy of “erase and rebuild” seems to be a way of driving away the Kurdish population from the region, to simply discourage it from continuing to live there; is some kind of deportation also part and parcel of the state policy? Is the state maybe also entertaining a plan to create a different demographic structure in the region?

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Joint Center Publications

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "The Rise and Rise of the Turkish Right", The New York Times, April 8, 2019

Analysis Halil Karaveli "The Myth of Erdogan's Power"Foreign Policy, August 29, 2018

Analysis Svante E. Cornell, A Road to Understanding in Syria? The U.S. and TurkeyThe American Interest, June 2018

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "Erdogan Wins Reelection"Foreign Affairs, June 25, 2018

Article Halil Karaveli "Will the Kurdish Question Secure Erdogan's Re-election?", Turkey Analyst, June 18, 2018

Research Article Svante E. Cornell "Erbakan, Kisakürek, and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey", Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018

Analysis Svante E. Cornell "The U.S. and Turkey: Past the Point of No Return?"The American Interest, February 1, 2018

Op-ed Svante E. Cornell "Erdogan's Turkey: the Role of a Little Known Islamic Poet", Breaking Defense, January 2, 2018

Research Article Halil Karaveli "Turkey's Authoritarian Legacy"Cairo Review of Global Affairs, January 2, 2018

 

The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It includes topical analysis, as well as a summary of the Turkish media debate.

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