Reconciliation Process (2013-2015) is the most systematic and comprehensive initiative during the Republican history to find a sustainable solution to Turkey’s century old “Kurdish Question”. ...Reconciliation Process is characterized as a peace process in this study. Reconciliation Process came to an end after the PKK’s attacks to Turkish security forces in July 2015. This study examines the reasons behind the failure of the Reconciliation Process and discusses the means to overcome the stalemate situation. Political decisions and preferences of the “Kurdish Movement”; changing power dynamics between the main counterparts of the process; the opportunities that the ongoing civil war in Syria provided the “Kurdish Movement” and the ambiguities that the Syrian Civil War generated for the Turkish authorities are cited as the main shortcomings that derailed the Process. This study argues the current situation is a stalemate within the Process. Possible steps and conditions too revitalize the Process are discussed.
Will pro-Kurdish reforms decrease ethnic violence in Turkey? Conventional wisdom would suggest that elimination of the root causes will heal past wounds. In bitter ethno-political conflicts, however, ...the issue becomes much larger than its components: deep mistrust between parties overshadow specific issue reforms. Turkey’s Kurdish issue is a case in point where ethnic reforms would not bring stability unless they are coupled with steps to eliminate mistrust. This article pays a specific attention to public framing of reforms. We argue that the actual content of reforms is not so significant; what really matters, instead, is the
public perception
of reforms on both sides, Turkish and Kurdish. The AKP’s claim of “democratic opening” loses credibility in recent years as the PKK’s alternative narrative gains prominence.
The Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydogu Anadolu Projesi, GAP), which was designed for the socio-economic development of south-east Turkey, has multiple political and strategic dimensions. While ...GAP was intended to narrow the socio-economic gap between the south-east and the rest of Turkey through development of the region, and to secure Turkey's future energy needs, the associated hydro-politics intertwine domestic and geopolitics in relation to water flow to downstream riparian states Syria and Iraq, securing Turkey a geostrategic position in the broader Middle Eastern context in terms of regional hydro-hegemony, while also impacting on relations with Kurds at home and in surrounding states.
While women in Turkey and around the world are commonly engaged in civic activism for peace and violence reduction, they are seriously underrepresented in formal politics; thus, not much has been ...written about their potential to affect decisions made to reduce violence in their societies. This study aims to understand how women politicians view violence in general and their solutions for two specific types of violence in Turkey: (1) the increasing levels of violence against women, and (2) violence created through the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Turkish politicians have become increasingly concerned about both of these issues in recent years and have designed many policies and strategies to address them. This study argues that studying the women parliamentarians’ linkage (or its absence) between the two types of violence will help understand what accounts for the differences (if any) among women MPs in their understanding of different types of violence and their solutions to them.
The hydrographic basin of Tigris and Euphrates is characterized by the dissymmetry of water resources, the juxtaposition of ethnic groups, Turks and Persians upstream, Kurds in the intermediate ...regions and Arabs in the Mesopotamian plain, and its recent division between four states having their own water management policies. Turkey has mobilized the water of the upper part of the basin in the Southeastern Anatolian Project, an ambitious multipurpose scheme based upon 22 dams and aiming integrated development of the poorest region of the country, inhabited by the Kurdish minority. In spite of the PKK guerilla and its vigorous repression by the army, significant results have been obtained but remain fragile due to the struggle of downstream states Syria and Iraq for a more abundant water supply, before their decomposition through civil war during the last years.
Le bassin du Tigre et de l’Euphrate est caractérisé par un transfert massif de ressources hydriques depuis un cadre montagneux vers la plaine mésopotamienne, par l’étagement des groupes ethniques, ...Turcs et Persans à l’amont, Kurdes en position intermédiaire et Arabes en aval et par son découpage politique récent entre quatre États qui ont chacun mené leur propre politique de l’eau. La Turquie a ainsi mobilisé les eaux de l’amont du bassin dans le Projet de l’Anatolie du Sud-Est (GAP), ambitieux programme de développement intégré, à partir de 22 barrages, de la partie la plus pauvre du pays coïncidant avec l’aire de peuplement kurde. Les résultats obtenus restent fragilisés par la guérilla du PKK et sa répression par l’armée à l’intérieur et par la situation internationale : les États de l’aval, Syrie et Irak, ont lutté pour revendiquer des volumes d’eau plus importants, avant de sombrer dans la guerre civile et la fragmentation qui en résulte.
Cultural and linguistic repression of Kurdish ethnic identity rests at the heart of the conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdish movement in Turkey's Kurdish region, also known as Northern ...Kurdistan. Inspired by Peet and Hartwick's conceptualisation of alternative development, combined with Gandhi's idea of the constructive programme and Galtung's conceptualisation of positive peace, this article investigates intersections between peace, development and resistance. The discussion is informed and developed by illuminating two empirical cases of what will be argued should be seen as 'constructive resistance' conducted by the Kurdish movement. Both cases seek to undermine repressive Turkish assimilation policies. This article shows how social movements, through constructive resistance practices, can be understood as central actors in processes of social and political transformation, termed 'self-organised development'.
Despite the ever-growing literature on various aspects of the Kurdish question in Turkey, there are practically no normative discussions of Kurdish demands for the public recognition of their ...identities. This is all the more startling given the ascendancy of philosophical accounts in the literature on minority rights. This article will try to redress the balance by proposing a normative framework that could be used to justify Kurdish demands for recognition, drawing on the broader debates that revolve around Charles Taylor's seminal conceptualization of "the politics of recognition". In this context, I will identify nationalism, a strategy used both by the state to suppress demands for recognition and by the minorities to put forward these demands, as the most serious hurdle in the way of the democratic resolution of the "Kurdish question" in Turkey and promote a form of recognition-based multiculturalism that (a) respects the basic rights of all citizens, not only those in whose name the said claims are made, but also those of the members of the majority against which the claims are voiced; (b) leaves room for alternative values or conceptions of the good life.
During the conflict, which started in 1984 and has not been completely resolved yet, the Turkish government and the rebellious PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) spread demonizing narratives through ...the media about their respective enemies as evil, brutal, inhuman, irrational, and inherently violent. These narratives have been embedded in nationalist myths, thus establishing the difference between the "civilized" Us and the "barbaric" Others. In addition, these demonizing tales proved beneficial to war propaganda, mobilization for the fight against the "aggressor", and legitimization of "retaliatory" violence. In recent years, and due to the ongoing peace negotiations striving to resolve the conflict, they have been replaced by the discourse of peace. However, the ethnographic research among students in Istanbul, who have come from different parts of Turkey, shows how deeply the demonic image of the enemy has been imprinted in the memories of these young people. As a result, it affects their position on the peace negotiations.
This article considers the relationship between two processes-conflict resolution and counterterrorism-which conceptually share many common points, yet in practice do not necessarily proceed together ...easily towards a common goal. Considering particular cases of ethnic conflict in which terrorist factions exist, the article argues that while neither conflict resolution nor counterterrorism alone can adequately address the problem, simultaneously conducting both must keep in mind the processes' inherent differences and avoid excessive prioritizing of one over the other. By exploring recent Turkish governmental initiatives to address the Kurdish question, the article attempts to provide an outline for how to successfully cope with the two processes simultaneously.
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