Turkey Should Press Ahead With PKK Process

Now that the Turkish government has unveiled a democracy package of “partial reforms,” the question is looming large: How will that sway the Kurdish peace process, watched closely both at home and abroad?

There are two points of view.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief political adviser, Yalcin Akdogan, writes in his column in the daily Star that the government is following a path of “gradual” normalization “with a mentality change simultaneously under way.” That is, as political analyst Sahin Alpay argues, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is opting for a “piecemeal regime change.”

But a sense of disappointment prevails in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its political wing, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). Oral Calislar — a member of the Wise Men Commission, which the AKP set up for the peace process, and an analyst who closely follows the Kurdish movement — makes the following observation: “Discontent is brewing in BDP quarters. From the very beginning, some segments had failed to grasp and endorse the objective of ‘laying down arms,’ set by [PKK leader Abdullah] Ocalan, and are now fanning a sense of pessimism over the settlement process. We are edging closer to yet another juncture.”