The Turkey Analyst

Vol. 4 no. 16, 29 August 2011

ANALYSIS

Erdoğan’s War: Will Turkey’s Most Powerful Leader Since Atatürk Succeed in Securing the Country’s Unity?
Halil M. Karaveli
Attacks carried out by Kurdish separatists since mid-July have set Turkey on the road to war. The Turkish government is determined to exact a heavy price from the Kurdish insurgents, and the PKK militants seem to be as determined to provoke an ethnic conflagration.  As he is about to teach the Kurdish insurgents a severe lesson, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan faces what could be the greatest challenge of his career. The question is if the unparalleled power and authority that Erdoğan has assembled will ultimately suffice to secure Turkey’s unity.

Will the CHP, Turkey’s Main Opposition Party, Ever Become a Relevant Political Alternative?
M. K. Kaya
The Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey’s main opposition party, will have to adopt  a whole new discourse and appropriate a new political mission if it is going to be a force that has any political relevance. The CHP can choose one of two paths: It can either change, becoming a party that is in tune with the political aspirations of a vibrant society for which old dogmas hold little appeal. Or it will resist change, refusing to heed where society is headed; in that case, it will share the fate of the Russian Communist Party. It will be an embittered force of opposition to the evolution of modern Turkish society, a party that has nothing to offer but its history. It is more probable that the CHP will follow down the second, desolate path.

What the Columnists Say
There is a general consensus among Turkish commentators of all political colors that the PKK bears the sole responsibility for the escalation of Turkey’s Kurdish conflict. There is widespread agreement that a solution of the conflict was at hand, as it is assumed that the pending adoption of a new constitution was going to address the demands of the Kurds. Almost to a man, the Turkish commentators depict the attacks of the PKK as an inexcusable act of sabotage. What is striking is that the Kurdish movement (PKK and the Kurdish party BDP) is severely condemned not only by conservatives and Turkish nationalists but by liberal intellectuals and commentators as well. There are also Kurdish voices who denounce what the PKK has done as a mistake of historical proportions.

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NEW Silk Road Paper published

Reconciling Statism with Freedom: Turkey's Kurdish Opening
by Halil M. Karaveli, October 2010.



The Turkey Analyst
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 is published weekly, and includes a topical analysis, as well as translations and summaries of selected Turkish news reports. It is edited by Halil M. Karaveli.

The Turkey Analyst welcomes article submissions.

The Joint Center
The Joint Center, created in 2005, is the product of the merger of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and the Silk Road Studies Program, at the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.

The Turkey Initiative
The Joint Center launched a Turkey Initiative in 2006 in order to improve understand of Turkish domestic and foreign affairs in Europe and the United States.

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