In 2002, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) defined the nature of its relations with Kurds and Kurdish parties, while trying to relax the security outlook towards minorities, particularly Kurds.

With a humanitarian slogan of “let’s not make our mothers cry any longer”, a peace process was launched in Turkey. The peace process was initiated after secret talks between the AKP and the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), who asked his armed fighters in March 2013 to stop their armed conflict against Ankara. Following this, Turkish militia left Turkey for Iraqi Kurdistan and the shaky ceasefire allowed the government to implement social and constitutional changes.

The PKK, however, did not keep his promise. Although it stopped armed conflict, it never left the country entirely. The PKK also started imposing rules in some southeastern provinces, collecting taxes, holding courts to punish opponents, and stationing stops and checks. Then when Islamist Kurds complained that the government has left them to the PKK, tensioned flared between PKK militants and Islamist Kurds.

The AKP tried to grant Kurds liberal rights and Recep Tayyip Erdogan set up a Kurdish TV channel, the TRT6, for them and increased services to the Kurdish populated regions.

In mid-November 2009, the Turkish parliament passed a law on opening to Kurds, which faced tough objections. The opponents held that the plan would pave the way for the disintegration of the country. Hence, Erdogan had other plans in mind.

Talks and negotiations started. The then-president Abdullah Gul termed the demographic diversity as an important asset for Turkey and for the country in move toward democratization. However, behind the sweet words of Gul and Erdogan and their friends, there is one very important point: the Justice and Development Party needed the votes of Kurds.

In the June 7 polls, the AKP lost its absolute majority in the parliament, and with that sank Erdogan’s ambitions to expand presidential power and reforms in the constitution.

Since the elections, Turkey has been gripped in armed clashes with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. The conflict has had dire consequences for the Turkish economy and had unfavorable effects of the Turkish currency, the lira.

Tensions in Turkey flared up after a bomb blast in Suruc, near the Turkish border which left 31 people dead and some 100 others injured. When a bomb blast on July 20 killed 32 pro-Kurdish activists in Suruc, the PKK held not only the ISIL, but also the Ankara government responsible for the mishap. Then the Kurdistan Workers’ Party broke the 2.5-year ceasefire by killing a number of police officers and firing missiles at Turkish military bases.

Over the past couple of weeks, the security situation has even worsened in eastern and southeastern Turkey, and some 130 Turkish security forces have been gunned down by the PKK and hundreds of Kurdish militia have also died in Turkish strikes.

A Turkish TV station announced in mid-September that the skirmishes in the country claimed the lives of 118 security personnel and 192 Kurds in just 69 days. In the same period, the report said, over 2,381 people were also arrested across Turkey for alleged cooperation with the PKK and ISIL, and 664 people were sentenced to prison terms. It added that 269 trucks belonging to the PKK were also destroyed and 345 PKK militants were wounded in clashes, while another 41 were arrested.

Indeed, there has been unprecedented violence in southeastern Turkey, not seen since the 1990s. The tensions also led to the announcement of curfews in a number of Kurdish-majority cities across the country. The clashes also spilled over into Iraq.

Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu insist on continuing the attacks, with other Turkish officials calling the PKK a regional threat. Top Turkish brass told a NATO summit in Istanbul that the PKK seeks to take advantage of the present crisis in Iraq and Syria to achieve legitimacy among the world public.

Erdogan’s AKP seems to be using every means available to cement its grip on power and the army has also stood behind it. However, the co-leader of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Selahettin Demirtas has, on several occasions, called on the warring parties to cease their fire, saying if the war goes on, Turkey would turn into “a second Syria.”

-------- Why Turkey intensified its campaign on PKK

First, the civil war in Syria worsened the situation. The PKK and Syria’s Democratic Union Party (PYD) were considered as the same, while the latter is the main militia group fighting against the ISIL.

Second, the ISIL campaign against Kurds of Kobani and Turkey’s hesitation led to worries within the Kurdish community.

Thirdly, the PYD immediately joined the West against terrorism while Turkey was worried about the growing power of Kurds as a “terrorist organization”. The PKK and the HDP responded by branding the AKP as the supporter of extremists and ISIL in Syria.

HDP’s resistance and harsh criticism of the presidency is the fourth reason. It maybe for the very same reason that Erdogan not only acts against the PKK, but also tried to raise allegations against key figures of the HDP, including Demirtas, to push them out of the political scene.

And fifth, the above mentioned indices caused the polarization of Turkey into Kurds and Turks.

The Justice and Development Party hopes that the campaign against Kurds would buy them the votes of the nationalists and so the problems of the party would be resolved and that Erdogan would be released from the nightmare of the June 7 elections. However, if that does not take place, the crisis in Turkey would very much resemble the crisis the country faced with in the 1990s.

MD/P