Turkey and the Arab spring
A flawed example
Turkey will be a better model for its region if it fixes its Kurdish problem
Sep 24th 2011 | ANKARA | from the print edition
Touching the hem of his garment
FRESH from a triumphant tour of the post-revolutionary countries of the Arab spring, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was brimming with confidence as he prepared for talks with Barack Obama on September 20th in New York. Not for long. Hours before the meeting a bomb exploded in central Ankara, killing three civilians. Soon afterwards four women died in an attack in the province of Siirt, in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish south-east. The next day gunmen opened fire on a police academy in Bitlis, another south-eastern province, killing a policeman. All three attacks are thought to have been carried out by militants from the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), although the group denied responsibility for the Ankara bombing.
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