By: Sibel Utku Bila for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse. Posted on April 7. |
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – With Turkey focused on fragile peace talks between Ankara and Kurdish nationalists, another streak of Kurds — loyal not to rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan but to Allah — are silently mounting a bid to establish themselves on the Kurdish political scene. The newcomers are sympathizers of Hezbollah, an outlawed Islamist group unrelated to its Lebanese namesake, which fought the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in a vicious “war within a war” at the peak of the Kurdish conflict in the 1990s. They say they are committed to peaceful politics and want to end the Kurdish fratricide for good. But with no formal peace between Hezbollah and the PKK, mutual mistrust continues to run deep, holding the risk of rekindled tensions when electioneering heats up ahead of local polls next year.
More:Islamist Kurdish Group Seeks Role In Southeast Turkey - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
