An Earthquake Exposes Turkish-Kurd Faultlines, But Can It Heal Them?
By Pelin Turgut / Istanbul Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011
A window for peace is often more of a slight crack, fleeting and ephemeral, here one minute, gone the next. If there was any solace following Sunday's devastating 7.2 earthquake in Van, a desperately poor region in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, it appeared — for a moment — to offer just that. The quake, in which more than 500 people have been confirmed dead and tens of thousands left homeless, came as Turkish-Kurdish tensions flared in the wake of an attack that killed 24 Turkish soldiers last week. Turkey subsequently launched its biggest cross-border operation in a decade in pursuit of Kurdish separatist guerrillas based in the mountains of north Iraq.
More:Turkey Earthquake Results in Insult to Affected Kurds - TIME