PKK-Ankara Talks Resume
blog: ANATOLIAN DISPATCHES
Hugh Pope discusses why renewed Turkey-PKK contacts may shine ray of hope on a Kurdish settlement
A welcome new opportunity has opened up to settle the thirty-year conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). After eighteen months of bitter clashes, the re-launch of discussions between National Intelligence Organization negotiators and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan has been spurred by a mutual realization that neither side can win outright politically or militarily. In addition to an apparently broad support for peaceful negotiations from public opinion, the annual winter slow-down in fighting and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s need to secure his position before the 2014 presidential elections.
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