Evaluating Turkey’s ‘new’ Kurdish strategy

After clashes between the PKK and Turkish security forces left at least 13 dead, and amid growing concerns over the role of the Kurdish militants in Syria, the Turkish government’s new strategy towards the Kurds has been leaked to newspapers - but it is already coming under fire for being vague and uninspired.

The renewed fighting in Şırnak and Siirt comes on the heels of Nowruz celebrations which were marred by clashes between Kurds and police in towns across the south-east. Police also found a number of explosive caches across the country in PKK-targeted operations. It seems that the winter lull in fighting is over.

The Kurds are also emerging (or rather, re-emerging) as a crucible of tension between Ankara and Damascus. As Turkey has grown increasingly hostile to the Assad regime, there has been speculation that Damascus will rebuild its relationship with PKK cadres in Syria as a proxy against Turkey. This is despite high-level warnings from Turkey.

AKP claims new conspiracy against Turkey

Turkey’s mania for conspiracy theories has reached a rather impressive new level. Bülent Gedikli, deputy chairman of the ruling AKP, has now claimed that there is a “Neocon-Ergenekon brotherhood” against the government which - like some international league of supervillains - also includes Angela Merkel, Kurdish terrorists, opposition leaders, the Israeli President, American writers, and the interest-rate lobby.

The breadth of his claims for this 21st-century SPECTRE, and his likening it to a football team, makes me wonder if the whole thing is rather tongue-in-cheek. For one thing, who would put the professorial CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu up front?

The Caspian in 2012 - Turkey

From now until the end of the year, I will be running a series of posts offering some (guarded) predictions for 2012.

2011 was, on balance, a good year for Turkey. Despite the challenges posed by the Arab Spring, and the demise of the ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy, Turkey has made huge strides in building itself as a regional power. At home the economy has been solid; the AKP won a resounding third term, solidifying political stability; and the army has been confined to barracks. 2012 is not likely to be so successful.

In 2012 the biggest foreign-policy challenges will remain Syria and Iran. A total collapse into chaos in Syria, or direct clashes on the border, could prompt Ankara into mounting a limited military intervention (under humanitarian auspices, probably).