Kurds in Turkey: A political dilemma facing Erdogan

Ahmed Samy Abdel-Fatah

Kurds pose a real dilemma in Turkish political life, especially since they make up about 15 million of the country’s population of 80 million, the largest number among ethnic Kurds.

Kurdish population include around six million in Iran, five million in Iraq, and two million in Syria, which makes them the largest ethnic group without a country in the world, and in the same geographical region.

The Kurdish people dilemma with the Turkish state started in 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the country based on national foundations, which led to the revoke of privileges granted to the Kurds during the Ottoman Empire, which made them more like an autonomous region.

Since then, the crisis began, Kurds were marginalized in favor of Turkish nationalism, and were denied basic privileges as Turkish citizenship or holding any senior government posts.

Decades later, with the start of the so-called Arab Spring, in 2011, the Kurdish crisis returned to the forefront, especially since Ankara declared its support for these moves, prompting the Turkish regime to seek a peaceful settlement with the Kurds in order to stop the fighting between the PKK and the Turkish army.

Moreover, the Turkish regime considered that opening direct channels of communication with the Kurds would reduce the popular congestion against nationalism, especially after there were calls for demonstrations against it.

After negotiations with the Kurds, an agreement was reached to stop the war between the two sides in southeastern Turkey, granting the Kurds the right to preserve their heritage and to teach their language, as well as to integrate them into political life, and facilities were provided to the Kurdish People’s Party to enter the political life

This has strained relations between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the nationalists who believe that the Kurds pose an existential threat to the unity of the state, and the MHP believes that any privileges granted to them will be negatively exploited against Turkish citizens.

In 2015, peace between the government and the Kurds collapsed after the AKP lost a majority in the parliamentary elections. It was expected that the Kurds would accept an alliance with the AKP, especially as this would give them privileges to take seats. However, the Kurds rejected this.

The Kurds played a very important role in resolving the recent Istanbul municipal elections several months ago, in favor of Ekrem İmamoğlu, despite calls by Abdullah Öcalan, a Kurdish leader and one of the founding members of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, for Kurds to remain neutral.

International affairs researcher Ahmed Mohamed Ali told The Reference in an interview that after a while, the Kurds would be able to increase their parliamentary representation in the Turkish parliament, especially since their population exceeds 15% of the total population, making them a striking force that cannot be ignored.

He further added that battles in Syria indicate reflections over the Kurdish state in Turkey, because such military operations fuel the crisis between Kurds and Turkey.