Turkey is scheduled to hold local and presidential elections in 2014 and parliamentary elections the following year. Thus in 2013, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has the freedom to take political risks in trying to find a workable solution to the Kurdish issue. If unsuccessful, Erdogan will have plenty of time before the elections to structure the public debate and blame other actors for the failure of the recently upgraded peace process. If successful, he will certainly secure another strong win at the ballot box. Devlet Bahceli, an opposition leader and chairman of the National Movement Party, estimates that Erdogan is guaranteed to take “70% of votes in the next election” if he resolves the Kurdish issue.

A politically and economically strong and stable Turkey is definitely the best scenario not only for the country, but also for regional stability and security. However, the way the Erdogan government has played its cards thus far makes 2013 a difficult year to predict in terms of Turkish stability in domestic and foreign affairs. Not everything hinges on the fate of talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, but there is no doubt that Turkey would emerge stronger if it could, once and for all, find a solution to the Kurdish issue.

After rising to power in 2003, Erdogan consistently criticized previous governments for having failed to address the Kurdish situation and accused them of doing nothing more following Ocalan’s capture and imprisonment in 1999. Today, after a decade of rule by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), not much has changed beyond the government engaging in direct peace talks with Ocalan and PKK European representatives. Despite this effort, the problem appears likely to remain chronic.

Turkey’s neighbors have always used the Kurdish card against it, but have never tried to strengthen Kurdish nationalists or the PKK to the point where they could actually attempt to secede from Turkey. The Kurdish population is spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, and none of these countries wants to give any of the Kurds hopes of independence. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, things have, however, changed somewhat. Iraqi Kurds govern their autonomous region and have only a loose relationship, to say the least, with the Baghdad government. In Syria, as President Bashar al-Assad fights to stay in power, there is speculation that he may use the Kurdish card to harm Turkey as he goes down.