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Is fate of Kurdish issue tied to Erdogan's future?

Key Kurdish figures tell Al-Monitor the Kurdistan Workers Party is now the sole representative of the Kurdish people, and that they will not be satisfied simply with recognition of their cultural and linguistic rights.
Plainclothes police officers tear down a billboard with a picture of imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan in Diyarbakir February 11, 2014. The face of jailed Kurdish rebel chief Ocalan briefly beamed down from billboards in southeast Turkey until police tore down the posters, a mark of official unease over his enduring influence among Kurds as local elections loom. The slogan on the billboard reads in Turkish and Kurdish " With free leadership to free life". Picture taken February 11, 2014. To ma

Despite sending strong signals that he intends to run for the Turkish presidency in August, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again asserted that he remains undecided. He gathered his party’s lawmakers on April 16 to discuss the matter and announced, “I have not made my decision yet.” He added, “And I don’t approve of announcing names [for the presidential bid] at this point. There will be no chaos in the party if I decide to run or choose to stay [as the prime minister]. The most important thing is the institutional structure of our party.”

Erdogan’s stated position, however, defies reality simply because of his control-oriented, and some would say self-centered, leadership that dominates all aspects of his party and members’ actions. The party’s success is explained more by Erdogan’s leadership than its institutional structure. In fact, many party insiders tie the fate of the resolution of the Kurdish issue to the prime minister’s political future. They consider the Kurdish vote to be in Erdogan’s pocket if he decides to run in Turkey’s first direct election of its president.

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