People in Turkey today are deeply confused about what to make of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Kurdish peace process, which is now "in the fridge" — in the words of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Seasoned journalists such as Al-Monitor's columnist Amberin Zaman have asked, “Has the PKK been tricked?” Others debate the differences between the PKK and the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
In recent years, pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP) media have done an impeccable job of showing the friendly face of the Kurdish movement and propagating that peace will arrive if only the pundits could accept that the peace process was inevitable.
Yet, now the same media is preaching to us all how dangerous the PKK and how evil the Kurdish movement is. Anyone who dares to ask a question is promptly labeled as an ally of terrorist groups and a traitor. On Aug. 27, Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan was quoted as saying, “People voted for the HDP but the HDP failed to continue the peace process.” There is a lingering confusion about why the process ended, as well as how to differentiate between the HDP and the PKK.
Rather than trying to reach an agreement on how to disarm the PKK, current policies seem to encourage the organization to arm further. Not a day passes without news of escalating violence in Turkey. So what has really changed about the PKK, and is the strategy the Turkish government is applying appropriate?
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