Many believe the murders of the three Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) women on Jan. 10 in Paris were aimed to sabotage the Turkish government’s new efforts to find a peaceful solution to the long-lasting Kurdish issue in Turkey. While there is no doubt that these executions are going to have an impact, it is an exaggeration at best to claim that just one act can derail this initiative. Still, there are other serious potential challenges to this process.
First is the question of whether the public has been prepared for engaging directly with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rhetoric on this issue seems contradictory.
