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Turkish Kurds Find Common Ground With Protesters

A visit to Turkey’s Kurdish southeast reveals common ground between the Gezi Park protesters and Turkish Kurds.
Protesters shout slogans during a demonstration against Turkish security forces, after an incident in the Lice district of Diyarbakir province killed one person and wounded seven on Friday, in Istanbul June 29, 2013. Turkish security forces killed one person and wounded seven on Friday when they fired on a group of people protesting against construction of a new gendarmerie outpost in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey, security sources said. The incident happened in the village of Kayacik in the Lice di

How did Turkey’s Kurds view the protests that recently engulfed most of its western cities? This was the question I had in mind when I briefly visited the country’s Kurdish southeast in June. The prevailing mood I encountered was a far cry from the jubilant and self-assured atmosphere back in Taksim Square, still occupied by demonstrators at the time. 

Erupting at a rare moment of optimism surrounding the negotiations for a permanent settlement between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, the protests in the country’s west had puzzled people in the east and led many to worry about their impact on the nascent peace process. Echoing the logic of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — a divisive figure in the southeast, as in the rest of the country — several Kurdish friends suggested that "a button" had been pushed to derail the talks. 

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