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Turkey's AKP pits Kurd against Kurd

Attempts by the leaders of Turkey's ruling party to cast a Kurdish Islamist party as an alternative to the PKK are raising serious questions and feeding old rivalries.
Kurdish people clash with Turkish police on December 29, 2014, at Cizre in Sirnak. Tensions ran high in the southeastern town of Cizre early on December 27 following armed clashes between members of the Patriotic Revolutionist Youth Movement (YDG-H), an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Huda-Par, a Kurdish Sunni Islamist party. AFP PHOTO/ILYAS AKENGIN        (Photo credit should read ILYAS AKENGIN/AFP/Getty Images)
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As Turkey’s Kurdish peace process seems to devolve into a “crisis process,” government quarters have begun suggesting the idea that the Kurdish Islamist Free Cause Party (Huda-Par) is the sole force capable of finishing off the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and could eventually join the settlement talks. While some are promoting Huda-Par, an offspring of Turkey’s Hezbollah, old feuds between Hezbollah and the PKK are being revived. Many believe this is no coincidence.

Hezbollah, which has no relation to the Lebanese group, defines itself as a “Muslim Kurdish” movement, while the PKK comes from a Marxist tradition. Their rivalry in the past was inevitable, and it appears to still be so today.

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