Society, Politics, and Economy in Modern Turkey: Sociology of Turkey - Maintained by Tugrul Keskin
We are at a point in our work when we can no longer ignore empires and the imperial context in our studies. (p. 5)
― Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Turkey's Other Kurds: Between the Islamists and a Hard Place

By Burcu Ozcelik

FOREIGN AFFAIRS - May 4, 2015

For months now, Turkey’s main Kurdish Islamist party has been criticizing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for excluding it from ongoing peace talks between the government and Kurds. In January, leaders of this party, the Free Cause Party (Huda-Par), demanded to be recognized as a third group at the negotiating table, alongside the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a secular separatist group that the AKP considers a terrorist organization.
With its emphasis on Islam, Huda-Par will be a direct threat to the AKP in elections this June, where it will compete with the Islamist AKP against the secular socialist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for religiously conservative Kurds. Indeed, since lasting peace in the country can be guaranteed only by an inclusive process, the government’s decision to leave out Huda-Par can be read as an attempt to strong-arm the process.

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