The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a US-based think tank, has released a report warning that political and ethnic violence and the failure to address democratic deficits could lead to the “Syrianization” of Turkey, bringing ethnic conflict to Europe's doorstep.

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a US-based think tank, has released a report warning that political and ethnic violence and the failure to address democratic deficits could lead to the “Syrianization” of Turkey, bringing ethnic conflict to Europe's doorstep.

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a US-based think tank, has released a report warning that political and ethnic violence and the failure to address democratic deficits could lead to the “Syrianization” of Turkey, bringing ethnic conflict to Europe's doorstep.

In the report, released on Tuesday, BPC foreign policy expert Jessica Michek argued that renewed violence between security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has disastrous spillover effects on Turkish society, which are “encouraged by the charged rhetoric of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party), threatening to tear the social fabric of the country apart.”

Asking whether Turkey is on the brink of a civil war, Michek points out that a failure to address democratic deficits, particularly the Kurdish question, could cause the country to fall victim to unresolved social tensions, potentially destabilizing it and setting back its political and economic progress, as well as its aspirations for regional influence, as had also been noted in a previous BPC policy piece.

“If allowed to continue, this could lead to the ‘Syrianization' of Turkey, bringing ethnic conflict once again to Europe's doorstep,” the report stated.

Michek pointed to the recent collapse of a cease-fire between the state and the PKK that had lasted two-and-a-half years, adding that the renewed conflict is playing out both within and outside of Turkey's borders, as Turkish warplanes bomb PKK camps in northern Iraq. The violence, which has intensified since July, has caused widespread concern that Turkey may be returning to the conflict that consumed it during much of the 1980s and 1990s, the report noted.

“Already, Turkey is looking like a conflict zone. Across Turkey's Kurdish southeast, cities are subjected to curfews or designated as ‘special security zones,' restricting movement into and out of certain areas, a practice that harkens back to the darkest days of the state's conflict with the PKK,” it stated.

Michek also quoted the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair, Selahattin Demirtaş, who said, regarding living conditions in the city of Cizre, which was kept on lockdown for over a week: “People are trying to keep dead bodies chilled using ice bags because they have not been allowed to bury them. They have run out of food and water and they cannot leave their homes. It resembles Gaza or Karbala.”

The report also indicated that, in addition to the air strikes, Turkey has made its first ground incursion into northern Iraq since 2011, pursuing PKK terrorists responsible for a roadside bomb attack that killed sixteen Turkish soldiers.

“The government, too, seems to be making preparations for large-scale conflict against the Kurds, reportedly transferring the authority to order Turkey's security forces to shoot terrorists away from provincial governors' offices and over to the military, empowering it to go on the offensive against the Kurds, disempowering Kurdish provincial governors,” the report stated.

Following the government's declaration that the HDP and PKK are “one and the same,” protestors directed their anger at the HDP, damaging over 130 of its buildings across the country and setting fire to its headquarters in Ankara.

The report also drew attention to protests and subsequent attacks targeting the Hürriyet daily in response to negative articles and tweets written by Hürriyet journalists about Erdoğan.

“These violent attacks against the media by Turkish protesters are a direct extension of the AK Party's strongman tactics against media criticism, following raids on media groups critical of the government,” the report said, giving the additional examples of the Nokta magazine, the latest cover of which depicts Erdoğan smiling and taking a selfie in front of the coffin of a Turkish soldier, and the arrest and subsequent deportation of foreign journalists from the Vice News media outlet, who were reporting on the conflict in the Southeast.

“These tactics are part of a parlous strategy employed by Erdoğan and the AK Party to return to power after they failed to secure a majority in the June parliamentary elections. Indeed, cracking down on dissent has been a part of the AK Party's electoral strategy in the past: the AK Party government banned access to Twitter and YouTube last year ahead of the March 30 local elections, and imposed media blackouts on controversial news stories, such as corruption allegations against the government and investigations into arms shipments to Syria,” the report noted.

The report also warned that by exploiting nationalist sentiments in order to diminish political support for the HDP, the government is transforming its legitimate battle against the PKK, which has taken over 40,000 lives since 1984, into blanket political and ethnic violence that targets all Kurds and is carried out by security forces and citizens alike.

“The fault lines the government is exploiting in order to secure a parliamentary victory run deep, and the rifts created by the AK Party's strategy are unlikely to fade after the Nov. 1 elections, threatening Turkey's stability for some time to come,” the report concluded.
http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_us-think-tank-warns-of-turkeys-possible-syrianization_399330.html

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