ANKARA: By negotiating with militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party, whose last-week burning of weapons was seen by some as a ploy, President Tayyip Erdogan runs the risk of losing the support of nationalist Turkish voters. The opposition to Erdogan’s Saturday appeal for broad parliamentary support for the process highlights the difficulty he has in striking a balance between Kurdish and nationalist demands, since failing to do so might endanger the plan’s viability.
Erdogan’s own future is also in jeopardy; unless parliament supports early elections or a constitutional amendment to prolong his 22-year rule, during which he has elevated NATO member Turkey’s stature internationally, his term expires in 2028. Personal political motives are irrelevant, he maintains. In reference to the symbolic first surrender of weaponry, he declared on Saturday that “the doors of a new powerful Turkiye have been flung wide open.”
Smaller nationalist parties have denounced the peace effort, which was spearheaded by the MHP, a far-right nationalist coalition partner of his AKP party. His years of denouncing the pro-Kurdish DEM party as being connected to the 40-year PKK conflict, which the PKK now claims is finished, were remembered. The pro-Kurdish party itself responded coolly to Erdogan’s remarks about “walking together” with DEM, with MP Pervin Buldan of DEM stating that the AKP and DEM did not have a wide political coalition.
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