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Fruitless Attempts? The Kurdish Initiative and Containment of the Kurdish Movement in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Marlies Casier ,
Joost Jongerden  and
Nic Walker
Marlies Casier
Affiliation:
Middle East and North Africa Research Group, Centre for Third World Studies, Ghent University, Universiteitsstraat 8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium, marlies.casier@ugent.be.
Joost Jongerden
Affiliation:
Critical Technology Construction, Social Sciences Group, Wageningen University, CTC-WUR Bode 164, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN, Wageningen, the Netherlands, Joost.Jongerden@wur.nl.
Nic Walker
Affiliation:
Independent Researcher, 27 Rye Close, London SE4, U.K., Walker.Nic2@gmail.com.
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Abstract

Following the victory of the Kurdish party DTP (Demokratik Toplum Partisi, Democratic Society Party) in Turkey's southeastern provinces in the local elections of March 2009, Turkey witnessed the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) government's Kurdish initiative, the closure of the victorious Kurdish party, and waves of arrests of Kurdish activists and politicians. This rush of action constituted a renewed effort to contain and roll back the political and societal influence of the Kurdish movement. But what is it exactly that the government and the state were attempting to contain, and why? This article considers the recent moves of the ruling AKP, the judiciary, and the Turkish Armed Forces in regard to the “Kurdish problem” in Turkey's southeast, interpreting them as different responses to the regional success of the Kurdish movement.

Keywords

Turkey's Kurdish questionKurdish Democratic InitiativePKK/Kurdistan Workers’ PartyBDP/Freedom and Democracy PartyKCK/Union of Communities in KurdistanAKP/Justice and Development Party
Type
Articles
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 44 , Spring 2011 , pp. 103 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2011

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