The Peace Process between Turkey and the Kurds: Anatomy of a Failure

Abstract

In January 2013, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government initiated a peace process in order to settle the Kurdish question through peaceful means. However, this sanguine atmosphere gradually disappeared, before finally collapsing after the general elections of 7 June 2015. This book addresses the question of why the peace building attempts that culminated between 2013 and 2015 failed. It deals with the historical background of the Kurdish question and contemporary complexities of the Turkish politics to explain how they eventually jeopardized the peace process. This is an important and relevant research question because the Kurdish question has been viewed as a variable shaping Turkey's domestic politics and its foreign relations. The Kurdish question's influence on Turkish foreign policy is not confined to its neighbors. Turkey's relations with the United States and the European Union was also shaped by the issues stemmed from the Kurdish question. As this was the first serious peace attempt in a conflict that lasted over three decades, examination of why it failed will inform any future attempts at peace and will help pinpoint the potential path that Turkey might face in both the domestic and international realm. This book will appeal to students and scholars with an interest in Turkey and the Kurdish issue, peacekeeping, security studies and Middle East Politics.