A Sisyphean Task? Resuming Turkey-PKK Peace Talks

Locked in their deadliest violence in two decades, the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) should urgently resume peace talks. The return to a military-based approach to the conflict and domestic political polarisation, fuelled by a spillover of the Syrian conflict, have dismantled the achievements of peace talks undertaken during the 2.5-year ceasefire which collapsed in July 2015. Bloody urban battles in the south east have since then given the conflict a new, unpredictable momentum. The failure to secure peace has cost more than 550 lives – up to 150 of them civilian, including that of the well-known human rights lawyer and Diyarbakır bar association head Tahir Elçi on 28 November.

Turkey faces a critical choice: to advance its military strategy against the PKK in a fight that is bound to be protracted and inconclusive, or to resume peace talks. Whichever course it chooses, however, a comprehensive solution to the Kurdish issue will necessitate addressing long­standing Kurdish rights demands.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: Having won back his majority, Erdoğan must now focus on reuniting Turkish society http://www.europeansources.info/record/having-won-back-his-majority-erdogan-must-now-focus-on-reuniting-turkish-society/

ESO: Background information: PKK to 'resume fighting' against Turkish army http://www.europeansources.info/record/pkk-to-resume-fighting-against-turkish-army/

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