Erdogan and the DTP

Well the foreign press doesn't seem to care too much but according to Haber Turk Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be meeting with Kurdish Party DTP.

The PM meeting with a party that has reps in parliament may not sound like a big deal, but this is. Every previous Kurdish party has been banned, leaving Kurds with no political outlet for their very real grievances and ensuring continued if grudging support for the PKK.

But after years of inching forward on the 'Kurdish Question', 2009 has seen some major steps.

For a rather good and simple summary of the domestic forces (which means any results will be far more enduring than what the international community ever could have achieved) see this piece by Yigal Schleifer, who is an excellent source on Turkish affairs.

This ethnic conflict has long been a justification for the military's stranglehold on politics, which has been severely weakened since the last economic crisis in 2001 and rise of the AK Party. In the civil war of the 80s and 90s, around 30,000 people died, and the southeast has remained severely underdeveloped, especially compared to Western Turkey. Whole villages in the east were destroyed and their inhabitants forced to move to bigger eastern cities (making Diyarbakir into a city of refugees) or to cities such as Izmir and Istanbul in the west, with whole districts inhabited by hundreds of thousands of migrants with little to no education or work.

The separatist, sometimes abusive and criminal PKK didn't help matters, as civilians were caught between them and a state which has until very recently identified all Kurds with the PKK. The conflict exacerbated migration west with Kurds filling the slums around Istanbul that house around 6 million people.

Forget human rights, displacing millions that then must live in shanty towns as they seek menial labor only creates a disgruntled underclass caught in a cycle of poverty and ensures a large pool of recruits for organizations like the PKK. Politically expedient for the military yes. But for ensuring sustainable development for Turkey's children? The current moves to allow Kurdish political expression are a very good sign, and at least on this issue, I'm rather optimistic despite the very long road ahead.