Turkey: Tensions with Kurds Suggest “Crisis Point”

In a piece for Foreign Policy yesterday, Henri Barkley contended that "Turkey is slowly and inexorably moving towards a crisis point." In his view, "tensions between the [Turkish] government and the country's Kurdish minority are threatening to explode like never before," and the Kurdish question "remains Turkey's Achilles' heel, influencing all aspects of political and cultural life, from civil-military relations to democratic reforms to foreign policy." He describes the domestic political environment as being "thick with stories of daily humiliations, minor taunts, and discrimination in housing and employment," conditions that have helped produce an "alienated and angry" population of young Kurds that are becoming increasingly assertive in the political arena. Mass arrests and drawn-out court cases against Kurdish activists have not deterred them from continuing to demand cultural freedoms, freedom of the press, and more autonomy from the centralized Turkish state. According to Barkley, the U.S. "has been oblivious to this brewing crisis" even though it could have repercussions for U.S. efforts to promote stability in Iraq and elsewhere.