Dear All,
Our very own Nisan Alıcı and Tuna Öztürk have kindly offered to run a special seminar on Turkey’s current political situation which I will have the joy to chair on Wednesday. The event is open to anyone interested at BSIS. Please join us!
Yvan
From Peace Negotiations to Clashes: Dynamics of Current Conflict in Turkey
Nisan Alıcı & Tuna Öztürk
The conflict between the PKK and Turkish armed forces, which has been taking place since 1984 until the present, partially evolved into a peace negotiation process in 2012 with meetings between Ocalan, the leader of PKK and the State officials.
2012 was not the first time that there has been a ceasefire or armistice. There have been various attempts before, although those were not explicit, as were the ones in 2012. These negotiations led to great hope and expectations among all segments of Turkish society, however sadly came to an end came in the summer of 2015. The end of the ceasefire was immediately preceded by the June 7th elections, in which the leading party, the AKP, could not achieve absolute majority.
In this presentation, we will try to analyze the reasons of conflict itself, the factors that led to the breakdown of the peace negotiations, and, importantly their context within increasing violence in the Middle East. We will focus on the rising violent acts especially surrounding the June 7th elections as the breaking points. Specifically we are referring to the emergence of so called IS as an actor in conflict in Turkey, and their apparent attacks in the southeastern town of Suruc as well as the Ankara Massacre. As such, the dynamics of the conflict will be looked at both in the sense of an internal conflict and also as an international conflict.
And we will mention and try to share our opinions about downing of the Russian plane and conflicting nature of the conflict in Syria and Iraq.
Nisan Alıcı: During the peace negotiations from 2013 to 2015 she worked in the Parliament as advisor to a parliamentarian within the HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party), the pro-Kurdish opposition party.
Tuna Öztürk: An Officer in Turkish Military serving as an Explosives Ordinance Disposal Platoon Commander on active duty in various Commando units of South-East Turkey from 2012, the most deadly year of the conflict in the last 20 years until the present.
Both Nisan and Tuna have witnessed first-hand the ceasefire and peace process that followed, as well as the re-escalation of the conflict following the elections of this year.
As two current students of BSIS in International Conflict and Security program, they will try to explain the current situation in Turkey according to their own perspectives. They would like to provide the participants with different views especially about the dynamics of existing conflict.
Dr Yvan Guichaoua | Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS)
Lecturer in International Conflict and Analysis
Director MA in International Conflict and Security
Director MA in International Development
University of Kent, Boulevard Louis Schmidt 2a, 1040 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: + 32 2 641 1721 Email: y.guichaoua@kent.ac.uk Twitter: @YGuichaoua