Sunday February 12, 2012

Welcome   |   Register   |   Log in

Past Event

A Foreign Policy and Center on the United States and Europe Event

Turkey’s Kurdish Conundrum

Turkey, Terrorism

Event Summary

Following last month’s military incursion into northern Iraq, Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul invited Iraqi President Jalal Talabani for a working visit to Ankara. Efforts to bolster counter-terrorism coordination and the future of Kirkuk were at the top of the leaders’ agenda. Although Turkish-American relations have recently improved, the two allies have not reached a consensus for addressing the root causes of PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) terrorism. The fear of Kurdish separatism looms large in the minds of Turks, and the Turkish military remains poised once again to strike northern Iraq should the PKK carry out retaliatory attacks within Turkey.

Event Information

When

Thursday, March 20, 2008
3:30 PM to 5:00 PM

Where

Saul/Zilkha Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

Email: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

On March 20, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) hosted a panel discussion to assess Turkey’s Kurdish conundrum, specifically Turkish-Iraqi-American relations and options for confronting the PKK. Speakers included Hasan Cemal, senior columnist for the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet; O. Faruk Logoglu, President of the Eurasian Strategic Studies Center; and Aliza Marcus, Bloomberg News reporter and author of Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence. Brookings Nonresident Fellow and Director of the Turkey Project Omer Taspinar provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion. After the program, the panelists took audience questions.

Transcript

AMBASSADOR LOGOGLU:  There are three parts about the Kurdish issue in Turkey. One is that there is really no. . .consensus, not even sufficient clarity, on what the Kurdish problem in Turkey is. There are many aspects to it. There are many interpretations of what it is and what it is not, but in my judgment Turkish society is not at the point where there is a general agreement as to what constitutes "the Kurdish problem."

The second point, the second fact, is there is even less agreement and less appreciation of the connection between the Kurdish issue on the one hand and terrorism and PKK terrorism on the other hand. Obviously, there are causal links between the two, but what they are and what they mean is not sufficiently debated and certainly not appreciated in Turkey -- and elsewhere. I mean, it's not just in Turkey. The same applies to Washington.

And the third point follows from the first two. Because you don't agree on the nature of the problem, on the relationship between PKK and terrorism, there is a very little agreement on how you want to solve this problem and the resolution of the problem.

Participants

Introduction and Moderator

Ömer Taşpınar

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe

Panelists

Hasan Cemal

Senior Columnist, Milliyet

O. Faruk Logoglu

President, Eurasian Strategic Studies Center

Aliza Marcus

Author, Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence


My Portfolio

My New Content

View suggested content based on items you have saved to your Portfolio.
Log in or register now