Robert Ellis
There are no limits to the extent some people are prepared to go to hold on to power. This is more apparent in an autocratic system than in a democratic one. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s hold on power is determined by the outcome of his war on Ukraine, and his new nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile and Poseidon drone are indicators.
In Turkey, the aging autocrat, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has his back to the wall, and now he has announced “a new juncture” in the Kurdish peace process. To hardened observers of the Turkish scene, this is old wine in a new bottle.
Turkey’s Kurds first became a problem with the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925. Said was the head of an influential religious order, and Mustafa Kemal’s secular reforms (the abolition of the Caliphate and the abrogation of Sharia law) reduced their power.
The Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 partitioned Turkey and the creation of an autonomous Kurdistan. Still, after the War of Independence, this was superseded by the Lausanne treaty in 1923, which defined the borders of modern Turkey. Said called for an independent Kurdistan and the restoration of the Caliphate, but this incipient Kurdish nationalism consolidated Kemalist reforms and Turkish nationalism.
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