Bad news, good news

TURKEY - In Brief 30 Nov 2015 by Atilla Yesilada

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So many events are developing so fast that I couldn’t cover them all in the Weekly Tracker. In this update I’ll report on the murder of the Diyarbakir Bar Association Chairman Mr. Tahir Elci (bad news) and the summit agreement between Turkey and EU (very good news) regarding refugees and the opening of new chapters, which motivates the moderate rallies in the markets today. Mr. Elci was seemingly “collateral damage” amidst a shoot-out between police and presumed PKK militants while reading a statement in Diyarbakir, but his killing could be an assassination by either party, or even a sniper working for a third party, but it lead to riots in Diyarbakir and Istanbul. Already on trial for stating that “PKK is not a terror organization, but an armed political movement” Elci was a very well respected human rights advocate and a dove who worked for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish Problem. I fear his killer will never be found. Apropos PKK, I carefully screen the statements by Erdogan and Davutoglu daily, alarmed not to find a sign that the Kurdish Peace Process will be resuscitated any time soon. Encouraged by its electoral victory, AKP wants to eliminate PKK and its urban auxiliaries, which causes the death count to pile up day by day, while raising the level of anger among the Kurds. I receive public information that Kremlin is now in touch with PKK leaders to broaden the insurgency in Turkey. Because of the harsh winter conditions in the Kurdish provinces clashes might calm down for a few months, but unless AKP changes tack, Turkey will face a full blown insurgency and civil unrest in the East and Southeast come Spring, which may be joined by the Syrian Kurds. At the e...