​Concerned about escalating political risk

TURKEY - In Brief 15 Sep 2015 by Atilla Yesilada

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I was about to fire off a post about rising political risks, when an astute reader beat me to it with a couple of questions. As per my time-honored custom, s/he shall remain anonymous, but her/his questions and my answers shall live forever in memories like a beacon of hard-nosed strategic analysis. The summary: Beware of rising political risk; don't pay much attention to cease fire talks: Hope this message finds you well. I wanted to know how you would rank the political risks in Turkey at the moment for PKK, election risks and ISIS terrorist risk (please add any others of importance that I have left out)? Do you also think that the reshuffling of the executive committee in AKP with more pro Erdogan followers now means that an AKP government would be a populist government that is not amenable to reform/ market practice. When do you think the political risk peaks in terms of time periods? I would rank PKK terror as the highest risk, despite an offer by KCK-PKK to return to the status of cease-fire, provided the government accepts an “outside” observer to monitor the Peace Process, probably meaning U.S. or some Scandinavian worthies. This suggestion is an eminently reasonable beginning to talks, but if JKP were to accept it, MHP would tear it to shreds in the election campaign. If PKK is earnest, it should declare a unilateral cease fire for a few weeks to calm down the Turkish anger and open up some room for AKP. The durability of PKK related political risk is probably not high, though. I anticipate a hung parliament and an AKP-CHP coalition, which should in one way or other resume the Peace Process, thus securing a cease-fire. I must note the stellar efforts of pro-Ku...