A fatal blast in Ankara and increasing violence in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast are overshadowing the country’s long-awaited constitutional reform process. The recent troubles will hamper efforts to broaden the rights of the country’s Kurdish minority.
No one quite knows how Syrian dissident Hussein Harmoush went from the safety of a Turkish refugee camp into the clutches of the regime he thought he had escaped. But his case has his fellow political exiles nervous.
Turkish government leaders have made reducing the military’s role in politics one of their top domestic priorities. But there is one area where the politicians appear reluctant to confront the generals – providing draft exemptions for conscientious objectors.
Gezi Park in downtown Istanbul has become the battleground in a struggle over the significance of Ramadan and a growing concern over the chasm that has opened between rich and poor in Turkish society.
When a senior Iranian official recently claimed that Tehran had captured a top Kurdish guerrilla leader, observers in Turkey feared the Kurdish insurgency had just taken an ugly turn.
Few Turks disagree that the late July resignations of Turkey's armed forces chiefs handed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a decisive political victory over the military.
Turkey's newly re-elected Justice and Development Party had hoped that parliament’s recent vote of confidence in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s cabinet would be a powerful reminder of its landslide victory in last month’s general election. Instead, it has become a symbol of a deepening political crisis that could hinder constitutional reform.
Before Turkey’s parliamentary elections in June, many Kurdish politicians saw the government’s constitutional reform initiative as a chance to advance their community’s decades-long struggle for broader cultural and political rights. Now, with six elected Kurdish candidates barred from taking their seats in parliament, Kurds are reconsidering the need for changes in Turkey’s constitution.
After retaining control of parliament with nearly 50 percent of the vote, Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party remains fixated on introducing a compulsory Internet filtering system later this summer, even in the face of mounting criticism.
