Revisiting the Kurdish Peace Process

Turkey’s current peace process is not the first attempt at solving the Kurdish issue peacefully. There have been multiple prior attempts to reach the same goal. However, four factors set the current process apart from previous trials and render the ground ripe for a solution: 1) transformation in the state’s understanding of the Kurdish issue, 2) termination of military-dominated tutelary and the concomitant rise of civilian politics, 3) the public’s increasing resistance to provocations, and 4) the perceived legitimacy of the solution’s parameters on both sides. Furthermore, changing regional dynamics resulting from the Syrian Crisis have been another compelling determinant that pushed Turkey to tackle the issue more earnestly. Yet these factors are not sufficient to move the process forward. It is only political and legal steps that can reinvigorate the process and push it to a next level.