Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Carnegie Europe’s Sinan Ülgen joined ABC’s Beverley O’Connor to discuss the increasing occurrence of terrorist attacks in Turkey. Ülgen argued that the increased frequency of attacks was a direct consequence of the breakdown in peace talks between the insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and government forces in 2015. Now locked in a bitter struggle, the Kurdish movement is exporting ever more violence to metropolitan areas, such as Ankara and Istanbul.
Despite increased military action in Turkey’s southeast, Ülgen reaffirmed that a political settlement is the only way to bring an end to the conflict. Ülgen stated that any opportunity to return to peace was further undermined following the decision of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to lift Turkish parliamentarians’ immunity from prosecution, which would effectively remove any pro-Kurdish opposition party in the parliament.