Türkiye shaken by terrorism after call to PKK leader from Erdoğan's coalition partner
29 October 2024
Last week, an aerospace factory in the capital of Ankara was hit by a terrorist attack which killed five people. The attack was carried out by a small armed group affiliated with the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which the EU designates a terrorist group.
In response, that same night, the Turkish Armed Forces flew air operations in the Kurdish areas in Northern Iraq and Syria, destroying military structures and resulting in the death of 20 people, including civilians.
Before the attack, Türkiye saw unexpected renewed rapprochement between the government and Kurdish parties. The leader of a far-right Turkish nationalist party and coalition partner of president Erdoğan, Devlet Bahçeli, shook hands with Kurdish lawmakers – a strong symbol in a country where symbolic politics mean a lot. In a call that shocked the entire nation, he also called on the imprisoned leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, to declare the end of the organisation, and proposed rehabilitation opportunities for prisoners serving life sentences in return.
 | Yakup Can Yargıç Bahçeli's unusual statements came after a period when the Turkish army had reduced PKK activities to their lowest level in years, and the government implemented increasingly undemocratic measures against the whole Kurdish political movement. And it is still too early to assess what the attack and the response by the Turkish army will lead to in the region. |
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