Fellows in the Press: Murat Somer’s Analysis on Turkey’s Kurdish Issue on Turkish Portal T24

“In the current situation, trying to solve the Kurdish issue as well as returning to democracy is not only an opportunity, but also a necessity,” our Global Forum Fellow Murat Somer writes in an analysis for Turkish news portal T24.

According to the article, as a result of political developments in the Middle East, especially in Syria, and in Turkey itself, Turkey has entered a period in which the internal and external conditions that shaped its foundation and gave birth to the “Kurdish issue” between 1919 and 1926 have re-emerged.

Analyzing the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, the article looks at various models of establishing modern states and nations, from the U.S. to Lebanon to Spain and to Pakistan. The author refutes claims that if Turkey had been founded on the common identity of Islam, rather than on a Turkish identity, there would be no Kurdish issue today. Likewise, he does not think federalism would have been a solution. “The problem in Turkey is not names and identities, but the fact that everyone imposes their own subjective and singular truth on names and identities,” he writes.

Read the article here (in Turkish).