Gunmen armed with explosives and assault rifles assailed the headquarters of Turkey’s state-run aerospace company near Ankara on October 23, in a terrorist attack claimed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). The incident complicates President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s efforts to exploit the regional chaos that followed Hamas’s attack on Israel a year ago to advance his domestic and regional goals.
Erdoğan has been one of the harshest critics of the war Israel has been waging since last October. He branded Israel a terror state, compared its prime minister with Hitler and even suggested Turkey could be its next target. In reality, however, Erdoğan wants to trade on the war to achieve his own ends.
One challenge Erdoğan faces is that Turkey’s constitution does not allow him to run for re-election in 2028. Without a big enough parliamentary majority to change it, he needs support from the pro-Kurdish party to remain in power. To that end, Erdoğan recently initiated talks with the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan. Under his plan, Öcalan would announce the PKK’s disbandment and walk free. To silence critics, Erdoğan uses Israel’s war as cover and argues that Turkey must stand strong against regional disorder by making peace with the Kurds.
Continue reading in Financial Times
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here.