F. Stephen Larrabee, Distinguished Chair in European Security at the RAND Corporation, and Gonul Tol, Executive Director of the Middle East Institute's Center for Turkish Studies, highlight the importance of drafting a new civilian constitution to solve Turkey’s Kurdish issue. The authors discuss challenges and changing perspectives that surround the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government’s ‘Kurdish Opening.’ In this changing environment, Turkey’s civil societies have been supporting a solution to the Kurdish issue through democratic means by drafting a new constitution that recognizes Kurdish identity. Although the authors identify positive policy initiatives and implementations by Prime Minister Erdogan’s AKP government, these reforms are still far from complete even nine years after the AKP assumed power. As a result, social discontent has amounted among Turkey’s Kurdish population. Although there are number of obstacles that the AKP will inevitably face in its democratization endeavor, the authors argue that if the AKP government fails to draft a new constitution that reflects the concerns of Turkey’s Kurdish population, it would undermine not only Turkey’s domestic stability, but also its aspiration to become a model for democratic transformation in the Middle East.
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