Turkey's 'Kurdish Opening' Threatened by Party's Closure

ISTANBUL -- The recent closing by Turkey's highest court of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the only pro-Kurdish party in the Turkish parliament, is being seen as a significant setback for the government's newly launched "democratization initiative," a reform program aimed at solving Ankara's decades-old Kurdish problem.

Nineteen of the party's 21 parliamentarians can remain in parliament by changing their party affiliation. (The other two, the DTP's co-chairs, were banned from politics for five years.) But observers warn that the court's action could alienate Kurds politically, and lead to increased tension and an upsurge in violence in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast. That, in turn, would likely harden nationalist sentiment among both Turks and Kurds, leaving the government and its reform project stuck between Turkish nationalists on one side and Kurdish nationalists on the other. ...