Abstract:

Scholars have so far examined Turkey’s Kurdish resolution/peace process (2013-2015) from various perspectives. While some works have pursued a rational choice approach and focused on the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government’s strategic calculations vis-à-vis the PKK in initiating a peace process and maintaining it until 2015, others have analyzed Turkey’s experience within the framework of the conflict resolution scholarship. Instead, this paper’s starting point is the idea that the 2013-2015 resolution process was not merely a policy to put an end to an internal conflict, but it rather constituted a key aspect of the AKP’s ongoing endeavor to turn Turkey into a regional power. This paper places the 2013-2015 resolution process within the framework of regional and global dynamics and argues that from the mid-2000s onwards, the AKP government’s efforts to put an end to the PKK terrorism and resolve the Kurdish question in Turkey reflected the policy of a middle-power country, i.e. Turkey, to increase its power and influence in the region instead of a mere domestic peace process. Thus, the end of the resolution process in 2015 constrained Turkey’s potential achievements in the Middle East and beyond.

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