Template: Royal A, Font: , Date: 17/06/2013; 3B2 version: 9.1.450/W Unicode (Feb 4 2008) (APS_OT) Dir: W:/TandF/RAPS/Gunes & Zeydanlioglu/TAF-GUNES_ZEYD-13-0502-GunesZeyd.3d 12 Political reconciliation in Turkey Challenges and prospects Cengiz Gunes Introduction This chapter explores Turkey’ s ongoing and problematic attempts to develop a process that will bring an end to its ongoing conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK). It will assess the like- lihood that the ongoing democratisation and institutional reform process, which Turkey has undertaken during the past decade, will result in a per- manent settlement that will satisfy the demands of the Kurds in Turkey. Questions of pluralism and the constitutional recognition of the Kurdish identity are central to the peaceful resolution of the conflict. Turkey’ s inability, since the end of one-party rule in 1950, to institute a pluralistic democratic framework, and its failure to constructively engage with the demands of its sizeable Kurdish population, has created an environment characterised by conflict and violence during the past three decades. The legal and political persecution of, and the limitations on, the Kurdish iden- tity has been tested in a persistent manner since the 1960s. Initially, Kurdish dissent in Turkey during the 1960s and 1970s took the form of non-violent protests, and their group-specific demands were articulated as part of demands for equality. However, from the late 1970s onwards, the idea of using violence in their struggle against the state gradually gained ground amongst Kurdish activists and political organisations. The Turkish govern- ment’ s imposition of extensive punitive measures on the articulation of Kurdish political and cultural demands, and its rejection of the right of non- Turkish ethnic groups to claim universal national rights, reinforced the view that the forceful overthrow of the Turkish state rule was indispensable to Kurdish liberation. Such a framing of the Kurdish question in Turkey is best epitomised by the PKK’ s national liberation discourse and its insurgency throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The conflict and political violence has had deep detrimental effects eco- nomically, socially, and politically, and it has been a constant source of ten- sion and political polarisation in Turkey. The response of Turkey’ s mainstream political parties has centred exclusively on ending the violence through military means, focused mainly on the suppression of the PKK and