Nihat Ali Özcan, PhD
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Kurds, Arabs and Turks
It will be no surprise if Turkey ends up being the most confused actor in such a scenario in which Kurds and Turkmens, half of them Shiite, will be facing Sunni Arabs…
Israel’s Gaza operation and the PKK problem
Öcalan’s role was downplayed by the Turkish media, which is busying itself with a less risky subject: Israel’s Gaza operation. This is not a piece about the effects of…
Erdoğan and his capacity to manage the PKK problem
The management of the PKK problem by the Erdoğan government is more difficult and costly compared to the early years of the AKP rule. The behavior of the Turkish…
How can Turkey buy into the federal Syria idea?
The opposition groups in Syria are still in disarray. Since most of the political and military organizations are “fabricated,” there is no prospect for a united…
How does the PKK act like a state in Syria?
U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi called for a truce in Syria during Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice. His call was received with prejudice by all sides, who…
Prospects for federalism in Syria and for Kurds
The political situation in Syria is changing. Bashar al-Assad’s army maintains operational capacity, but it has lost most of northern Syria. There are two reasons for…
Syria and Turkey’s exit strategy
The best exit strategy for Turkey is to hope for the creation of a negotiation table in Syria. In Syria, as the number of dead and refugees increases, endless political…
Syria and neo-Ottoman artillery fire
As internal and external complications kept piling up, a mortar strike coming from a country suffering from a civil war with no front line was not surprising. As Bashar…
Political Islam and Kurdish nationalism
A number of Islamist Kurds are planning to stop supporting the AKP and establish a new party. Last weekend, Prime Minister Erdoğan demanded that Kurds show a reaction…
Where did the government make a mistake?
Turkey will have three different elections in three years and the PKK will exploit this process. One year ago the negotiations between the PKK and National Intelligence…
The country off the agenda: Syria
The bitter side is that the issue of Syria is progressively falling off the agenda of world public opinion. While the uprising in Syria turns into a civil war, gloomy…
Turkey and the unity of Iraq
The problem in the region goes beyond hosting al-Hashemi or efforts to take the competition of Sunnis and Shiites as a reference point. Tariq al-Hashemi, vice president…