Has Erdoğan finally ended the Kurdish insurgency?
Why, with a free hand against the PKK and SDF, is Erdoğan making peace? Because he needs the help of the Kurds to extend his grip on power.
The news that the PKK, the Kurdish separatist movement, had decided not only to abandon its armed struggle, but to disband, took commentators by surprise. What is the significance of this development and how does it fit into the jigsaw of Middle Eastern geopolitics?
The Kurdish population, amounting to around 30 million, perhaps more, straddles the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. In other words, all the most unstable and incendiary hot spots in the Middle East. The Kurds did not plan it that way: they are simply one of the indigenous peoples of the lowlands of Mesopotamia and the mountains of south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, north-eastern Syria, north-west Iran and the south-west of Armenia.
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