In his Nowruz message on 21 March, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, declared a ceasefire and called on armed militants to withdraw from Turkish territory. He said, “Today we are waking up to a new Middle East, a new Turkey, and a new future” and added, “The Middle East and Central Asia are looking for a new order. A new model is a necessity, like bread and water. It’s inevitable that Anatolia and Mesopotamia will be pioneers in building this model.” Öcalan’s message was warmly welcomed by the million-strong crowd gathered for Nowruz celebrations in the city of Diyarbakir.
The next day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan to apologize “for operational errors that led to loss of life” during a May 2010 raid by Israeli soldiers on the Mavi Marmora flotilla. Netanyahu agreed to “complete the agreement on compensation” for the families of the victims. The Turkish victims were nine activists who died trying to attract the world’s attention to the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdoğan accepted the apology and pronounced his intention to normalize relations with Israel.
Has Turkey been able to find an answer to the Kurdish question after nearly three decades of armed conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish state? Are rapprochement with the Kurdish opposition, and normalization of Turkish-Israeli relations ingredients of a grand regional strategy pursued by the Turkish government- with the support of the United States and Israel? To answer these questions Voices of the Middle East and North Africa spoke with UC Berkeley sociologist Cihan Tugal.