Syrian Kurdish refugees protest against ISIS in Suruc, November 2014. Demotix/Emre Caylak. All rights reserved. Last week a devastating blast tore apart a group of young Kurdish Turks who had gathered in Suruc, a small town near the Syrian border. The suicide bomber, who was later identified as Seyh-Abdurrahman Alagoz had travelled there from the conservative province of Adiyaman, a fertile radicalizing ground for jihadists. With his deplorable actions, the 20 year old has not only ushered in a potentially devastating chapter of Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East, indicative of the country’s failure to foresee the impact of its dual foreign policy of funding both Kurdish fighters and ISIS militants in the region, but has also offered the AKP a much-needed opportunity to strengthen its hand domestically.
As the previous week has seen the historic opening of Incirlik airbase to US and allied forces, as well as the equally unanticipated rupture of the Kurdish peace process, it is all too easy to oversee the significant ramifications that these events have already had on parliamentary politics in Turkey, and how they will continue to impact the coalition process in the foreseeable future.
To understand the effect that the current events will have on the parliamentary process, three pressing issues should take priority. These are - in no particular order, yet deeply interrelated – (1) the increased likelihood of either early elections or an AKP/MHP coalition, (2) the vilification of the HDP, and (3) a renewed call for a strengthened presidency.
