Kurdish conflict in TurkeyCivil War under the magnifying glass

For nine days the Turkish military has cordoned off the Kurdish town of Cizre. On the streets, the military fought against the PKK youth. At the city shows in miniature what could take the country in the worst case.
By Julia Ley
Burned buildings, bullet holes, ripped sandbags: The images of Cizrereminiscent of a civil war. "People here have been through terrible," said the German Green Party leader Cem Özdemir, who was this week in Cizre.
For ten days the Turkish military had there imposed a controversial curfew and fought against armed Kurdish rebels. The pro-Kurdish party HDP, which governs the city, spoke afterwards of 21 dead civilians - including women and children. Only on Monday raised the military on the curfew. Finally, the approximately 110 000 inhabitants of the city were in the southeast of Turkey to leave their homes and bury their dead.
In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung Özdemir condemned the violence of both parties to the conflict in no uncertain terms: "It is wrong to arm young people, such as the PKK, it apparently does in Cizre as wrong, it is to bombard these young people with heavy artillery with this.. Politics drives Erdoğan young people into the arms of the PKK. "
Turkish security forces block off access to Cizre.

Kurdish conflict -Dozens killed in clashes in southeast Turkey

On Tuesday the Green Party chairman had warned in July of escalating conflict with the PKK could become a conflagration. "This conflict has the potential to lead Turkey into a civil war." The set is interesting, because almost exactly as it did a few weeks ago, the 28-year-old mayor of Cizre, Leyla IMRET, opposite VICE-NEWS gesag t. With disastrous consequences: Turkish newspapers twisted her statement, reported the city would Turkey declared war. Without further ado, she was subsequently dismissed by Interior Minister Selami Altinok their duties. One accuses her of propaganda for the PKK.

The accusation: Erdoğan instrumentalized violence

The case of Leyla IMRET is symptomatic of the means by which the ruling AKP of Erdoğan just tried to put HDP-MPs in the vicinity of the PKK and so discredit as terrorists. Just recently it was announced that the prosecutor now wants to determine even against the HDP-chairman Selahattin Demirtaş and had requested the waiver of his immunity the Ministry of Justice.
Election in Turkey HDP chief Selahattin Demirtaş

HDP chief Selahattin Demirtaş - Hoping forthe "Kurdish-Obama"

IMRET even want or can say anything concrete on the attacks. Only so much: She believes that it had to do with the electoral success of the HDP in the parliamentary elections in June. It is a criticism that can now often hear: that Erdogan from the escalation of the conflict wants to beat inside political capital.Because until shortly before the elections, it looked like, as if the long-awaited peace between Turkish government and PKK soon become reality.
Then Erdoğan suddenly changed his strategy and struck hard, militaristic tones.He refused the beleaguered Kurds assist in Syrian Kobanê in the fight against IS, bombed positions of the Kurds in northern Iraq and had announced that the PKK as dangerous as the Islamic State. All the well in the hope of winning nationalist voters for itself.
The tactic worked horribly wrong, argues Laurent Mignon, Turkey expert at the Middle East Centre at Oxford University. "The nationalist voters remained almost all the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) true, it wandered the Kurdish electorate of the AKP for HDP." The latter celebrated with 13 percent of the vote a surprise success. Erdogan's AKP lost for the first time in 13 years, the absolute majority of seats in parliament.
Many Kurds see in the current escalation of violence therefore an attempt by the ruling party to discredit domestic political opponents HDP and yet still to win an absolute majority in elections in November.
All this is a dangerous game in a country that has a long tradition of militant nationalism. In early September attacked nationalists HDP-offices throughout the country with stones and incendiary devices, elsewhere Kurds were beaten in the street because they spoke Kurdish.