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Erdogan's AKP Eyes Kurds to Reverse Istanbul Electoral

Dorian Jones

   ISTANBUL - With Turkey's mayoral rerun election on June 23looming,
   President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AKP is eyeing the Kurdish vote,
   as speculation rises about a resumption in peace talks with Kurdish
   rebels.

   Lawyers met this week for a third time since May with imprisoned
   Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan. Prior to May, he
   had not seen his lawyers in eight years. In a statement released by
   Ocalan through his lawyers, he stressed coexistence, saying Kurds
   cannot exist without Turks, and Turks cannot exist without Kurds.

   The ending of Ocalan's isolation is stoking speculation of a return to
   a peace process between the PKK and Ankara. In 2015, talks collapsed
   amid mutual recrimination, and ensuing heavy fighting saw the leveling
   of many towns and city centers across Turkey's predominately Kurdish
   region.

   Speaking anonymously, a senior Western diplomat said tentative efforts
   have been made to find ways of ending the fighting.

   The United States sees the resumption of peace talks as a way of
   defusing tensions with Ankara over Washington's support of the Syrian
   Kurdish militia, the YPG, which Turkey considers a PKK proxy.

   Party politics could provide a powerful impetus to peace efforts. The
   AKP's shock loss of Turkey's most affluent and largest city, Istanbul,
   in March's municipal elections is blamed in part on the loss of the
   Kurdish vote.

   Some analysts attribute CHP candidate Ekrem Imamoglu's narrow victory
   to acombination of conservative Kurdish voters not turning out to vote
   for the AKP candidate, Binali Yildirim, and supporters of the
   pro-Kurdish HDP backingImamoglu.

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