Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 09/2008

PolicyWatch #1305: The PKK Redux: Implications of a Growing Threat

Soner Cagaptay

November 2007

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Abstract

On November 5, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and deputy chief of military staff Gen. Ergin Saygun visited President Bush in Washington to discuss the growing threat posed by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The composition of the Turkish delegation was symbolically important and demonstrates a new political stability based on the working relationship between the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Turkish military. Yet the newfound weight of the PKK issue may prove problematic for the United States -- and, in the long term, for Turkey as well.