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Ankara needs to explain its turnaround in dealings with PKK

As confrontations persist between Turkish government forces and the Kurdistan Workers Party, the government has remained mum about the reasons for the breakdown of the Kurdish peace process.
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People in Turkey today are deeply confused about what to make of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Kurdish peace process, which is now "in the fridge" — in the words of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Seasoned journalists such as Al-Monitor's columnist Amberin Zaman have asked, “Has the PKK been tricked?” Others debate the differences between the PKK and the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

In recent years, pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP) media have done an impeccable job of showing the friendly face of the Kurdish movement and propagating that peace will arrive if only the pundits could accept that the peace process was inevitable.

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