It seems highly likely that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have greeted with a grim sense of satisfaction this week's violent nationalist attacks on the opposition Kurdish party, the HDP. It was the HDP, who by winning more than ten percent of the popular vote in this June's elections, entered parliament with 80 seats. This success went a long way to robbing Erdogan's AK party of the outright majority that it had enjoyed for 13 years. The president had hoped that a victory in June for his prime minister Ahmet Davutogli would have given him the parliamentary majority necessary to drive through changes to the constitution. These would have endowed the presidency with wide-ranging executive powers and changed the nature of Turkish politics. The assault on the HDP headquarters in Ankara on Tuesday and similar attacks by nationalists on HDP offices in six other towns and cities were prompted by claims that the HDP backs the terrorist PKK, with whom the Turkish security forces are once again in open warfare. There are strong grounds for doubting this claim. The HDP's Selahattin Demirtas has denounced the PKK assaults and deplored the end of a two-year truce between the terrorists and the Turkish state. Although his party has a solid core of Kurdish support, it won 14 percent of the vote this summer thanks to the backing of many Turkish liberals who are deeply alarmed at Erdogan's increasingly autocratic behavior and his blatant meddling in the police and judiciary to head off inquiries into corruption among AKP politicians and members of his own family. It may be thought significant that while nationalist mobs were attacking HDP buildings, police officers stood by and did nothing. This was deplorable. It brought back memories of the extraordinary violence which police used to break up peaceful demonstrations to protect Istanbul's Gezi Park from a destructive development ordered by Erdogan. The president may, therefore, be suspected of seeking to demonize the HDP ahead of the new election on November 1. He may be hoping that the AKP vote will be reinforced by nationalists who see him as being tough on the PKK. Discrediting the HDP would seem to be the plan. Maybe it is time to review the events that led to Turkey's renewed assault on the PKK. On July 20, 32 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a rally in the town of Suruc, which had been called in support of rebuilding Kobane, the city devastated in fighting with Daesh, (the self-proclaimed IS). Daesh claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, but there were suspicions of Turkish involvement. The PKK murdered two police officers whom they claimed had been part of a plot to get the bomber into the demonstration. An outraged Ankara said it would now, at last, join in the fight against Daesh. Yet most of its air assaults and all of its ground attacks have been directed against the PKK, prompted by their alleged murder of the two policemen. More than 40,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK launched its terror campaign for a separate Kurdish state. Now the butcher's bill has been reopened. If this has happened simply so that the AKP can win back its absolute majority and make Erdogan a powerful executive president, history will be a very harsh judge.
