Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
Actually based on what I have read and heard from my one Turkish-American friend (rabidly anti-AK, former Turkish Army infantry officer) is that the anti-Kurdish push is largely the province of the secular nationalist officer corps. The AK Party is viewed by the officer corps as soft on Kurdish terrorism as part of their program to join the EU --- this is in line with the reforms AK has instituted regarding human rights. There were some initiatives which AK introduced in the southeast, for instance allowing Kurdish-language broadcasts, that were adamantly opposed and ultimately rolled back by the military in the late 1990s.

AK has largely sacrificed what pro-Kurdish tendencies it may have had since the Iraq War. The gains made by Iraqi Kurds and the military's increasing paranoia over this, as well as possibly related increasing militancy on the part of the PKK and the Kurdish terror groups, have put the kibosh on any possible Kurdish rights in Turkey. Suicide bombs going off in Ankara have a way of doing that, I suppose.

Of course whether the military is using the Kurdish issue as a way to regain its dominance over the government is also a major question, not least among Turks themselves.
The antipathy for Kurds within the Turkish military is well known. They really do not like getting shot or blown up by the PKK rebels. (Can you blame them? I would not have been too partial to having my troops shot at by Louisiana Cajun separatists.) Erdogan may be trying to play to this tendency by his statements about supporting a cross-border incursion, buying the military off from intervening in his efforts to secure the presidency for his party.

It will be interesting to see whether this is operating as a subtext and whether the Turkish Army will go for the bait.
Disclaimer
[Lest someone take offense here, my choice of Cajuns is a purely silly example--I could have opted for a host of other groups in the US but they would have been even much less PC than the one I chose].