Reuters
Analysis: Movement to ban the Kurdish party shows Erdogan’s march towards nationalism
In the early days of peace talks with Kurdish militants in 2013, then-Prime Minister of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan, spoke out against ethnic divisions and declared: “We are a government that has stepped into all kinds of nationalism”. Eight years later, long after the negotiations failed in a wave of violence, analysts say Erdogan, now president, depends on his nationalist allies in the parliament led by Devlet Bahceli. Erdogan’s long pivot of increasing Kurdish rights to a tough pact with nationalist Turks was reinforced this week when a high-ranking prosecutor decided to ban the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) because of militant ties after months of appeals. Bahceli’s nationalist to make him a Movement Party (MHP).