Thursday, 7 June 2018

A jailed Kurdish leader could sway Turkey's elections

Demirtas: in jail, but on the campaign trail

HUNDREDS of new apartment blocks are rising from the rubble of Nusaybin, a city in Turkey’s Kurdish south-east. The government is doing its best to concrete over the devastation. But traces of the horrific clashes between the Turkish army and insurgents of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which claimed thousands of lives nationwide in 2015 and 2016, are easy to find. A third of the city, including some 6,000 buildings, was destroyed by helicopters and tanks during the siege. Debris still lines some of the streets. Bullet holes pepper outlying houses and the minaret of a mosque. Only last October, workers unearthed another dead body. Few locals speak openly of any of this. The fighting, accompanied by a series of PKK terror attacks, has ended. But the fear persists.

On June 24th Turkey will hold snap elections, and towns like Nusaybin may determine the fate of the entire country. Whether the opposition can wrest control of...Continue reading

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