Governments with declining electoral success may use adventurous foreign policy choices or make radical shifts in their foreign policies to gain re-election.
Could Greece, through democratic elections, become for Turkey what Tunisia became for Egypt in 2011 through mass protests?
Heavily influenced by the memories and legacies of the past, Turkey has not demonstrated the required degree of flexibility and imagination in dealing with the issue of Syria’s Kurds.
Kurdish protestors could hold the promise of a new chapter in their history: in which people refuse to be part of a state-constructed artificial dichotomy between the Kurds and the Turks.
The US wants Turkey to join the military effort against Islamic State at Kurdish-dominated Kobane, across the Syrian border—but Ankara’s focus is the Kurds within its own.
The fight for Kobane is not limited to a local struggle against IS militants, but reverberates politically and strategically across the region.
The international community should support a secular, multi-religious and multi-ethnic Rojava with democratic ambitions, that is a threat for IS and equally for the conservative Islamic government in Turkey. This is democracy in action in the Middle East.
It now appears that Kobane will not fall. But Turkey’s apathy towards the plight of the city, coupled with their stealthy support for ISIS, is something the Kurds will never forget.
There is still time to quell IS in Syria but the world must be prepared to act immediately, before it is too late.
A victory for the Kurds and their allies in Syria is a victory for all who want a future that is dictated neither by fundamentalists nor imperialists.
The civil war in Syria has put great strains on the country's Kurdish population. The Syrian Kurds' most powerful politician, Saleh Muslim Mohammad, talks to Vicken Cheterian about their position and future.
