A few days ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish city in Turkey. His visit on July 9 was the first in 2,5 years and is not unrelated to the fact that the election campaign for the 2023 elections has essentially begun, with the possibility of calling early elections open.
Erdogan did not make a big announcement. Nor did he announce the resumption of any dialogue to address the Kurdish issue, an issue that remains an open wound in Turkey. All he did was say that he insisted on the statement he had made in 2005 that "his Kurdish problem was also my problem". The most important announcement was that the infamous Diarbakir prison, known for its torture after the 1980 military coup, would be turned into a cultural center. 
Erdogan's contradictory relationship with the Kurds
If one observes the current policy of the AKP, with the attempt to outlaw the left-wing and pro-Kurdish HDP, the mass ouster of HDP mayors, the resumption of the "dirty war" against the PKK, one would hardly believe that this version of " political Islam "had invested in addressing the Kurds.
In fact, for a long time, Erdogan seemed to want to break the taboo, admit that there is a Kurdish problem, tolerate a degree of distinct identity, and launch a political solution, including talks with the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).
In fact, the AKP had invested heavily in not identifying with the "Kemalist" and nationalist parties, and in conjunction with its Islamic identity had managed to have a strong presence in Kurdish areas, winning the vote of the most conservative and pious Kurds.
However, this line has changed significantly in recent years. The development of the war in Syria and the prospect of a quasi-Kurdish state entity in the Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria, led to a more aggressive line, and the forced coexistence with the nationalist MHP that has historically been associated with the most hard line in Kurdish.
To all this was added the electoral and political HDP. This party, which has managed to represent a significant part of the Kurds and at the same time be a point of reference for wider left and democratic sensitivities, is a double problem for Erdogan: it narrows its electoral base in the Kurdish regions and at the same time precisely because it manages to cross its border. 10% and entering the Parliament, makes the electoral geometry even more complicated for the AKP, forcing it to seek alliances. In addition, the HDP has demonstrated the ability to have a flexible political tactic, culminating in the 2019 municipal elections when it did not field candidates in major cities but supported the CHP candidates, thus contributing to the AKP's electoral defeat culminating in the loss of Istanbul Municipality (of the city from which Erdogan himself began his political career). 
Erdogan's difficult acrobatics
One could say that Erdogan is pursuing a difficult acrobatics. On the one hand, it wants to maintain a hard line against the PKK (indicative of the attacks by Turkish forces on PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan), betting, among other things, on a certain climate of "Kurdish phobia" that has developed in part of Turkish society. In the same context, it wants to present the HDP as a political extension of the PKK, in an attempt to alienate it from part of its base but also in an attempt to outlaw it. But at the same time, Erdogan wants to win back some of the Kurdish vote so he can face the next election with more confidence. But it is not at all given that the tactic he has chosen achieves its purpose. In fact, the feeling that anti-Kurdish policies are escalating - indicative of the escalation of attacks on HDP offices culminating in the recent assassination of Deniz Poiraz in Izmir or moves such as the arrest of nine AKP imams for saying their prayers in Kurdish - in Kurdish areas. Even vaccination rates in Kurdish areas are relatively low, with many attributing it to the Turkish Health Ministry refusing to use the Kurdish language in the vaccination campaign.
Above all, what seems to be playing an important role and an obstacle to planning, even within a capable tactician like Erdogan, is the fact that the anti-Kurdish turnaround of recent years and the abandonment of major peace and political solution initiatives have led to in a significant loss of credibility of the Turkish president in the eyes of the Kurds, who now find it more difficult to believe any of his promises. And all this at a time when demographic dynamics imply an increasing weight of the Kurdish element in the electorate as well.
in.gr
