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Ceasefire between Turkish government and Kurds could be at risk, experts say

Experts say the added threat of the Islamic State armed group in Turkey during a time of political turmoil between the government and pro-Kurds could prove difficult to handle.

Protesters in Istanbul hail PKK flags and pictures of victims of the Suruc bombing
Protesters in Istanbul hail PKK flags and pictures of victims of the Suruc bombing Reuters/Murad Sezer
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Two police officers were shot by Kurdish militants who said it was revenge for Monday's deadly suicide bombing blamed on the Islamic State armed group. Three militants, now detained by the authorities, said they killed the officers because they were affiliated with IS.

This comes amid an already complicated political situation.

"The Kurds are angry at Turkey for two reasons," Max Abrahms, a terrorism expert and professor of political science at Northeastern University in the US, told RFI. "First, Turkey is primarily motivated to disrupt the establishment of a Kurdish state, and secondly, the Turks have bolstered the Islamic State, which is at war less so with Turkey than with the Kurds.

"And although there's been a ceasefire between the Turkish government and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), it's coming under pressure now."

He said Turkey has been heavily criticised for being a "poor ally" in terms of helping in the fight against the Islamic State group, which is also one of the reasons why the Kurds believe the government is working with the jihadists.

"The possibility that IS has extensions into Turkey which it can mobilise to create domestic disturbance will force the government to change its position and come closer to the allies and Russia," said Ilter Turan, a professor of political science at Bilgi University in Turkey. "IS should be separated from whatever happens to (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad and has to be treated as a problem on its own, and this implies a fundamental change of foreign policies."

The added threat from the Islamic State group amid tensions between the government and the HDP, the pro-Kurdish party, might prove difficult to handle.

"There was an underdetermination or miscalculation on President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan's part that ISIS could be managed," said Denise Natali, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University in Washington, using another acronym for the Islamic State group.

"Over the years, you do have these supporters, sleeper cells," she said. "We have at least polls that show that many people inside Turkey see the PKK as much of a threat, if not more than ISIS. So when you have all of this, even tacit, support inside Turkey, you are going to have a very difficult problem three years down the road."

Furthermore, both the Turkish government and the pro-Kurdish party will have to engage in a balanced political game, Natali says.

"The leader of the HDP (pro-Kurd party) has got a very difficult balancing act to play," she says. "He has to continue to show that he is engaged in the peace process in the way he's carrying this out, and manage the PKK to which many of his constituents are sympathetic."

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