A long-awaited cabinet reshuffle may give Turkey’s government a better chance of speeding up peace talks with jailed Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, analysts say.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced four new ministerial picks, but most striking of them is the appointment of former Istanbul governor Muammer Guler as interior minister.
Guler, who has ties to the Kurdish majority southeast region, will succeed gaffe-prone Idris Naim Sahin, whose rhetoric has angered Kurds.
The reshuffle late Thursday came as Ankara acknowledged fresh talks between Turkey’s secret services and Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with the ultimate aim of disarming the rebels.
Erdogan has said the peace process will be a “litmus test” for those who want a settlement, but insists military operations will continue to root out the armed wings of the rebel group.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 to fight for autonomy for the Kurdish majority in southeast Turkey. The conflict has claimed 45,000 mostly Kurdish lives and Turkey and its Western allies have branded the group a terrorist organisation.
The movement defends its armed rebellion as a legitimate struggle for self-determination.
Sahin, the outgoing interior chief, was much criticised for his hawkish remarks — especially over the deaths of 34 civilians in a Turkish air strike near the Iraqi border in December 2011.
He called the botched air raid that struck civilians instead of Kurdish separatists an “experience” for Turkish security forces and refused to apologise for the killings.
“Sahin was making remarks that infuriated the country’s Kurds and embraced the nationalists,” Deniz Zeyrek, Ankara representative of liberal Radikal newspaper, told AFP.
“I believe Guler will be more careful and he will try not to contradict the government’s Kurdish policy,” he said.
Political observers had speculated for months over Sahin’s removal from the interior ministry. His blunders had caused uneasiness among government circles.
Local media reported that Erdogan had refused to meet with him for months.
Sahin also drew ire from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) when he branded BDP lawmakers “Ankara representatives of the bandits (PKK)” and “people who are not worth a cent.”
BDP’s Pervin Budan welcomed Sahin’s departure, calling him “the biggest disaster and trouble this country can ever see.”
“We are grateful he’s gone,” she said.
The incoming interior minister, Guler, is known as a moderate bureaucrat-turned politician. He is a lawmaker from the Justice and Development Party (AKP) representing the Mardin constituency in the Kurdish-majority southeast, which analysts deem “another plus” for the ongoing peace process.
“There was a need for a minister who will be able to shoulder responsibility and resonate trust in this controversial process,” said Nihat Ali Ozcan, a security expert at the Ankara-based TEPAV think tank.
“Guler is trusted by the prime minister and he knows how to behave. He can lead the peace process in a controlled fashion,” Ozcan said.
But he predicted that the appointment would not yield deep-rooted results for a solution to the Kurdish problem, because “the prime minister will have the final say.”
Cabinet shake-up 'may bolster Turkey-PKK peace talks'
