Turkey's Kurdish conflict through the lenses of conflict resolution

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, Uluslararası İlişkiler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2013

Öğrenci: MUTTALİP ÇAĞLAYAN

Danışman: İHSAN DURAN DAĞI

Özet:

This thesis aims to analyze Turkey’s Kurdish conflict in historical and current context by using conflict resolution approaches/tools. The goal is first to investigate how conflict resolution approaches may become helpful in understanding and explaining root causes of the Kurdish conflict, and then to search for which conflict resolution tools may be relevant in ending armed struggle between Turkish state and the PKK. We now experience a negative peace phase in this conflict because there is a mutual ceasefire between the conflict parties since the early months of 2013. In other words, most of the direct violence has today ceased. The thesis, however, argues that both structural and cultural violence that underlie direct violence in Kurdish conflict still continue. Therefore, it reveals that focus on only removing direct violence but not taking structural and cultural violence dimension of the conflict into account will no avail. For a stable peace in this three decades of bloody conflict, this study proposes some conflict resolution tools - third party, mediation, problem solving workshops, negotiation and reconciliation –.