The Kurdish Enigma: Between Self-Dissolution and Drones

Suppression or Reformatting? How Turkey’s Century-Old Equation Enters a New Phase.

But closing one chapter doesn’t mean the end of the whole book. The Kurdish issue in Turkey isn’t simply a story of confrontation with the PKK. It’s a complex tangle of identity, citizenship, political representation, and democracy that has dogged the Turkish Republic almost since its founding in 1923.

The Cost of Conflict and the New Reality

Decades of armed conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK have left tens of thousands dead. Yet today’s situation is radically different from what it was in the 1990s.

Kurds are Turkey’s largest ethnic minority, making up an estimated 15 to 20 percent of the country’s population. Over the past decades, the demographic map has shifted dramatically: millions of Kurds have migrated from their traditional homelands in the east and southeast to the largest cities in western Turkey. Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Adana, and Mersin are now home to sizable Kurdish communities. Some researchers — particularly sociologist Mesut Yeğen — claim that Istanbul today is the city with the largest Kurdish population in the world.

This migration has reshaped the political landscape: the Kurdish voice is no longer confined to the southeastern provinces. It now resonates in the major metropolitan areas, influencing nationwide........

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