By Kasim Ileri
WASHINGTON D.C.
There is no political polarization in Turkey, an official from Turkey's ruling AK Party said at a Middle East Institute conference this week.
A Washington-based think tank, the Middle East Institute, held the conference on Turkey where marking analysts from Turkey and the U.S. brought up issues such as democratization in Turkey, the rift between U.S. based scholar Fethullah Gulen and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the rights of Kurds in the country.
"What we currently witness in Turkey is not polarization but pluralization," said Yasin Aktay, AK Party external affairs chairman.
Aktay said that most of the problems in Turkey stem from "the definition of citizenship" since the foundation of Turkish Republic.
"There was a definition of citizenship which discriminated not only against ethnic minorities but also religous minorities," he said. "The AK Party has changed the discourse and philosophy of citizenship."
"The AK Party, unlike the opposition, which defines it as a security problem, defines the Kurdish issue as a social and political problem," said Aktay.
Touching upon accusations that Erdogan is authoritarian, Aktay said that during the AK Party rule there have been more than four coup attempts. And in 2008, he noted, the party was nearly shut down by the Supreme Court.
Etyen Mahcupyan, a journalist of Armenian origin, said that diversification in religiosity and a change of the Islamic communities marked the last tens years in Turkey.
"Religiosity became more visible in Turkey but there is significant diversification in religiosity which brought about a more elastic and tolerant Islamic community," said Mahcupyan.
The Kurdish insurgent Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) had been in armed conflict against Turkish armed forces in the southeastern Turkey for more than 30 years.
The armed conflict stopped in April of last year after the negotiations between the ruling AK Party government and the Kurdish Workers' Party leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned on the Turkish island of Imrali on the Sea of Marmara.
Erdogan expressed condolences to the families of the Armenians who died during their relocation by the Ottoman Empire in 1915. This step was considered a breakthrough as it was for the first time a Turkish prime minister had referred to the issue in this tone.
Burhanettin Duran, an expert at Istanbul based SETA foundation, said the struggle with the Gulen movement brought about a new theological discourse in Turkey.
Omer Taspinar, a lecturer at National Defense University in Washington, and an expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institute, said that current political polarization in Turkey is cause for concern.
Taspinar said the struggle in the past was between the secular and Islamist camps in Turkey but currently it is within the Islamist community.
"Those who think that Turkey is going toward an authoritarian regime forget that Turkey has never been democratic," he said.
Taspinar also said that if the economy falters, people will vote out the AK Party.
Taspinar said the AK Party did not show tolerance to Gezi protests last June but it has been quite successful in trying to reach a solution to the Kurdish issue in tolerance, which seems like a paradox.
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