Because at the end of the day, the pkk itself will start saying, you know, okay, if you want to go and get rod car and you need the ypg support, they are going to say if you continue to back turkey and its actions against us as well, were not really sure we can do that. So i think there is a great tupbd here for the United States. I think it has leverage over turkey too. If it didnt, turkey, for instance, would not have opened the corridor to koe ban ya or end lock. And it prevail in ankara as well. Thats a a hard assumption to make these days, unfortunately. And what happens after the elections will be key. Indeed, whether we will have elections at all. If we do have elections and they are held free and fairly, the question becomes what kind of government will we have . Clearly a coalition between the ak and the mhp will be very, very unhelpful. So well have to hope, first of all, we do have these elections, they will be fair and free, that the hdp will be able to participate, the people in the southeast can go to the ballot box. What comes out of it will hopefully be a coalition. The ak will continue to be the top party. And it will somehow make a deal. They will cut losses and make a deal with the chp or maybe even the htp, though thats harder to imagine. Thank you so much. Thank you. We saw 1991, 2012. Im going to talk about the elections and the current crisis. In fact, actually build on both what was talked about. Clearly things people to be spinning out of control as you look at the events in recent time. It is not just the violence we have seen between the pkk and the government. We have seen quite significant pkk attacks that have create said casualties among Security Forces. But the government is now responding, especially a government that is technically an hrubgz government. It is is not a party government. It is supposed to be somehow independent. You have seen this government is taking various strict actions. We saw the stuff thats going on in gisa. They have been under curfew. They lifted it. Then rein stated it. Today the announcement that a whole great number of television stations that broadcast kurdish. One of the great aspects of the forms introduced after the Peace Process started that people could actually have television and radio stations and publish and broadcasting kurdish. You have newspapers being blocked. You cant read online anymore because they have been blocked without any kind of order by judge or by court. So you have essentially an escalating situation in turkey that is becoming more and more between i wouldnt say between turks and kurds, though it is significantly between turbgs and kurds. But between the government and the president and a significant segment of the population. Thats what it boils down to. I would say that at the root of this is essentially the failed Election Results of june 7th. For the First Time Since 2002 it lost its majority. I believe for two reasons. One is is because it was very clear that the president wanted to transform the turkish political system from a constitution system to maybe a french system. There was a great deal of resistance. This was not a kurdish turkish issue. But it became a way for people to express their opposition to mr. Add juan. To make sure the occurredish body would cross the 10 threshold. Two things we saw happening in these elections. One is is that a significant number of people called white turks, liberal turks who live in istanbul. Those who wanted to make sure add juan doesnt get his majority for the Kurdish Party. The other reason is most of the conservative kurds who traditionally always voted for the akp, this time defected. And i think they have seemed to have defected for good. When you look at the kurdish historically, most of the kurds have always the declining percentage i would say voted for akp or predecessors, if you think about the other islamist parties that existed in the 1990s. But there was a break. This 2015 elections was a case where we saw these conservative kurds change side. Whats interesting of course is is these kurds are very closely aligned with mr. Pwaou zani in the krg. Despite his efforts to get the kurds to vote for add juan, they didnt. Why didnt they do . I would say theres a one word answer for that and that is kobani. In kobani, when the turkish government made it clear they would love to see kobani fall to the hands of i. S. And be saved, that was a break for the kurds and turkey and add juan. In a way i think that is the breaking point when it comes to kurds and add juan. Look, every reason why the kurds should be thankful to add juan. Add juan has done more in pushing the ideas that kurds and turks can live in one country, and a Peace Process. Even if he did not mean to, if his heart was not in it as i think people now think is the case, the fact of the matter is the major threshold was crossed. That threshold was talking to the pkk, talking to the enemy. In that sense its an important threshold. Conservative kurds would have voted for mr. Add juan and his party. He came on television with great glee made it clear he wanted koe ban cancer to fall. And the fact that the United States had shifted sides and helped the syrian kurds gave the kurds a great deal of selfconfidence. But once Election Results became obvious and mr. Add juan, technically hes a constitutional president. He is not supposed to take part in elections, he did it. He basically took the turkish constitution and participated. Which is all the more reason why this election result was devastating to him. Because despite his personal involvement, he was campaigning for the akp saying he wanted 400 seats. He still lost. So this defeat is more his defeat than the akp defeat. People can say it was overshadowed by mr. Add juan. So almost immediately he started to maneuver in which there would be another election. If you cant win this time, maybe he hoped he would win a second time. He maneuvered the process in a way a that that is exactly what happened, that turned out. There will be a new election november 1st. In between we have now suddenly an increase in the violence between the state and the pkk. Now that to me is quite puzzling in the sense that look from a pkk perspective there was absolutely no reason to escalate the process. Here you have hdp into parliament. It has 80 seats in parliament. It has as many as the nationalist party that came in third. The nationalist lost to one member of parliament because they kicked him out. So hdp has more seats than the parliament. Technically you would think any Peace Process, and if its going to have real legs to it, needs to be handle through parliament, through democrat lickly members of par la. So why start the violence. The only thing one can assume is there is a way in which mr. Add want has in mind, thats the hdb. This is a hypothesis. I havent asked the pkk leadership and called them up on the phone and said is that what youre trying to do . But the point im trying to make is that given the logical situation in a way there are two culprits here. Both add juan and pkk essentially benefit from this violence in the sense that if it undermines the hdp, and it is is between a rock and a hard place as they say in the states, it is room to maneuver has been severely diminished by events, by now, by the way, doesnt necessarily mean the hdp has lost support. All polls indicate, to the extent that turkish polls are accurate. And i think they are this time. The same organizations predicted the previous Election Results, essentially predicting the same ruts, there will be changes in the Election Results. Therefore it is quite possible that come november 1st, that the same result will emerge from the elections. Thats one hypothesis. Now, if the violence increases, if we saw yesterday, if this kind of violence calls for martial law, curfews, essentially the breakdown of law and order in the southeast where hdp wins with overwhelming majority. The town of jess you, the town was just moved by the minister of the interior. She won her seat by 83 vote. This is not significant reservoirs of support. And i would suspect given the way the state has been behaving, a number of votes are going to increase. So the only way you can push hdp is make it impossible. If he loses another, a clean november 1st election, it will be two major defeats for him. He can create a coalition. And we mentioned hdp is is one possibility. Possibly the best way for him to both maintain control and go after the pkk. But if it goes if hdp is kept below the 10 threshold, then we have an arguments that you have in urban areas organize ld but not centralized occurredish youth groups that are going to take matters. That is a tkafrpbgous proposition for add juan. Turkey is going to be amazingly unstable for turnish stability, investment, tourism. You name it. Add juan is a real gamble. For someone who doesnt believe in gambling, he is taking a huge gamble here and i dont understand why. As i said, the pkk is also the unknown and unclear actor here. This couldnt have come at a worse time, as Angela Merkel said, for the United States. Clearly the pressure on the United States is increasing from the turkish side. This week was a major nato conference in which the turkish chief of staff came outdkne÷ sty and said we are fighting three terrorist organizations at the same time. Isis, the pkk, and the ypg. It is the same organization that the United States is giving arms to. The ypgs air force, gun forces. We are working with with the only group in syria we can work with to push back isis. This is actually becoming is going to get more severe and create serious dilemmas for the United States. Let me stop here. Great. Thank you so much. Im going to open this up for questions quite briefly. But first let me pose a question of my own. Were in washington, d. C. Speaking to an american audience. The United States has dealt with less than democratic kurdish governments. It dealt with turkey dealing with the occurredish question. These arent new problems. Why does it matter for u. S. Sps to resolve this upheaval in turkey right now . The United States has been a steadfast ally when it comes to pkk of turkey. We have never veered from calling the pkk a terrorist organization. Always supported the turks in their fight against the pkk. What is different this time is essentially isis. Here we have different perceptions of isis if you want. For the United States, isis is the most important threat. It is more important than assad, as we know. It is more important than anything else. Isis has to be pushed back, defeated, eliminated. And for that, thats number one priority. For the turkish government, the priorities are much more different. It is priority number three. Priority number one are the kurds and assad. And im not sure which one comes first. One can make an argument for which is more important. I suspect the kurds are for more important. They do not want to see the syrian kurds. Its something. Theres another aspect which we havent talked about yet. Thats the relationship between the United States, turkey, and the kurdistan region in iraq. And in there you find that turkey and the krg are much more in line with each other. The turks support the krg, baghdad, oil exports. Even despite americas displeasure. But the krg is also important to the United States. So the destabilization of the region is not good for the United States. Moreover, fighting isis requires the kurds and the pkk are part of the pkk. Complete attention. Complete focus. And this is undermining that. Interesting. Do you want to weigh in . I think that okay, the pkk is labeled a terrorist organization. But that doesnt alter the fact that it is is probably the most influential Kurdish Movement globally. So you have to deal with that. Not only are they influential in turkey, they are influential in iran. They are influential obviously in syria. And they do have influence in iraqi kurdistan. Which mr. Owe banny is acutely aware of. Its a difficult balancing act. On the one hand to maintain the strategic relationship with turkey, which is key to his agenda, which is independence, and underpinned obviously by being able to sell his oil. And you cant do that without turkeys help. But on the other hand, the fact that ordinary kurds are feeling angry about what turkey is doing to the pkk, the kurds and what isis is doing on the other. And the fact that the pkk seems to be the most effective fighting force against isis. So bearing all of that in mind, i think its time to deal with the pkk. And i think, as i said in my little talk, that this is a great opportunity. And i think the fact of the pkk now having this experience of running an area inside syria is having a profound effect on them. Its civilianizing them, if you will. Theyre having to actually were run towns and deal with the issues of ordinary people. You might argue they already have that experience in turkey whether hdp is running municipalities. That is different people doing it. Its the p can kk itself directly who is. So this is an opportunity. This will provide incentives for them to move a away from violent politics. But for that to happen, you need to have some kind of accommodation between them and turkey. And i think this could be a winwin. You could also factor in the iraqi kurds. Because they need to find a way of cohabiting with them as well. And this is getting rather difficult. And this is where the americans, who have this leverage, because they are the primary protectors at this point to be able to somehow bring all of these sides together. I know its a lot to ask for. But at least one should try. I have an international realistic perspective on the question question. When we think of political ambitions, we look at eastern europe. The role of ukraine in air defense. Take that consciousness and move it south, and you have another russian gee political in the middle east which it sees as kind of an underbelly in terms of the western expansionism. So essentially russian perception of its defense of its own territory also has a middle eastern dimension. The access is a National Security issue for russia. Now, in that context, russias iran and turkey policies are quite similar to each other. Russia wants iran and turkey, not chaotic in the accepts that they are falling apart but not strong that they become impediments to russia iss reassertion of its own strategic interlap. Russia, and to a certain substance, iran, have controlled the eastern region. When you, for example, retired not active because they wont tell you. Retired military people, senior people, especially those who were in the field in the 1990s, they would plain about iran and how they interacted in the 1990s. The same is true for russia. So in that case pkk and the kurdish question, if its unresolved, it destabilizes turkey. A destabilized turkey is not good as a u. S. Ally in terms of what the United States is going to do. Thats why the United States has an interest in stabilizing turkey in that regard. Great. Thank you so much. So is im going to open this up to questions. I would ask that you identify yourself and any organization youre affiliated with. And i will insist there are questions involved. Can you explain why some are im a turbg and they have disappeared from turkey and all of them have been like, you know, taken away in favor of the democrat. Thank you. Im not sure i completely agree with your premise that they have somehow been removed. I mean, just recently laila zhanna came out and said she was willing to go on a Hunger Strike if need be for this violence to end. Im not sure i completely understand your question. Hes a talented politician. Anyone familiar with the workings of the movement broadly speaking knows that in fact, individuals dont matter so much in the end. And this is a collective movement. And on the one hand, you have the people in europe, the hdp, important in terms of raising money, organizing and public relations. And you have abdallah urge hand. The most puzzling question today is why he has been silenced. Yes, sir . Washington correspondent. I have two questions. Either of you can answer. Its a twofold question. The first one, as you all know, a lot of turkish and western experts before the elections, they encouraged people to vote for hdp believing that that will produce a more democratic turkey. I want to know what went wrong. Why didnt you see a more democratic turkey. They fail to become more democratic. Theres morin stability. My second question, in the possibility of snap elections, why am i wrong to be that the turkish voters have only two bad choices. Either vote for add juan, make him an absolute leader or vote the same way they did and produce the outcome we have. Thank you. In response to your first question, why we had the unstable situation, its clear. June 7th was a wonderful day of all of us in turkey. We have the Kurdish Party overcoming this terribly undemocratic, unfair threshold. Yes, principlely with the votes of kurds but also like my mom, a hardcore sec lift lady who voted for the hdp. I expected her to say because i hate erdogan so much. We must make sure he doesnt get his majority. This lady whose name i wont reveal. Shes be upset. Was saying, no, we cant keep the kurds out. We cant keep the kurds out of parliament. This is bad for our country. People understood two years after no conflict, peace is a great thing. Mothers werent having to find people in the army to make sure their sons wouldnt be placed in the southeast where they might die. People for the first time were tasting the fruits of peace. And they wanted that to move forward. It was a great opportunity. And if this government was sincere about solving the kurdish problem, they would have embraced this. Because there was obviously now the public consensus is for moving forward. This was an endorsement of the Peace Process. No. Mr. Erred juan said democracy working was a bad thing for democracy. Now, i would im not sure i understand that beyond what we have all comes do realize that mr. Erdogan wants absolute power and he was denied it. Perhaps you want to answer the second question,