Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of the Republic of Turkey, has received widespread international criticism for his government's treatment of Turkey's Kurdish ethnic minority. Recently Erdoğan has opposed Sweden and Finland joining NATO, claiming that they are "harboring terrorist organizations", a reference to alleged members of the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party. As Turkey's demographics shift, what will the potentially changing role of Turkey's Kurdish citizens mean for the country's political future?
Ambassador Michael Gfoeller shares his perspective on Turkey's demographics, arguing, "How does this massive increase in the Kurdish population over the next generation square with Mr. Erdoğan's dream of creating a an Islamist Republican in Turkey? It is not going to work out very well. Within a generation, Turkey will be pretty much evenly divided between largely secular Kurds and a Turkish population, which is probably 50%, secular and 50% religious in orientation. And so it's going to be a deeply divided society in which half the population will not speak Turkish as its native language. So will Turkey survive in its current form, either politically or geographically? I don't know. But it'll if it does survive, it'll be undergoing massive internal political stresses. And the only way to deal with those political stresses will be to grant absolutely equal status, the Kurdish population, which means it won't be a Turkish Republic anymore. It'll be a Turkish Kurdish Republic. And this is inevitable because of demographic trends."
This interview was recorded in 2021.
