ISTANBUL  –  The sight of Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) walking across the floor of the Turkish parliament on October 1 and shaking hands with politicians from a pro-Kurdish party, DEM, was an unlikely one.

The MHP leader, a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been a vociferous opponent of Kurdish demands for more rights. He has referred to Kurdish politicians as “terrorists,” accusing them of links to the PKK, an armed group that is listed as a “terrorist organisation” by Turkey and the West. He also called for DEM’s predecessor to be banned.

The promise of new peace negotiations between Turkey and the Kurdish fighters who have waged a 40-year rebellion was called into question last month after an attack on an aerospace plant near the capital Ankara.

Bahceli later said his gesture was a “message of national unity and fraternity”.

Weeks later, he raised the possibility that PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence since 1999, could be granted parole if he renounced violence and disbanded his organisation.

And then, the very next day on October 23, an attack on the Tusas aerospace and defense company, which killed five people and left the two assailants dead, threatened to reverse the baby steps that had been taken.

Tusas manufactures civilian and military aircraft, including unmanned drones that have been crucial in combating the PKK, which has fought a war against the Turkish state since the 1980s, as part of an effort to claim more autonomy for Kurds living in southeastern Turkey.

The PKK claimed responsibility for the Tusas attack two days later. Its statement said the raid was not related to the latest “political agenda” but had been planned long before because Tusas weapons “killed thousands of civilians, including children and women, in Kurdistan”. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Turkish soldiers carry the coffins of Zahide Guclu Ekici, Hasan Huseyin Canbaz and Cengiz Coskun during their funeral in Ankara. (AP) …[+]