Turkey’s Offer to Jailed Terrorist Leader to End Conflict Raises Question of Timing

News Analysis As tensions soar in the Middle East, Turkey appears to be nursing hopes of ending its perennial conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has long been considered a terrorist group by Ankara, Brussels, and Washington. Last week, Devlet Bahceli, head of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and a virulent foe of the PKK, made a proposal that shocked many observers. Bahceli suggested that Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s jailed leader, should be invited to appear before parliament and instruct his group to lay down its arms, thus ending its decades-long violent insurgency against the Turkish state....