Social development of the Kurds and its implications on national security in Turkey

Abstract

This article analyzes the Turkish political efforts to achieve a developing approach to the social area of the Kurdish ethnicity in southeastern Turkey in order to ensure its national security internally and externally. The plan entails tracing the various stages from which this ethnicity obtained its identity and its political and social gains by measuring some social development indicators and addressing the means of social development policy and the various projects achieved in the region. Thus, This article main focus is to demonstrate the strong relationship between the variables of social development and security, which, in fact, represented the strategic alternative for the Justice and Development Party’s government, similar to previous governments, to deal with this ethnicity’s respective issues within the Turkish national fabric; the same approach was adopted by Turkey in dealing with the external Kurdish border areasin neighboring countries.