The crisis provoked by the AKP government’s policies in Turkey is deepening, write Murada Kenda and Comerd Sexo in ANHA. 

The Turkish lira keeps falling against the dollar and the euro every day, while tradesmen are actually beginning to find it harder and harder to keep their business opened. 

People are having more and more difficulties in finding work which makes living in Turkey very complicated. 

Unable to come up with viable proposals to address the deepening crisis, the AKP government has decided to call early elections, hoping to hide what is already impossible to hide. 

Rashad Kaymaz is a member of the Cizre District Cooperative Association Board. He talked to ANHA about the economic crisis and pointed out that the occupation of Afrin and the ongoing operations in South Kurdistan are greatly affecting the crisis in Turkey. 

Kaymaz argued that “Turkey has progressively found itself more and more isolated. On one hand because of the military operations carried out in Afrin and South Kurdistan contributed to increase military expenditure, while on the other hand Turkey progressive alienation from democracy has meant a change in international relations”. 

Erdoğan got all power in his hands 

Kaymaz also noted that President Erdoğan has actually governed the economy as he governed the country. “A single-man regime meant that the President only surrounded himself with trusted people very closed to him. Look at Turkey's energy Minister - he said - he is Erdoğan’s son. The president needed to keep everything in his hand in order to continue in power. He has no proposals to solve the economic crisis and so far he only tried to address the issue with short terms solutions”.

Noting that the Turkish government has been repeating thousand times that in fact there is no economic crisis in Turkey, Kaymaz said: “It appears the AKP thought that by denying the crisis, this will magically go away. But everyone in Turkey knows the extent of this economic crisis. When Erdoğan understood that he was cornered, he called for early elections. But this crisis has worsened in the past three years and the situation is now really serious”.

Kurdish problem must be solved to help economy

The only way to properly address the economic crisis in Turkey, said Kaymaz is “to finally give democracy a chance. Only with the democratisation of the country, the economic problems could be solved, because democratisation also means working for peace. And this means addressing the Kurdish question in the right way, which is to say working to find a peaceful solution to it. If we solve the Kurdish question in Turkey - Kaymaz said - we will make significant progress in many areas, included the economic one”.