On June 28th and September 24th, Democratic Progress Institute (DPI) held two Peace Tables titled ‘Peace and Counterbalancing the Ruling Power in Turkey’ and ‘Constitutional Priorities in the Kurdish Case and Confidence Building Steps in Constitution Making Processes.’ The events were the second and third meetings of DPI’s series entitled ‘Conflict Resolution and Constitution-Making in Turkey,’ a series that aims to understand the role that constitution-making processes can play as part of possible conflict resolution efforts in Turkey. The series was designed in conjunction with DPI’s research report with the same title that was published in January 2022, co-written by constitutional law experts Prof Dr Fazıl Hüsnü Erdem, Prof Dr Sevtap Yokuş, Dr Vahap Coşkun and Dr Zeynep Ardıç.
The DPI meeting entitled ‘Peace and Counterbalancing the Ruling Power in Turkey’ on June 28th focused on the governmental system debate in Turkey, which continues to be a pressing and consequential subject in the political sphere. Keynote speaker Professor Sevtap Yokuş shared her insights on the new governmental system and discussed issues pertaining to the balance of executive power.
During the meeting titled ‘Constitutional Priorities in the Kurdish Case and Confidence Building Steps in Constitution Making Processes,’ keynote speakers Vahap Coşkun and Zeynep Ardıç discussed the contentious issue that need to be addressed in relation to the Kurdish Case during a constitution-making process and the preliminary steps that needs to be taken before starting a constitution-making process in order to gain the support of the society.
These Peace Tables form part of a larger and continuing series of activities titled Legal Foundations of Peace, planned in the context of the project Voicing Peace and Fostering Inclusivity in Turkey, supported by the Irish, Norwegian, and Swiss governments.