‘Substantial amounts of Turkey’s resources are being waisted because of the ongoing conflict’ Arti TV Odak with Ezo Ozer – Izzet Akyol as Guest Speaker 27.04.2022

Researcher Izzet Akyol, who wrote ‘The Impact of Four Decades of Conflict on the Economy of Turkey’ named report for the Democratic Progress Institute (DPI), attended Arti TV’s programme. He summarised the report as an intention to understand the amount of capital loss in Turkey between 1985 and 2020. He stated that: ‘I calculated around 160-billion-dollar loss; however, with inflation rates kept in mind, this number corresponds to 230 billion dollars. Overall, Turkey lost 1% in an average of its economy every year.’ Moreover, he underlined that he made these calculations very conservatively. In other words, it is possible that the amount of loss is much more in reality. Additionally, this number illustrates just the economic side of the loss. We can observe many other sides of the Kurdish problem in our day-to-day lives. First of all, regardless of their party affiliation, the Kurdish people lost trust. In the Kurdish regions, socioeconomic development –politically, culturally and economically– is immensely affected.  Izzet Akyol concluded that what is lost is lost, and we will continue to lose much more in current methods. Instead, we need a peaceful, political approach to the situation. The Kurdish situation needs to be resolved via dialogue.

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