Murat Onur

Van Earthquake Exposes Turkey's Ethnic Fault Lines

The recent earthquake in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish province of Van not only caused loss of life and damage, it also exposed the country’s political and ethnic fault lines. In the last two decades, there were ten earthquakes with a magnitude of six or more in Turkey. In 1999, two powerful earthquakes struck the country’s northwestern provinces, causing massive damage, costing billions of dollars and leaving more than eighteen thousand dead. The latest natural disaster ...