ANKARA \u2014 A historic plan for peace with the Kurds may in the longer term reshuffle Turkey’s procurement plans, officials and analysts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The Kurdish insurgency in most of the last three decades has been the top security threat to Turkey. Naturally, our procurement plans in that period shaped up in line with that threat. An end to asymmetrical war will inevitably alter what <\/span>our military’s priority shopping list,” said <\/span>a senior security official said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An Ankara-based defense analyst said that if the peace plan successfully goes went <\/span>ahead, Turkey’s procurement requirements would gradually shift from gear designed to fight asymmetrical warfare to more conventional equipment and systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “In a way, Turkey’s military planners have felt chained to the Kurdish threat and compelled to buy more to fight that war than procuring for more conventional threats,” the analyst said. “They have tried to maintain a balance between the two, with the asymmetrical threat always coming first. Once they feel unchained of that forceful situation, they will feel freer to procure against more conventional threats.” said the analyst.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n But a London-based Turkey specialist remains skeptical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It will take some time before the Turkish generals and political leaders feel totally free of the Kurdish threat,” he said. “I would expect a kind of very soft, not just soft, landing from spending for anti-terror equipment and systems to spending for conventional warfare equipment.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Feb. 28, the Turkish government and Kurdish leaders announced a landmark deal that could may <\/span>soon end 31 years of violence in the country. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) announced at a joint press conference with senior Cabinet ministers a call by the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for a congress in spring to discuss disarmament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Around 40,000 people have lost their lives since 1984, when the PKK launched an armed struggle for a Kurdish homeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This is a historic declaration of will to replace armed struggle with democratic politics,” HDP’s S\u0131rr\u0131 Sureyya Onder said. He quoted PKK’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, calling for a reinforced cease-fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan said that disarmament of the PKK would boost the process of a democratic solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The announcement came after several rounds of negotiations aimed at a solution to Turkey’s decades-long Kurdish problem, and included a 10-article joint communiqu\u00e9 outlining the new road map to peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The outline addresses a definition and the content of democratic politics; definition of the national and local dimensions of democratic solution; legal and democratic warranties of free citizenship; handling the democracy-security ties during the resolution process in a manner that will sustain both public order and freedoms; developing a pluralist democracy that looks for defining the concept of identity; and defining concepts of democratic republic, common homeland and nation with democratic criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Analysts say that Ocalan’s call means to say that <\/span>the PKK will no longer launch armed attacks inside Turkey and will lay down arms during the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n