He heads the most powerful Kurdish clan unchallenged, as his father did before him.
Such efforts helped AK to overtake the main Kurdish party in the south-east in the 2007 general election.
Recent government concessions such as the opening of a Kurdish-language television channel should gain credit with the EU, as will recent signs of a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.
Turkey's government, too, seems readier to accept the reality of an autonomous Kurdistan in a federal Iraq, even though the recent bombings are bound to stir anti-Kurdish feelings anew.
Yes, my friend... I am Kurdish... five children... my wife very ugly.
Yet in the neighbouring province of Mardin, Kurdish tribes continue to harass the handful of Christians who remain.
It is also likely that the atrocities will tempt Turkey's government to clamp down again on non-violent campaigners for greater Kurdish rights. That would be unwise.
Among the issues was Iranian support for Iraqi Kurdish rebels.
The Kurdish districts of Damascus and Aleppo have been blockaded by the Syrian security forces.
And this week the Kurdish government dramatically halted co-operation with DNO after dealings in its shares were temporarily suspended by the Oslo Stock Exchange over alleged irregularities.
The most obviously sectarian leftover is the biggest Kurdish block.
The Turks' targets were Kurdish fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have used bases inside the semi-autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq to launch raids into Turkey.
The Turks and the Iraqi Kurds are setting aside their ey now imports oil from Iraqi Kurdish plans to open its first consulate in Erbil, the regional capital.
In exchange, the Iraqi Kurds are squeezing the PKK. An Iraqi Kurdish satellite-television channel, Kurd Stat, even carries Turkish-language news broadcasts.
Over the years Turkey's prosecutors have banned dozens of parties (mostly Kurdish ones).
Locals dialling his emergency hotline are greeted in Kurdish.
Snowy Sulaimaniya in the Iraq's northern Kurdish region. The city seems a million miles from Baghdad.
In the south-east, AK's efforts to strike a deal with Iraqi Kurdish leaders to disarm rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) holed up on the Iran-Iraq border are encouraging.
Their campaign will not end, they say, until BDP prisoners are released, an amnesty is given to PKK fighters, education in Kurdish is permitted and the 10% threshold is lowered.
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