Turkey has opened up a path to peace, but chosen to follow a very different route. The government is refusing to make the changes needed for the PKK to enact Öcalan’s call to dissolve. This destructive intransigence is being compounded by continued military violence in Syria, and now by an existential assault on the remnants of Turkish Democracy through the detention of Erdoğan’s main political rival. Peace and Democracy are intertwined, and both are being asphyxiated.