The nominally-secular Turkish Republic is characterized by a sectarian regime that systematically excludes and discriminates against Alevi citizens. Although there have been various attempts to reform Turkey’s discriminatory system over the course of the republic, none of the attempts succeeded so far in remedying Alevi grievances. The last major reform initiative targeting Alevi citizens was the Alevi Opening, designed and implemented by the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), which had risen to power in 2002, in part owing to its promise to overhaul Turkey's exclusionary regime and discriminatory policies. The AKP’s outreach to Alevis, an ill-designed initiative unaware of and insensitive to basic Alevi sensibilities, was welcomed neither by the Alevis nor by the AKP’s Sunni support base. The Alevi Opening, despite raising expectations at the outset, failed completely, and ended up marginalizing Alevis to an even greater extent. The AKP’s sectarian limits, governance deficit, and lack of conflict resolution competence were the key reasons of the initiative’s failure. Based on a study of the Alevi Opening, including participant observation in some of the deliberations, this paper aims to examine the political, cultural, and religious obstacles that derailed the Turkish government’s Alevi outreach, and the prospects of future reconciliation attempts. As successive Turkish governments and their reform attempts failed to incorporate Alevi citizens in the 1960s, 1990s, and finally with the Alevi Opening, Alevis turned to the exploration of and experimentation with a range of strategies to ameliorate their situation. Especially since the 1990s, a key Alevi strategy has been to establish nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations, namely associations, foundations, federations, and confederations, to attain quasi-legal persona, provide faith services, and to resist Sunni discrimination and assimilation. Through these faith-based organizations, Alevis have established formal and informal negotiation channels with government officials and civil servants to wrestle rights and freedoms from Turkey’s exclusionary establishment. In a political context where Alevis failed to achieve de jure granting of equal citizenship rights, they turned to securing de facto concessions for their faith and community. These makeshift tactics, born out of a learned skepticism towards Turkey’s Sunni-dominated regime, ensure day to day survival for Alevis while also impeding the prospects of future reconciliation attempts. The recurrent failures of reform initiatives over the years have not only exposed the sectarian limits of Turkey’s incorporative capacity but also undermined trust and will required for future initiatives.