“We are on the eve of a solution of the Kurdish problem. Serious decisions will be made in the coming period and concrete steps will be taken,” comments Sabah's Emre Aköz, who thinks a solution to the Kurdish problem has become indispensable for Turkey. Regarding the warnings of some analysts who say Turkey should not miss the opportunity presented towards a solution of the Kurdish problem, Aköz says nobody should worry as Turkey will make use of this opportunity no matter who wants it or not, and if some emerge who want to ignore this opportunity, they will not be considered of any importance and the solution process will continue. He explains why this issue will definitely be solved by saying: “[This is] because the EU and the US want a solution to this problem. How can this problem remain unresolved after US President Barack Obama spoke in the Turkish Parliament and shook hands with the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party [DTP] leader Ahmet Türk? The Europeans will spend billions of dollars to carry the resources of the Middle East to Europe through the Nabucco pipeline project. Turkey will be a party to this project, but since Turkey does not grant the Kurds rights they deserve and since it does not meet their expectations, a group of militants coming down from the mountains will blow up this pipeline and interrupt the energy flow. To assume that the US and the EU will tolerate such a situation is total recklessness.” Radikal's İsmet Berkan is also hopeful about finding a solution to the Kurdish problem as he believes one should be optimistic if a statesman is saying the solution lies in expansion of democratic rights for Kurds. He says that for the first time, a government seems to have understood that the core of the problem -- after a bloody 25-year-long conflict and various failed attempts to solve it -- is the equality issue. “As a writer who has been saying for years that the Kurdish problem is an equality problem and that Kurdish riots will continue in Turkey until Kurds feel themselves to be equal citizens, I automatically feel optimistic about a solution when I hear a government official saying, ‘The problem is a problem of inequality, we see the solution in the expansion of democratic rights',” says Berkan, who also notes that there is nothing bad about looking at the half-full side of the glass.
Star's Mehmet Metiner, a Kurd, is also hopeful about finding a solution to the Kurdish problem after Atalay's statements and agrees that the problem is in essence one of inequality. “Denial and the assimilation policies of the old Turkey, which were based on tough and authoritarian methods, led to the birth of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK] problem. The PKK fed from the Kurdish problem, and now it has turned into an independent problem. The new Turkey has abandoned denial and assimilation policies and has opened the way for democratic and cultural reforms. Now it is the turn for the elimination of all bans on the Kurdish language and the granting of rights to Kurds living in European democracies. When seen from this perspective, the Kurdish problem is entirely a democracy problem,” says Metiner.
