In the meantime, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) is constantly voicing its discontent with the progress of the initiative, and the General Staff's latest statement, saying operations against the PKK will continue until the last terrorist is killed, seems to have created disappointment among the southeastern public. It seems as if the momentum of the initiative has been lost and the public's support for the initiative has declined. While some analysts agree that the initiative has hit a deadlock mainly because of the PKK and the DTP's actions, others say that the democratization initiative is at a point of no return and Turkey will settle this problem regardless of daily challenges. “What is the meaning of this complicated picture emerging today? Has the government's democratization initiative failed already? No, it has not. The efforts to find a permanent solution to Turkey's Kurdish problem are not dependent on daily news, ups and downs and momentary challenges,” says Akşam's Aslı Aydıntaşbaş who is still very hopeful that the government's democratization initiative will succeed. In her view, Turkey is at a point of no return at the moment; it has no option to take a step backward from the initiative and regardless of whether Ankara wants it or not, it is not possible for Turkey to return to a world of bans where the existence of the Kurdish identity was a matter of debate. “There is no such world left now. The vision suggested by the government is so indispensable for Turkey that even if the [Justice and Development Party] AK Party does not undertake this initiative now, another party will carry it out tomorrow, because the ‘strike and kill' era has been closed. The flow of history is in this direction,” says Aydıntaşbaş.
According to Milliyet's Fikret Bila, the obstacle before the democratization initiative is not opposition parties such as the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), it is the DTP and PKK front, because their actions are inconsistent with their statements, which call for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem. “The inconsistencies of this front have reached a point where they can no longer be ignored,” he says, recalling the DTP and PKK front's earlier pledge that the PKK would not clash with Turkish security forces until Sept. 1. Nevertheless, Bila says acts of terror never stopped in the Southeast and DTP leader Ahmet Türk has begun to demand the cessation of operations against the PKK and has presented this as a pre-condition. As another inconsistency, Bila mentions the DTP and PKK's so-called commitment to the “one nation, common homeland” idea and how their actions contradict their statements. “They say they have no problem with the ‘one state, one homeland, one flag and one official language,' but the pictures emerging in the country's Southeast are not like this. Neither at demonstrations nor at funerals is there the slightest trace on their part representing the Turkish Republic. Symbols of a completely different country and state are seen. By saying that ‘a solution is very close and very simple,' they impose psychological pressure on Ankara,” says Bila.
