The fact that such an incident took place in İzmir, one of the cities with the highest number of migrants from the Kurdish-dominated cities of the East and known for its pro-secular identity, shows how fragile the Kurdish initiative process is and how open it is to provocation.“The attack on the DTP convoy in İzmir is not a good sign, and some residents’ posing with stones in their hands for cameras is not a good sign, either,” says Vatan’s Okay Gönensin, who is very much concerned about the incident in İzmir. About İzmir, he says it has a democratic identity, where the secular and republican sensitivity is high, and it is one of the cities in Turkey where migrating Kurds seek safety and the means to support their livelihood. Gönensin affirms that it is a democratic right for İzmir residents to have their views about social and political developments in the country and to make them public; however, the way that they exercise this right should not be through stoning. He says Turkey has entered a path toward a democratic solution to the Kurdish and terrorism problem; hence, it is very natural that some circles will try to block this process by laying the groundwork for civil conflict. “The trap of a ‘civil conflict’ is always set before the public. Neither İzmir residents nor the DTP should be easily deceived by these traps,” says Gönensin.
Milliyet’s Taha Akyol says it is wrong to evince a hostile reaction to DTP gatherings like the one in İzmir because such reactions make coexistence more difficult by escalating Turkish-Kurdish tension. “What took place in İzmir is just one of the signs of danger,” he remarks.
Yeni Şafak’s Akif Emre says the stoning of the DTP in İzmir is the picture of the way a minority that reduces nationhood to unity of blood and race, far from the values which make Turkey what it is, defends its homeland. “Those who claim that a modern nation could have been retrieved successfully by alienation from the values of Anatolia, which see diversity as a source of richness, should be ashamed of this picture,” suggests Emre.
