Taking the risk of oversimplification, there may be said to be basically three approaches to the problem. According to Turkish nationalists, Kurds, like all other ethnic groups that make up the population of Turkey, have to be assimilated into the Turkish nation, giving up their ethnic and cultural identity. And if they refuse to do so, some of the Kurdish-majority provinces may separate, and Kurds living in the rest of the country would have to (voluntarily or forcibly) leave. According to Kurdish nationalists, Kurds, who live in four neighboring countries in the Middle East, constitute the only people in the world without a state of their own, and the main goal should be to (one way or another) unite under a single flag. Turkish and Kurdish democrats and liberals, on the other hand, maintain that the problem can be solved by recognizing the Kurds’ linguistic and cultural rights, and by substantially decentralizing the over–centralistic Turkish state.The third approach has so far prevailed among both the Turks and the Kurds. This is why, despite resistance coming from nationalists on both sides, efforts to solve the problem by consolidating a liberal and pluralistic democracy have been continuing at least for the last two decades. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a speech he gave in July 2009, declared that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government had started working on what he called the “Kurdish opening,” which is an initiative to solve the Kurdish problem. It was later also dubbed the “Democratic Opening” or “project for national unity” by the AKP government.
The start of the “Kurdish opening” or initiative, however, can be traced back to the early 1990s, when the first pro–Kurdish political party (People’s Labor Party [HEP]) was founded, and the ban on the Kurdish language was lifted, allowing for publishing of books, periodicals and music in Kurdish. The initiative surely became more palpable after the process of accession to the European Union began in 1999 and the coming to power of the AKP in 2002, which promised to pursue EU membership. Between 2002 and 2004, in the context of reforms to fulfill the Copenhagen political criteria of the EU, broadcasting in and teaching Kurdish became possible. The state of emergency that was in force in the Kurdish-majority east and southeast regions since 1987 was lifted in 2002. Extrajudicial killings in the concerned regions (suspected of being part of official policy in the 1990s to suppress the armed uprising led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK]) ceased. A policy (which unfortunately is still not fully achieved) of “zero tolerance of torture” was adopted.
Despite being banned by the Constitutional Court one after the other for separatism, beginning in 2004 pro-Kurdish parties came to power in many of the municipalities of the Kurdish-majority provinces. The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) began broadcasting in Kurdish even if for a limited time. In a historic speech in Diyarbakır, a major city of the Kurdish-majority region, in August 2005, Prime Minister Erdoğan admitted to “mistakes and sins” of the state committed towards its Kurdish citizens. From the middle of the decade public investments to facilitate socio-economic development of the region substantially increased. The government adopted a policy of appointing to the region governors and other public officials respectful of the Kurdish identity and culture, which has immensely helped in winning the hearts and minds of the locals. Villagers who were forcibly evacuated from their rural settlements in the previous decade were allowed to return and indemnities were paid to them and to those who suffered from violence in the region.
A pro-Kurdish party achieved in the general elections held in 2007 forming a group in Parliament for the first time. In 2008 Ankara radically changed its policy towards and initiated close relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq which has resulted in increased economic interdependence across the border. Last March a Turkish consulate was opened in Irbil, the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan.
After a long interval, mostly due to military coup attempts and attempts at banning the governing party by the Constitutional Court, reforms started to catch up in early 2009. TRT started a television channel which broadcasts in Kurdish on a 24-hour basis. This signaled the practical, if not the official, end of the policies of denial of Kurdish identity. Soon after, the ban on Kurdish was eliminated in prisons. Security checks on roads and bans on grazing livestock on the mountains were also gradually lifted. Last February the Diyarbakır Municipal Theater started staging performances in Kurdish. Last April, the election law was amended to legalize campaigning and distributing campaign materials in Kurdish. The Artuklu University in Mardin began last summer courses to train teachers in Kurdish. Last July the Anti-Terror Law was amended to grant amnesty to children sentenced to prison for taking part in pro–PKK demonstrations.
My argument is this: In the words of Prime Minister Erdoğan, “Denial policies have come to an end, and the genie is out of the bottle.” The Kurdish or Democratic Opening or Initiative, which began 20 years ago, is flourishing and will continue until Turkey consolidates a liberal and pluralistic democracy and thus solves the Kurdish problem.
