The next day, two more soldiers were shot dead in an attack on a military post in Siirt, bringing the number of soldiers slain by the PKK to 40 since last month. We lack reliable information as to how many PKK militants have been killed in counterattacks by the security forces, particularly in the pounding of the Kandil Mountains by the Turkish Air Forces. All that is clear is that Turkey is continuing to bleed in a most painful way, clouding all hopes for domestic peace any time soon.
Various theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain why the PKK is escalating violence. One theory shared mainly by pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) representatives is the failure by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to make progress towards resolving the Kurdish problem and particularly in negotiations with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan regarding his proposal to end the violence. Another theory maintains that the PKK is escalating violence because it is intent on creating an autonomous region in southeast Turkey, not for the Kurdish people, but for itself. Yet another theory claims that the recent PKK attacks have been organized and staged by militants of Syrian origin, without the knowledge or approval of PKK military leadership. Still another theory is that a radical faction within the PKK continues to be committed to the original separatist, pan-Kurdish agenda and is attempting to provoke an all-out Turkish-Kurdish war. I do not have sufficient information that would enable me to judge which of these theories stands closer to the truth.
This is all I know: Kurdish ethnic nationalists may be intent on creating a united and independent Kurdistan through armed insurgence. They may, in accordance with this agenda, be aiming to make the western, Turkish-majority regions of the country unlivable for Kurds currently living in those regions. The goal of Turkish ethnic nationalists, on the other hand, may be to cleanse Turkey of Kurds, subjecting them to forced deportation under the slogan “Love it or leave it.” The vast majority of both Turks and Kurds who have not lost their minds and their humanity, however, demand that violence and the bloodshed it causes comes to an end and that the problem be resolved not by war but by talk, keeping the territorial integrity of the country intact.
As the vast majority of both Turks and Kurds, with our humanity intact, we should not allow the escalating violence to blind us to reality. Violence only breeds further violence. This is true for the PKK as well as the security forces. The AKP government should as soon as possible drop its display of confusion over what needs to be done to solve the Kurdish problem and engage in dialogue with all concerned parties -- including its own Kurdish members of Parliament and all the opposition parties and particularly with the pro-Kurdish BDP -- and seek a settlement on the basis of a “broad social consensus” as rightly demanded by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).
Following the 29 Kurdish insurgencies that have been carried out since the founding of the republic -- the last of which claimed a total estimate of 40,000 lives -- the vast majority of Turks and Kurds who are still thinking clearly should be able to see that the PKK is not the cause of the Kurdish problem but a product thereof. The problem, in fact, is essentially the denial of Kurdish identity and the non- recognition of the Kurds' democratic rights. There is no way to solve the PKK problem without the resolution of the Kurdish problem. Even if the unlikely is achieved and the PKK is suppressed entirely, another violent organization may form in its place so long as the Kurdish problem remains unresolved.
In order to resolve the Kurdish problem, what Turkey really needs is to renew itself on the basis of liberal democratic principles. If Turkey is to preserve the principles of “one flag, one nation, one homeland and one state,” as in the latest statement by the National Security Council (MGK), the state, the nation and the citizenship of Turkey has to be redefined. The constitution to be adopted should define the state not as a “Turkish state” but as the “state of Turkey” and the nation not as “the Turkish nation” but “the nation of Turkey.” The definition of the citizenship of Turkey should refrain from making any reference to any ethnic identity.
Turkey needs to be restructured not as a “nation-state” but as a “country-state.” This restructuring would actually mean a return to the founding philosophy of the Republic of Turkey as established at the end of the War of Independence. This war was not fought by the “Turkish nation” but by the “nation of Turkey” -- by the various ethnic groups that made up the population of the country at the end of World War I -- that resulted in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. And the state they founded was not a “Turkish state” but the “state of Turkey.”
