Questions over Zana’s move

Zana told reporters that she hoped the talk would contribute to breaking the deadlock over the Kurdish issue.

Star daily columnist Sedat Laçiner says Zana had not been expected to say anything new to Erdoğan and indeed nothing new came out of the meeting. Nevertheless, the meeting itself was highly important. Yet, Zana was less bold in the meeting than in her previous statements because, Laçiner says, what Zana said to reporters following the meeting was merely criticisms of the state, mostly demanding an end to the operations against the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), but she never mentioned the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) terrorist acts and its attacks that aimed to sabotage the peace process.

Zana called the government’s reforms regarding Kurdish rights “small steps” and claimed that the Oslo negotiations should be resumed, but she did not say that it was the PKK’s armed attacks that undermined the negotiations in the first place. Zana says “our wounds are still open and bleeding,” yet she seems not to care about others’ wounds. In short, Zana simply spoke like those from the PKK and without empathy. However, it is still good that new actors other than those from the PKK have emerged, the columnist claims.

The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) administration is offended by Zana’s initiative because she made her move without consulting the party, and the PKK leadership is angry at Zana because she asked “How much more blood will be shed?” just as the PKK escalated its attacks, Eyüp Can from the Radikal daily says. Then one feels like asking: Where does Zana take her strength from to break her long silence and to make such bold claims?

Speculation is rife in Ankara and Diyarbakır. Among them are the claims that the government wants to break up the Kurdish movement, that the US is behind Zana and that Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, has a secret plan with Zana. And yet the most important figure in this process, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, seems to have been forgotten. The columnist says a very credible source told him that Zana could not have made such a move without Öcalan’s approval. The rest is uncertain, and yet this is the one thing that is certain, Can notes.