Of course, Kurds, Turks, intellectuals, pundits, analysts, civilian activists, other politicians.What is different this time on the Eastern Front, Turkey's bleeding sore called the Kurdish problem for more than a quarter of a century, or perhaps, if we count its uneasy background, for as long as the existence of the republic?
The difference is the wisdom. People, otherwise completely out of tune with each other's mindset, have left behind robotic talk. Probably the truth lies in what President Gül told my colleagues while in Damascus: There is a consensus in the upper echelons (in Ankara). So he said: “I have been [actively] in the state system for 10 years. Civilians, the military and others share a common understanding, and more than ever before, they are in coordination and cooperation. The era of ‘Let them take steps and I will put up obstacles and damage them' is finished. The energy is concentrated.”
Başbuğ's extraordinary calm, when addressing journalists hours after the massive mine explosion that killed nine soldiers, was also remarkable. He did not hesitate to call the PKK rebels “human beings” and gave updated figures on the decades-long bloodshed, shifting from his predecessors' often emotional bursts.
Forty-thousand Kurds (both PKK and common citizens), more than 5,000 security personnel, more than 6,000 civilians (Turks). More than 4,000 Kurds affiliated with the PKK in jail.
The deadlock has equaled more and more bloodshed.
“I was frankly worried that the AK Party [Justice and Development Party] would win key cities like Diyarbakır and Van,” a colleague of mine told me recently. “I was worried that bloodshed would turn into carnage.” Who knows, perhaps he was right in the implication that the unchanged political equation in the predominantly Kurdish part of Turkey is to serve as an element of changing direction.
Karayılan, the PKK's top commander, was cautiously offering a “silent gun” opening. One would argue, as I often do, that the spiral of trigger-happiness was seen before as a movie, that the military and the PKK rhetoric proved to be illusory to stop the violence altogether.
But fatigue, apparently, is much more dominant than ever.
Turkey's political elite has come to the realization that the international, regional and domestic factors do not leave Turkey any other option than seeking an internal reconciliation and reconstructing “peace at home,” as Atatürk outlined.
But, the question is what to do and how to do it.
There are innumerable proposals and solution models. Most of them have been, at least as mental exercises, exhausted. Turks will not suffer to find the proper ones to implement.
But implementation must follow the warring sides' steps. What should the PKK do? It must be given time-limited guarantees by Ankara or third parties that if it pulled out its rebel units from Turkish territory, it will be left undisturbed and unprovoked, but isolated, deep in Iraqi Kurdistan. What should the Turkish army do? It must give orders that as soon as the pullout is understood to be completed, it will cease all operations in the troubled provinces and stop air raids into the Iraqi territory. This two-sided “understanding” is the key for the inclusion of the political representatives of the Kurds and eventual steps for meeting the peaceful demands of the local population.
What are those? Respect for the mother tongue… Renaming the villages and towns in Kurdish, giving the municipalities power to change street, etc., names into Kurdish, allowing Kurds to speak in Kurdish in prisons and communicate with the bureaucracy in their native tongue, founding Kurdish institutes in academia, stopping the harassment of politicians when they speak their mother tongue, endorsing Friday prayers in Kurdish, plays in state theaters in Kurdish, reassuring a free print and audiovisual Kurdish media, mines must be cleaned, all the nationalist slogans on the mountains must be eradicated and an apology to all Kurds for the “mass sadism” employed during the military regime in the '80s must be issued. One may go on and on. Until amnesty at a later stage…
These are the steps that must be taken. One by one. Not too slowly.
But, how? The AK Party can never do it alone. This is the most explosive material of domestic politics and must not be used as populist leverage for another election. What the political actors will do, therefore, will be their final test. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is probably never going to be anywhere in this.
Thus two actors remain: the Republican Peoples' Party (CHP) and the Democratic Society Party (DTP).
The key actor is the CHP. That there are fresh signals coming from leader Baykal is encouraging. The more “wisdom” for a solution is heard from “people of center” (as İlter Türkmen and others), the more pressure Baykal feels to make choices. In recent days, he has said he can discuss issues related with the native tongue and cultural identity. The heart of the matter is whether the CHP will turn it into realpolitik.
Because, if it does, then it will be the DTP that will feel the pressure. Its maximalism (despite its rhetoric otherwise) has already worn out by the international/regional factors. By rolling the wheel ahead, therefore, Ankara will remove the most annoying element before burying this conflict in the ground.
