Kurds try to unify to outline their demands

The workshop was expected to produce a final statement on Sunday, which would include the conclusions and suggestions coming out of the workshop. However, this document had not yet been made public as Today's Zaman went to print.

The most divisive and perhaps also uniting theme of the “Toward a Settlement and Unity on the Kurdish Question” workshop was on whether a viable settlement to the Kurdish question would need to involve Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging a nearly three-decade-long separatist campaign. Öcalan is currently jailed for life on the prison-island of İmralı in the Marmara Sea.

The workshop comes on the eve of an expected announcement by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan later this week. Erdoğan has not given any details about the content of his planned proposal, but sources close to the government say improvements to laws limiting the use of Kurdish language in education as well as more opportunities for full or partial amnesty for some PKK militants will be included in the package. The higher-ups in the PKK might avoid punishment by being exiled abroad under Erdoğan's plan, sources say. The plan is also expected to include opening new Kurdish language departments in universities and restoring the Kurdish names of villages and other settlements in the Kurdish-dominated Southeast, amendments that would remove some impediments in the way of private television stations broadcasting in Kurdish and even including Kurdish as an elective course in Turkish schools.

Meanwhile, Öcalan recently announced that he will be sharing his own “roadmap” for a solution. Öcalan will make his solution public on Aug. 15, the anniversary of the PKK's first armed attack in 1984.

Observers expect him to include demands for more cultural and linguistic rights -- perhaps even recognition of Kurdish as an official language -- and giving more power to local governments, particularly in the region.

Observers expect Öcalan to promise that the PKK will lay down its arms if his demands are met. He might even order PKK militants in Turkey to withdraw to the organization's bases in northern Iraq.

This weekend's workshop saw not only a discussion on expressing Kurdish demands in a unified voice, but also one of the rare instances where the positions of the PKK, Öcalan and the Democratic Society Party (DTP) -- accused by the Turkish state of being affiliated with the PKK -- were questioned in relation to a settlement for the Kurdish question. One participant noted, “The Kurds attending this conference actually ‘tried to challenge each other's memorized, repeated opinions'.”

“Representatives of every segment of Kurdish society are being nice to each other, which is something that rarely happens,” Şah İsmail Bedirhanoğlu, the chairman of the Southeast Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (GÜNSİAD), told Today's Zaman.

Bedirhanoğlu was not the only businessman attending the workshop. Chairman of the Diyarbakır Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DTSO) Galip Ensarioğlu was one of the hosts of the workshop, along with former chairman of the Diyarbakır Bar Association Sezgin Tanrıkulu, his successor Emin Aktar and human rights activists Yavuz Önen, Yusuf Alataş and Yılmaz Ensarioğlu.

Academics including constitutional law expert Hüsnü Erdem, sociologist Mesut Yeğen and political expert Vahap Çoşkun were present at the meeting in addition to writers Faik Bulut, Jaklin Çelik and Bejan Matur. Local religious leaders and representatives of Kurdish groups based on religious ideas raised their ideas in the two-day meeting, as well. Representatives of the Yezidi and Aramaic populations attended, too.

The participants of the meeting were told by Serkan Akbaş one of Öcalan's lawyers, that he was closely watching the meeting and discussions to benefit from the ideas which might come up during the discussions. But some participants did not seem pleased with this attitude.

"Why we were invited to this meeting, is it because we are a part of this congress or is it just in order to be able to say, 'We asked everybody'?" a participant questioned.

The meeting turned into an effort at reconciliation between the “moderate Kurds” who are underlying the ethnic bases of the question and want a democratic solution to the question and the pro-PKK and pro-DTP circles. Some of the participants raised their concerns over the totalitarian approach of the mainstream Kurdish movement in general.

Politicians from the DTP, among them party Chairman Ahmet Türk, Emine Ayna, Aysel Tuğluk, Gülten Kışınak and Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir, also listened to criticism of their party by the participants.

"What can the DTP suggest for people like me, who distance themselves from the PKK but voted for the DTP? As long as the DTP cannot act independently from the PKK, its contribution to a solution of the problem will be very limited," said Ruşen Aslan, a former member of former Kurdish movement Rızgari.

Other participants recalled the statement of another PKK leader, Murat Karayılan, who had said that if the government did not want to engage the PKK as a counterpart, they could enter into dialogue with the DTP, and if not with the DTP then with intellectual leaders.

"But the DTP is insisting on Öcalan; it is hard to understand why you are not considering yourself a counterpart but trying to show someone else as the linchpin," charged one of the participants.

During the discussions it was also underlined that while there is currently a suitable atmosphere for finding a solution, the competition between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the DTP as the two main parties in predominantly Kurdish-populated areas might be the heart to the solution since both parties hesitate to take steps which might strengthen the other.

"Such a competition might harm the solution process," said Ensarioğlu.

Some of the participants also noted that such a meeting should have been held earlier and should have included the participation of other political movements.

In the meeting's opening remarks, Tanrıkulu, one of the organizers of the workshop, emphasized that some of the reasons for the protracted nature of the Kurdish question are a lack of dialogue, the rejection of the pluralism and inner undemocratic mechanisms within civilian Kurdish groups and movements. He underlined that first the guns should be silenced and then various Kurdish groups should agree on basic principles.

According to him, these basic principles should include the abolishment of all obstacles to freedom of expression and assembly, the usage of Kurdish language at all levels, including in political environments, and the improvement of inner democracy within different Kurdish groups.

Tanrıkulu also suggested that the “armed wing” of the Kurdish political movement should prove its strong commitment to peaceful solutions while the state should open the way for democratic and peaceful politics.

Baydemir, in his opening speech, argued that any solution should listen to the demands of the Kurds and be based on dialogue with their representatives. He also suggested that since the Kurds were subject to discrimination in the past, an affirmative action policy may be necessary to undo discriminatory effects.

"In all segments and levels of society, there is a consensus that now is the time to solve the Kurdish problem. We should be able to turn this into a long-lasting peace," Baydemir said.

Hatip Dicle, a DTP deputy and one of the hosts of the meeting, suggested that even the Nabucco pipeline project itself, which will transfer natural gas from the Middle East and the Caucasus to Europe, is a good enough reason to solve the Kurdish problem now.

He argued that the state is planning to ignore Öcalan and his road map, and called this a mistake. "To ask the PKK to lay down its arms unilaterally is not a solution. Terror operations should stop, too. To insist on operations can only lead to conflict and hostility among the people," he said.