30 July 2009 / BUGÜN GÜLAY GÖKTÜRK,
Peace is an objective that can be reached through a combination of many factors, including the right policies, clever diplomacy and appropriate international conditions.
Apart from these factors, a peace process can go ahead only if the frames of mind of the warring parties and their people are ready to accept peace. We are in a time when everyone calling for the end of war should prepare their public psychologically for every step to be taken related to ending war. What is more important is that each party should behave in a way that takes into consideration the psychological state and sensibilities of their interlocutor without humiliating and irritating it. During such a sensitive process, the most dangerous behavior is attempting to extort the opposite party. The statement, “If you do not meet our demands, we will knock the hell out of you,” is the most irritating statement no matter how it is expressed, explicitly or implicitly. The fact that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is attending peace deliberations with its guns, ready to use them as a means of coercion, disrupts the peace process despite the fact that they have not used their guns yet.
