The government-opposition summit

 The resolution of this issue depends on reinforcing human rights and liberties, a better protection of minority rights and on making sure that everybody benefits from equality and justice.

Nevertheless, one mustn’t forget an important fact: While working towards solving the Kurdish issue, Turkey must continue to fight against terrorism, through military and non-military means. Implementing reforms in order to improve political and social rights can present some risks for the governing party. First of all, people of Kurdish ethnicity will not automatically vote for the governing party even if the latter does what it takes to make the Kurds equal citizens of this country.

The second risk is that the governing party may lose the votes of people with Turkish nationalist sensibilities. The third risk is making conservative people, who constitute an important part of the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) electorate, angry. Every step aimed at protecting the rights of the Kurds, to ensure civil freedoms and equality will naturally provoke important debates about the rights of many other people, such as Alevis, non-Muslims, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people (LGBT), abortion-rights activists or people who want to consume alcohol.

So we may simply ask why the AK Party would take such risks, given the fact that in the last election half of the population voted for the party. Nevertheless, we’ve reached a threshold where it is no longer possible to stay immobile. If courageous steps are not taken quickly, every actor in the country, which means not only the government but also the opposition, the Kurdish political movement, pious and secular people, will lose. Perhaps that’s the reason why the prime minister has made surprising statements about abortion, religious education and about building gigantic mosques: He wants to make sure pious people are still on his side before taking care of the Kurdish issue. Nonetheless, the trust of the pious people is necessary but not sufficient: The prime minister has to ensure secular people trust him, too.

One of the things that must be done in order to gain their trust is to shake the hand of the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), so the prime minister did it. The cooperation between the AK Party and the CHP is of course not enough because the representatives of the Kurdish political movement were not there. But now, at least, the prime minister is sure that his actions will not be sabotaged by the main opposition party. In order to convince the CHP, the government will probably take new measures to address long detention periods and the deputies who are still in jail.

Both the government and the main opposition know that handling the Kurdish issue is risky for everyone. That is why it is important that they come together to discuss what measures should be taken. They have another practical reason to work together on this subject: They are aware of the presence of diverse social and political powers active in the Kurdish regions. These powers are not only the Kurdish political movement or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), but also several diverse religious movements.

The governing and the main opposition parties have decided to act together to restore the state mechanism in southeastern Turkey and to fight against these local social and political groups who seem to be or at least who would like to replace the Turkish state gradually. Let’s hope the improvement of human rights and liberties is the basis of their agreement.