Now we’re talking

Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu took the initiative and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, responded positively and invited the head of the main opposition party for a talk at the AKP headquarters.

For European observers with little knowledge of Turkish politics, this seems to be the most logical thing to happen. In most parliamentary democracies, in situations like this, with a persistent problem that keeps occupying the national agenda but for which none of the political parties has been able to find a lasting solution, it is obvious that the opposition will try to force the government to be more active and the ruling party will react favorably to these initiatives because they know they need to create a broad consensus to break the deadlock. Not so in Turkey. At least not until last week.

We could make a long list of previous attempts to come up with a solution for the Kurdish question by then ruling parties that were frustrated and fatally undermined by the then opposition. The latest example being the Kurdish initiative of the AKP in 2009 that was lambasted by then CHP leader Deniz Baykal as an effort to split the country and give in to terrorist demands. Because the AKP was not courageous enough to carry on with the plans, another possibility to get rid of Turkish national problem number one was missed.

This time around, things seem to have changed, and Turkey’s political actors are performing in a way that looks familiar to everyone accustomed to democratic systems based on finding compromises among key players. Let’s hope President Abdullah Gül is right when he called the meeting between Kılıçdaroğlu and Erdoğan proof that Turkey is a country that is capable of solving its problems through consensus. The reactions of most commentators were positive, and many hope that, at last, a new and modernized Turkey is able to unite across ideological borders. In order for that to happen though, I suggest that all the main players involved make some extra efforts.

CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu owes everybody an explanation for the timing and especially the reasons behind his initiative. His proposal is strong on general considerations and procedures but does not mention any concrete measures. Three years ago his predecessor opposed all elements of a likely resolution. Has the CHP changed its opinion on these basics, and if yes, why? Are there no longer any red lines? These kinds of clarifications are necessary at the start of the process to prevent unpleasant surprises during undoubtedly difficult and sensitive talks among political opponents.

Prime Minister Erdoğan should be clearer on his willingness to return to the kind of reforms that seem to have been deleted from his nationalist-conservative agenda since the last elections. On the Kurdish question, the AKP has resorted to old style security-based policies like massive arrests of Kurdish activists, local politicians and journalists. In order to convince skeptical Kurdish politicians to join the initiative, the ruling party should do its utmost to at least suspend the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) operations. If nothing changes on the ground, the “Social Consensus Commission,” which has been suggested, will soon look like a cover-up for unchanged repressive policies that will make a final solution even more difficult.

Both the CHP and the AKP should be clear that they will not allow their plans to be hijacked by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Looking for consensus is fine and worthy of praise, but it is an illusion to think that a party based on uncompromising resistance against any substantial reform will all of a sudden radically change its position. For understandable reasons, the MHP won’t, and therefore, they should not be put in a position to frustrate this potential breakthrough. The same applies, by the way, for the parliamentary commission looking for a consensus on a new constitution.

It is easy to be cynical about last week’s meeting and see it as a clever but unsubstantiated move by the CHP to outmaneuver the MHP in the constitutional process and an easy escape for the prime minister from the Uludere disaster he got himself into. The more positive scenario is that both the CHP and the AKP have understood that Turkey has come to a point where both parties need to act to prevent the country from being stuck with a problem that, if kept unresolved, will stop any further democratic progress.