Those “good people” should also know this; the steps taken regarding finding a solution to the Kurdish problem and the initiatives to this end are not being received negatively with society overall; quite to the contrary, they are being absorbed rather well. The most striking example of this is the lifting of capital punishment after Abdullah Öcalan was sentenced to death. Furthermore, an establishment of dialogue between the Kurdish administration of Iraq, formal-level relations with Iraq's ethnically Kurdish president, mutual visits and talks and TRT's Kurdish channel all point to the fact that there is societal support for the steps being taken and reactions will remain limited.
However, it may not be possible to manage an overall perception that a solution package (or Kurdish initiative) will come into being as a result of negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Therefore, the main basis for an encompassing “pre-solution strategy” should be political and social reforms. Among these reforms there needs to be an emphasis on equity in constitutional reforms and a clear ban of ethnically motivated discrimination, alongside the “normalization” of Kurdish in the public arena and initiatives to make the language more visible.
However, as contact or negotiation with the PKK has become a prominent an issue, receiving priority (or portraying such an image) will cause the period of resolution to become unmanageable in addition to increasing the “political bill” to an amount that cannot be withstood.
The second leg of a solution strategy requires (or should give the appearance) that while conducting the contact, talks/negotiation, laying down of arms and amnesty aspects of the process, the presidency lead the negotiations and not the government. The stance displayed by President Abdullah Gül thus has been conducive to actualizing this mission. With the president's first tour being to the Southeast, his becoming the first president following Turgut Özal to establish close ties with the people and nongovernmental organizations of the region and the dialogue he has created with Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal Talabani have all helped ease his playing an active role in this period of resolution.
The president, through playing an active role, can also fulfill the desire of Kurdish constituents to face a power which represents the government instead of “sensitive and timid” political actors.
As the main actor or addressor in the Kurdish initiative, the government may enter a phase of unsustainability when one considers the political risks and costs associated with the procedure along with the limitations on the predictability of developments and lack of opportunity for supervision. One of the ways in which the process can be made sustainable is through putting forth an authority that is above politics or the government. This should not mean that the Kurdish problem should be entrusted to powers above politics. On the contrary, I am speaking of a solution strategy in which the will of the government is in full support and legal and political steps are being taken; however, the “ownership” of the solution project is entrusted to the president.
Let me state right away one of the reasons for this. In a Kurdish solution wherein the government appears to be in the forefront, those who don't want to leave the glory of having enacted a solution in the governments hands may sabotage the efforts even if the solution seems very near and possible. In other words, those in opposition to the AK Party will not allow it to experience the honor and benefits of having solved the Kurdish problem. These include the PKK and the DTP in addition to the known opposition to the party, be they organizations, individuals or groups.
Therefore, in order for the period of solution to be managed in a politically risk- and cost- free manner by the government, and, in the event of negotiations being successful, for the “sharing of glory” of having found a solution not to be transformed into a factor for sabotage, it is more appropriate that the president is “shown” as the “address” for the solution.
Benzer Haberler 
