Expressing his horror over Öymen’s remarks, Star’s Mehmet Metiner says he wonders how a politician can be so merciless and heartless just for the sake of making politics. “While I was listening to him, I felt ashamed of my humanity and my face went red,” says Metiner, explaining his dismay over Öymen’s remarks. According to Metiner, if suppressing the Dersim Rebellion with blood and tyranny had been a solution, we would not still be experiencing this problem today and would not be faced with the PKK problem. “Who knows, perhaps the way the Sheikh Said and Dersim rebellions were suppressed paved the way for the emergence of the PKK. And the wrongness of trying to suppress the PKK with the same method caused Turkey to waste a quarter of a century. Everyone lost during this process. Turkey lost. Enough is enough. I know grieving mothers are of no interest to you, esteemed Öymen, because you are a member of a party which knows very well how to make mothers cry. But it is not your fault. The real fault belongs to those Alevis and those from Dersim who are still behind you. As long as there are some who applaud you [like the CHP’s Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu who is also from Tunceli (Dersim)], you can say whatever you want,” says Metiner.

Yeni Şafak’s Fehmi Koru says Öymen’s remarks reveal the method the CHP proposes for the solution of the Kurdish problem in the wake of the government’s democratization initiative: elimination, deportation and suppression with bombs. Koru says it is actually the idea that past policies peculiar to history’s circumstances would work today, which makes Turkey’s fight against terrorism difficult. In Koru’s view, the CHP will sooner or later understand that the policies which were resorted to in past situations without heeding mothers’ tears will not be a solution for today’s problems. “As a former diplomat, Öymen speaks after weighing his remarks. What if a more straightforward politician had spoken, then you would have been completely surprised. No matter what the CHP does, don’t be surprised,” says Koru.

As a journalist who interviewed two people who had witnessed the Dersim tragedy, Sabah’s Mahmut Övür says the terrible memories of those people are still fresh in his mind. What surprised Övür most is the fact that the CHP’s Kılıçdaroğlu, who was born in Dersim and is supposed to know the tragedies left behind the rebellion, applauded Övür’s statements. Recalling Kılıçdaroğlu’s statement which said, “If Kurdish citizens in this country have a problem, they should come and tell us about it and we will take the necessary action,” Övür says Kılıçdaroğlu actually acted in line with his attitude.