The hostage in Öcalan's hands: the Kurdish question

It is a fact that the most important factor giving urgency to the need for a "democratic opening" today is not the democratization of Turkey but the ending of the climate of terror. That is why, whatever it is called, everyone knows that the real aim is "stopping the flowing blood." Because this is so, persuading the PKK, as one of the most important actors shedding blood, to lay down arms is very important.

But on precisely this basis, the PKK's laying down of arms and the solution of the Kurdish issue have for quite some time been separated from each other, and indeed have increasingly moved far apart. Because the more positively the government approaches the solution of the Kurdish issue, the more the PKK begins to be seized by concerns about its own institutional existence, and points to its own recognition and the payment of a price for its own effectiveness, rather than the solution of the Kurdish issue, as the priority problem.

However positively the state or government side approaches the solution of the Kurdish issue, and however sincerely it shows at this point that a century-old, obsolete paradigm of denial and annihilation has been abandoned, this will not be persuasive for the PKK, as an organization that has created its own status quo and conservatism, to lay down its arms. Indeed, since the solution process getting under way would weaken the PKK's ideological reasons for existence, the more serious the business becomes, the harder it will become for it to hide its reluctance on this matter.

Therefore, the solution of the Kurdish issue today is one matter, and the liquidation of the PKK or bringing it down from the mountain is another. So perhaps whatever the government is going to do regarding the democratic opening, it should do without taking the PKK as an interlocutor, and conversely it should carry out its work on the diagnosis and solution of the Kurdish issue as separately from this problem as possible. Undoubtedly the distance covered in each will have direct or indirect effects on the other, but this effect may not always be a positive one.

That is why it was not unexpected that, as the seriousness of the political will in the democratic opening emerged, the DTP, which can assign itself no mission beyond representing Öcalan, began to point to bars that cannot be cleared. The DTP members have long since missed, by a tangent, the goal of Turkey's democratization and of Kurds finding their place in the system and society as equal citizens. They have no plausible proposal on the realization of this matter within the limits of the possible. As they say amen to prayers that cannot come true, they show not that they are more willing in this business, but only how unwilling, even opposed, they are.

Still, it must be noted that there is no uniformity within the DTP on this matter either. Chairman Ahmet Türk's outburst at the Diyarbakır Rally, saying "let this problem be solved, let the blood stop, and let God take my life the next day," resonated as a sober and sincere cry focused on the solution of the problem.

At the same rally, the speech by Diyarbakır mayor Osman Baydemir, extremely high in empathy and careful, showed that there is a sufficiently strong desire and sincerity for a solution.

By contrast, the other DTP representatives' persistence in the attitude of "we don't know, Apo knows" means nothing other than denying themselves as politicians. It is an undeniable fact that Öcalan somehow has a strong influence today among a considerable segment of Kurds in the Southeast. But there is another fact that is likewise undeniable: Öcalan is not the only influential actor in the region or among the Kurds. Therefore it is unacceptable for him to be presented as the representative of the Kurdish people and the sole interlocutor on the Kurdish issue.

Frankly, if his influence derives from his being able to command an armed force, and if his being taken as an interlocutor derives only from this, then our peace, our democracy, and even the whole of the Kurdish issue are hostage in Öcalan's hands.

On the other hand, it is also a fact that Öcalan, who has been in isolation on İmralı for 11 years, did not carry out this hostage-taking operation alone. It appears that those who, when he first emerged in the late seventies, helped him build himself as the sole representative of the Kurdish movement by liquidating all the Kurdish movements are again at work. By this means, they want to seat him in a position of representation that would take hostage not only the Kurdish issue but the future of all of Turkey.

What is worse, if Öcalan represented only himself, and therefore had whatever disposition he wanted over his own organization, he could perhaps be taken as an interlocutor in some way, but there is also no guarantee that he is really able to run his own organization.

Is it really possible for Öcalan to give promises he can keep?

This is the real question on this subject, and for that reason, rather than Öcalan, one must understand the intention of those who made him the absolute leader of the Kurdish movement, to the point where he could end the war with a word from İmralı.