Will the HDP pay the penalty of the spoiled PKK?

In the 7 June elections, the HDP pushed against the threshold on the gas it got from Cihangir-Nişantaşı high society, but it was quite clear that this gas alone could not have taken it over the threshold. It was quite clear that the real big steam came from the pressure the PKK exerted on the Southeast's votes, from the wave of terror it unleashed in that region. This seizure of territory, met with patience for the sake of the PKK's resolution process, awakened in the people of the region a serious sense of having been abandoned by the state. A considerable portion of the votes that went to the HDP expressed a kind of punitive reaction against this abandonment.

The election campaign was run everywhere, openly and in its most effective form, by the PKK and KCK units, undoubtedly with methods peculiar to them. Within this method there were threats of every kind, pressure, kidnapping, extortion, racketeering.

Before the election, those who expected the HDP to end the war and to surpass the PKK either did not see this relationship sufficiently or, though they knew it, were optimistic that as a result of the election the PKK would be sidelined as an armed force. The expectation that, since the election would provide democratic-political representation, it would lay down its arms of its own accord is, in theory, not an entirely empty expectation. But the question of why the PKK, whose history and style are known, would give up in one stroke its tutelage and rule over the HDP after having indebted it so much has no answer of the same optimism.

Meanwhile, let us recall that the Cihangir-Nişantaşı liberal-leftists, who entered a race to give the PKK advice even when the resolution process began, did not encourage it to speed up laying down arms. On the contrary, by whispering into Kandil's ears the misgiving that they had not obtained a proper gain, they openly counseled it not to agree to lay down arms so easily.

How can we now expect the same circles to count the representation power the HDP obtained after the election as a sufficient gain for the PKK and to give the PKK the same advice?

That is why the PKK's not laying down its arms and always holding the power to impose sanctions on Turkey with its terror was not at all contrary to the foresight of the circles that gave the HDP that support in the elections to begin with.

Frankly, the PKK did not want to leave the joy of victory in the 7 June election results, its gain, and the representation power that will arise from it, to the HDP and its deputies, each of whom was gathered from a different tendency. Now everyone asks what the PKK intends by sabotaging the resolution process in this way, but no rational assessment leads the course of events to a result in the PKK's favor. Yet the more visible thing is nothing other than Kandil's arrogance and swagger of power. Cemil Bayık, who declared as early as 11 July that the government's road and dam construction initiatives would be perceived as a threat to himself, said he regarded this as grounds for ending the resolution process. From that day on, attacks on the construction machinery working at dam and road construction sites quickly increased. These conditions entirely strip the HDP members, who gathered the Kurds' votes with the promise of a better life for the Kurds, of the ability to represent the Kurds. Because in the end these terror acts, by destroying the business world's fields of activity, first of all worsen the Kurds' living conditions. The representation capacity left over from the PKK for the deputies elected from the HDP lists is thus again entirely destroyed by the PKK. In this case, the HDP's ability to show a presence and open a political space for itself depends only on its showing a stance that proves its existence against the PKK. Everyone asks whether it has the courage to show this stance; in fact, every move it is subjected to by the PKK itself also offers the HDP an opportunity, but who intends to make use of these opportunities?

Since the HDP counts its existence as owed to the PKK, not only in the elections but in general, it is above all unrealistic to expect such a move from it. Demirtaş was able to carry out the mission of "not letting Erdoğan become president" with a great show of courage, but the courage was not his own. The mission he took on does not give him the courage, nor the maturity, to stand against the PKK.

The PKK, which does not shrink from showing itself on every occasion as the HDP's guardian, has clearly come to love this role very much. Right after the elections, comments began to come one after another from those in Kandil about the coalition talks. They behaved as if it were they, and not Demirtaş and the 79 deputies, who had been elected. Meanwhile they also showed that they would not lay down arms. It was clear that part of the psychology behind these behaviors rested on the election results, but a more important part came from their supposing that they had secured the support and endorsement of the coalition forces in Syria, that is, the US. By taking the contract for the war against ISIS, not even the hope of being released from the status of terrorist, but the calculation of securing immunity as a US hero.

Yet this calculation was wrong from beginning to end. A terrorist who fights a terrorist does not cease to be a terrorist. The struggle against ISIS neither justifies nor suffices to camouflage the terror carried out within Turkey against the Kurdish people themselves. The violence applied against the Kurdish people's most natural rights to life, property, intellect, lineage, religion, roads, dams, civil life and freedom of choice is not different in nature from that of ISIS. Even if you clamorously pin the accusation of supporting ISIS on Turkey, this is how much connection that accusation has with the facts. Turkey demonstrated most clearly that it does not discriminate between terrorists, and opened a front against both ISIS and the PKK at the same time, in a context in which no one can dispute its rightfulness. Let those caught red-handed in the position of supporting terrorists think about the rest.