The Kurdish people do not deserve this primitive politics

At the beginning of March the PKK announced that it had ended the "inaction" process, which it had previously declared and which had been in effect for three months. As its justification it cited that the government had taken no step toward resolving the Kurdish question during this three-month period.

Let us say at once that, first, this step must be regarded as an important turning point that clearly shows that the Kurdish question and the PKK question have been decisively separated from each other. Second, this step is an indication not that no step has been taken toward resolving the Kurdish question, or even the PKK question, but on the contrary that the PKK could in no case see the peace process as profitable for itself, and the PKK has clung to a pretext, as it has done before, in order to spoil this situation.

To tell the truth, the peace process is not very profitable for the elites of the PKK, the organization that has been the actor of the politics followed until now, because the absence of conflict greatly reduces the popularity the organization sustains through armed force.

The PKK or the BDP has no project, demand or agenda for resolving the Kurdish question or raising the living standards of the people of the region. Since it has no such agenda, it has nothing it can promise the people of the region through democratic politics. An environment in which peace prevails requires the PKK or the BDP to do the hard thing, that is, to use their heads a little and develop political options for solving the real problems of the Kurdish people, and in an environment where the government is already doing far better in this regard, the BDP sees no chance of competing.

This is precisely why the PKK constantly voices a concern about "liquidation." For the first time since the PKK problem emerged, the government has handled the issue far from the context of public order and has taken up, with a positive approach, every subject that appears to be demanded in the name of resolving the Kurdish question. In an environment in which peace and politics are working, it shows a hope of a much safer and more dignified future for the Kurds, and the more it shows this, the more it destroys the PKK's ground. This is the real reason for the concern about liquidation. Otherwise it is clear that one stage of the solution on the agenda is not the violent liquidation of the organization.

Meanwhile, those who say that no step has been taken in the solution process need only remember that the paradigm has changed, and that is more than enough. We have moved from a stage in which even pronouncing the word Kurdish was forbidden to a stage in which every subject relating to the Kurdish question can be thoroughly discussed on the ground of politics and solution proposals can be made. Indeed, after this paradigm change, every step to be taken (including education in the mother tongue and even a regulation concerning autonomy) is counted as detail.

Today genuine political sides have formed on the resolution of the Kurdish question. These sides are again holding a real debate over the content and nature of the solution. It is not important at all today that one side wants this and another side wants that.

Today the Prime Minister has said "nobody should ask us for education in the mother tongue," or has said something else; in the end, if possible on this ground of debate, the opposite of every thesis has become possible to defend or win within this ground, if not today then tomorrow.

It is also possible for the Prime Minister or someone in government circles to defend a different thesis on these matters; this is within acceptable limits on the ground of democratic politics. But one thing can never be accepted. Nobody has the right to display the audacity to say, "What I wanted was not done, so the sin is off me; I am not responsible for the blood that will be shed from now on."

Of course, whoever displays this audacity, and everyone who receives this audacity with understanding, excuses it, and on top of this very statement directs criticism at the government in the name of neutral mediation, is responsible for every drop of blood that will be shed.

The BDP gathered in Diyarbakır and discussed the ceasefire declared by the PKK. The party's leading figures (such as Aysel Tuğluk, Ahmet Türk, Selahattin Demirtaş and Gültan Kışanak) agreed on and announced this statement: "We do not find in ourselves the right to tell the PKK to continue the ceasefire or to maintain the ceasefire." That a political party that can constantly tell the TSK to silence its weapons cannot tell the PKK to continue the ceasefire is a scandal from whichever angle you look at it. Neither the Kurds nor the level of democratic politics Türkiye has reached today deserve a political party that cannot say this. _An understanding that sees political advancement for itself over the blood of its own voters is the real problem of the Kurdish people. The Kurdish question can be solved from today to tomorrow, but I fear that this primitive understanding that has haunted the Kurdish people, as the problem of the Kurdish people, will continue to exploit the Kurds even more.