What do we mean by "solution of the Kurdish question"?..

As progress is made in the democratic solution process, and as the political ground is enriched with options on which all problems can be taken up and paths to solutions sought, it has become a PKK and BDP classic to be eager to behave in a way that weakens this ground. Since 2004 there has been an increasingly visible parallel between Turkey's democratization and the PKK's escalation of violence and disruption of democratizing steps. This shows the support that both the PKK and its political extensions give to the effort to use the Kurdish question within Turkish politics not as a driving force for democratization but as a sabotaging factor.

The Prime Minister's thesis that "the Kurdish question has been solved" is undoubtedly unacceptable if it carries the claim that nothing remains to be done on the matter. There is more to be done. But if it carries the claim that all the legal, political, sociological and psychological ground has been prepared for approaching this problem, then it is extremely correct.

Moreover, such a statement also displays an approach that invites good faith and constructive approaches in addressing the problem. If a solution to the problem in all its dimensions is wanted, there is no other remedy than this. Faced with such an approach, we have all seen what purpose it serves to exaggerate the matter by stuffing a host of related and unrelated topics into the basket of the Kurdish question in order to argue that the problem has not been solved at all, and evidently we will continue to see it.

Today the examples offered to show that the Kurdish question has not been solved have been reduced to subjects such as the ten percent election threshold, the practices in the KCK cases, military operations and education in the mother tongue, of which, in particular, the first three have no direct connection with the Kurdish question at all.

Let us start from the end. The issue of education in the mother tongue is an important unresolved part of the Kurdish question. A framework in which the right to education in the mother tongue is not recognized will never have ended the problem. However, the attitude the Prime Minister has displayed on this matter is behind the minimum bar for a solution. But the subject is not beyond discussion. The ground has become suitable on the political plane for persuading the parties. The Prime Minister has also stated his view, and in a democracy, even if it is the Prime Minister, no one's word is absolute.

The election threshold issue is a general problem of Turkish democracy, and its target is not the Kurds but all opponents of the governing party. Indeed, as we said earlier, in these elections the BDP has already, by its own particular means, even rendered this threshold invalid. For this reason this threshold works not against Kurdish politics but against all the other small parties, above all the MHP. That the BDP members think of the threshold solely as a measure aimed at themselves means nothing other than, on one side, merely exaggerating themselves and, on the other, a discourse of victimhood converted into political gain. Moreover, the agenda regarding lowering the threshold is not something that cannot be on the ground of democratic discussion.

In the same way, neither the KCK cases nor the military operations have anything to do with the Kurdish question. Any military or armed threat, terror, blackmail, pressure or other quasi-state formations over people in the city are a simple reflex a normal state displays against them. There may be injustices or mistakes in this matter too, but the essence of the matter relates not to the Kurdish question but to law and the security of citizens. The disarmament of the PKK and its participation in normal life (including politics) is also a problem to be solved. The solution of this problem needs to be dwelt on separately, but who said that its solution passes through abandoning the region to the PKK's organized and armed tutelage?

There is no limit to the threat and pressure the KCK practices inflict on the people of the region, and there is a demand for immunity in this regard, which is not acceptable even in the name of the security and peace of other citizens, let alone the security of the state.

The PKK uses military operations as a justification for its own actions, but it can no longer be concealed that all military or civil operations have turned, in complete synchronization with its own actions, into joint operations against Turkish democracy. Dağlıca, Aktütün, Anafartalar. Gedikli, Reşadiye, Kastamonu... You can lengthen the list further. In all these operations, where is the PKK? Where are the forces of the deep state? Where is the BDP? Where, and doing what, are the forces that make efforts to develop real peace and democracy at that moment?

Never mind the PKK; unfortunately, the BDP too roams in milieus not of Turkey's greater democratization as a whole but of the further growth of anti-democratic forces. Everyone among the Kurds who lives with a conscience sees that in these milieus the Kurds will gain not an iota, but on the contrary a wholly different tyranny will be visited upon them.

The PKK insists on an identity between the Kurdish question and its own survival question and wants everyone to consent to this. Yet it is evident that it itself does not believe in this identity: it knows that not even half of the Kurds, who make up as much as 20 percent, will vote for it, and makes its calculations accordingly.

That is why the thought that the Kurdish question has been solved is not even discussed. It angers, enrages, and is even condemned as part of the discourse of denial of the problem. Because in any case no problem remains other than the attitude of those who make a living by presenting the problem as bigger and different than it is.