Efforts to blur the message will come to nothing

We said that the carriers of the message are part of the message. The people who will meet with İmralı are not the kind of people who would add no content to the message. In particular, the uproar made over who will go to İmralı seems to have also exposed a fight over a kind of right to interfere with the message. The demand to go to İmralı is of course not merely an expression of emotional attachment to or longing for Öcalan. Those who want to go to İmralı are not aiming only to satisfy their yearning for Öcalan; evidently, there is a prestige that taking part in these meetings would produce, and a message content that this prestige would produce. A rivalry or insistence over this is the kind of thing that offers very telling lessons about the communication of the message.

After the BDP's second visit to İmralı, the picture that the visiting delegation conveyed about the meetings with Öcalan did not remain a simple, plain account of the meetings at İmralı. The way the deputies relayed these meetings, both when speaking into microphones and on television programs, did not hold back from adding elements peculiar to each of them, drawn from their broader political visions or personal characteristics. Up to here, this was undoubtedly expected and could not be seen as a problem. Yet with the leaking of the meeting minutes to the press, another element was added to the message coming from İmralı. The media channel chosen to determine the content of the message was not left alone. By leaking the meeting minutes, a new move to sabotage the process was pulled off.

Whether the leaking of the meeting minutes had an intention such as sabotaging the process is actually not very important. While the effect created by the leaking of the Oslo meeting minutes is still fresh in memories, and almost no one doubts what that leak meant, no one can say that this time it was simply a spontaneous and innocent disclosure. But it has already been seen that this disclosure, just as in the Oslo process, may lead to beneficial results rather than the intended bad ones. The Oslo minutes were evidently leaked by those who wanted to sabotage the process, and by this means the aim was not only to disrupt the process but also to eliminate both Öcalan and the government, who had taken the initiative in this process. Because it had been calculated that knowing the content of these meetings would create outrage among both Turkish and Kurdish nationalists.

Yet, outrage aside, it was realized in this way that an expectation of a solution prevails in the public opinion of both sides, and that the margin of what can be done for this expectation is far wider than supposed. In fact, this alone was the kind of thing that would encourage further steps toward a solution from now on.

Indeed, although the publication of the latest meeting minutes initially made supporters of the solution uneasy, no one should doubt that it will have the same effect. No one doubts that it carries an intent of sabotage; moreover, it is quite clear that it is a sabotage of the kind of the Paris murders, the Diyarbakır funeral ceremony and the Sinop provocation, each of which aimed to be a Habur. But all these sabotage attempts have not created a Habur effect in any way; on the contrary, they have had effects that strengthen the process further. Perhaps a certain level of awareness that has been acquired about such provocations renders them ineffective.

Contrary to the BDP members' attitude, from the first moment, of refusing to accept any responsibility for the leaking of the meeting minutes, it was soon understood that the minutes had leaked through the BDP channel. But the fact that it leaked from within the BDP does not show that this leak was the BDP's official stance. The more plausible possibility is that elements within the BDP who oppose this process may have been set in motion. Even this possibility may serve as an early warning for everyone to act more cautiously in the later stages of the process. This should be regarded as a development that increases the security of the process.

Even the serious softening in the tone of BDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş, who had made an utterly unnecessary and wrong "two equal peoples" remark against the Prime Minister's approach likening Turks and Kurds to flesh and fingernail, shows that the process itself inspires a fitting tone. Developments in this direction probably show that as one advances in the process, it becomes ever harder to hold back from it. His words acknowledging the sabotaging effect of the leak, and in response saying "we will not be in an approach that would put in a difficult position a prime minister who says he is ready to drink hemlock poison if a solution will be reached," have truly been one of the approaches that has given me the most hope in this process.

Everyone who sincerely wants the process to work must weigh every word that comes out of their mouth with great care. Because as we approach a solution, tension also rises, and under this tension the cost of making mistakes becomes heavier. The pressure created by this tension is itself a good omen.