On Sunday, Turkish newspaper Habertürk reported that a meeting between the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and the operational leadership of the PKK yielded positive results for the Kurdish reconciliation process. Rumors had been circulating for the past week that the organization was preparing to announce that it renounced armed struggle. More recently, Abdülkadir Selvi, who serves as Ankara bureau chief of Yeni Şafak newspaper, voiced concrete details about the ongoing effort. At this point, we have established that the PKK has agreed to withdraw its fighters from Turkey while turning down the request to renounce violence citing attacks against Kurdish elements inside Syria and Iraq. The government and parliamentarians from the HDP will soon make a joint declaration, Turkish media reported. Ahead of Nevruz 2015, the latest developments represent a major step in the right direction – ending the PKK's armed struggle against the Turkish state.The main benefit of the Kurdish reconciliation process has been to facilitate dialogue on a range of chronic, age-old problems in Turkey. Over the past years, the country has begun talking about former taboos including the ill-treatment of non-Muslim citizens during the Republican period, discrimination against the Alevi community and even conscientious objection to mandatory military service. In some areas, Turkey made significant progress. In others, such as LGBT rights, there is great room for improvement. With the Kurdish reconciliation process having reached a certain point, the time has come for the citizens and government of Turkey to tackle the most pressing issues related to violence – issues that the country did not find any time or energy to discuss at great length due to the urgency of the PKK's atrocities.First and foremost, urban violence and gun control in the predominantly-Alevi neighborhoods of major cities including Istanbul's Okmeydanı and Tuzluçayır in Ankara – which traditionally served as a safe haven for radical leftist groups such as the DHKP-C– remains a pressing problem for Turkey. The government has already taken steps to start a national conversation about discrimination against the Alevi community and the need to institute equal citizenship for all. A key component of this effort, however, is to ensure that the nation's Alevis feel included. We simply cannot afford to let a religious group that comprises 15 percent of the population think that they need weapons to protect themselves from the state and fellow citizens.Another key issue is violence against women – an area where heavier penalties did little to curb senseless acts of violence against a group comprising half the country's population. Last week, the brutal murder, rape and burning of 20-year-old college student Özgecan Aslan shook the nation. Her body was discovered two days after being reported missing. Police discovered that the assailants included the driver of the bus Özgecan took home, his father and one of his friends.Yes, there will always be sexual predators. But we cannot hide behind this fact or only pretend that the broader culture of manhood, which actively encourages men to engage in sexual harassment and violence, needs to change. Over the past days, there has been no shortage of capital punishment advocates and the staunchest opponents of the Justice and Development Party government try to pin the blame on the opposite camp. What we need to do, however, as decent human beings is to make the proper treatment of women cool again. To stand up for the fellow citizen who faces discrimination for who they are. Such heartbreaking crimes take place everywhere, but there is no better place to start than here to patch up our wounds and kick violence out of Turkish society for once and for all.