The government and representatives of the Kurdish political movement in Turkey have announced a 10-point plan that each side hopes will usher the country into safer waters regarding the peace and reconciliation process between the Turkish state and militant Kurds.
It was a unique event as the government officials and Kurdish politicians of Turkey sat side by side to announce the new phase in the peace and reconciliation process at the historical Dolmabahçe Palace. They also informed the press that PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence for terrorism and treason on İmralı Island, called on PKK militants to convene a congress in the summer to declare they are laying down arms and ceasing armed action.
Some reacted to the announcement with euphoria as if everything in Turkey has been solved and the process was completed. Critics lambasted the announcement saying it was an absolute sell out to the Kurds.
Neither those who rejoiced nor those who claimed catastrophe were right. In fact, what was announced was a set of ideas and notions that will now be debated and eventually become clear articles in the negotiation process. At the moment the set of proposals are vague and rather flexible. They are open to interpretation and thus remain vague.
What is important is how the final agreements will be implemented. Turkey has seen the Kurds make promises and then we have also seen how these promises have not been kept, like the withdrawal of all PKK militants from Turkey's mountain hideouts to the PKK bases in the Qandil Mountains of Northern Iraq.
The Turkish people are happy that the PKK terrorist activities have died down but they are deeply concerned that the PKK has come down from the mountains in the past two years and have created a foothold in the cities and townships of southeastern Turkey. Thus when the Kurdish politicians called for street protests to criticize the governments alleged inactivity over the ISIS attacks in the Kurdish town of Kobani in Syria across the Turkish border, we saw the Kurdish militants wreak havoc in our streets and cause huge material damage as well as human loses and all this created deep concern in the Turkish public opinion. Turks are now suspicious that too much is being given away for too little.
What is sad is that the Kurdish politicians of Turkey should be helping the government to show that this is not the case and yet we are seeing some of them openly supporting the militants as they interpret the announced 10-point plan to their benefit and thus come up with excessive demands.
What the Kurdish representatives said while sitting with the Turkish government officials at Dolmabahçe Palace is not what their colleagues are saying in public. For example, while the announcement suggested that Kurdish militants would lay down their arms in Turkey, the Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) Co-Chairman Selahattin Demirtaş says Turkish forces also have to lay down their arms. He seems to put the Turkish Army and the PKK in the same category. There are several other examples.
It is also a fact that the PKK leadership in the Qandil Mountains still does not see eye to eye with Öcalan, thus they are not openly challenging his supremacy but, with their actions, they are disregarding him.
It is time the Kurdish politicians and militants of Turkey got their acts together and decided what they want and understand a way out of this peace process. Then some issues will become much clearer in the peace and reconciliation process.
