Demirtaş realizes it is time to tame the PKK

Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş is seeking a way out of the current crisis with the PKK in the Belgian capital of Brussels. He says his meetings will be with the officials of the European Union but it is clear he will have more meetings with the organizations directly or indirectly affiliated with the PKK militants who have resumed terrorist activities in eastern and southeastern Turkey.

So Demirtaş is trying to seek a way to convince the PKK to give up its terrorist campaign and lay down its arms for good. He wants the PKK leaders in Europe to use their good offices to convince the PKK hotheads in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq where the PKK has been holed up across the Turkish border for decades.

It is interesting that Demirtaş is trying to use the Brussels path to get to the PKK leaders in Qandil instead of trying to approach them directly in northern Iraq.

Demirtaş has seen that the more the PKK increases its terrorist activities in Turkey the more we are falling away from the peace and reconciliation process and if this spiral of events continue we may approach a point of no return when the process just goes down the drain. He realizes the urgency of forcing the PKK to give up its terrorist activities because he sees that while the Kurds of Turkey were making incredible moral and material gains thanks to the reconciliation process they are now entering a phase when most of those gains could be lost.

The Turkish public rejoiced and embraced the reconciliation process wholeheartedly yet as we see more body bags of soldiers and policemen the public is starting to question the process and its wisdom. The more the PKK kills and terrorizes, the more the Turkish people are being alienated.

This does not help the Kurdish political movement in Turkey or the HDP and Demirtaş.

Let Demirtaş seek remedies in Brussels. On the other hand Turkish officials also have to do more to force the PKK to lay down their arms. This does not only mean we have to pelt them with bombs and missiles with our F-16 jets but it also means some diplomatic activity behind the scenes.

Masoud Barzani and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) do not have much leverage over the PKK. On the contrary the KDP wants the PKK out of northern Iraq because the PKK has started to challenge the authority of Barzani in the region.

However, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and its leader Jalal Talabani, my beloved friend, do have much leverage over the PKK. In terms of health, Talabani may not be up to negotiating with the PKK, however my good friend Barham Saleh, who was the former deputy prime minister of Iraq and currently a prominent figure in the PUK and even in Washington, could do the trick. They all have good dialogue with the PKK and they also cherish good ties with Turkey. We as Turkey should also try to use the good offices of the Goran Movement and its leader Norshirvan Mustapha, who is also a good friend and who understands the value of peace between Turkey and the Kurds.

So while Demirtaş tries his best to tame the PKK Turkey should use other channels to show to the PKK that the times have changed and sending policemen and soldiers back to their villages in body bags will not further the cause of the Kurds in Turkey but will only be counterproductive.