Last week the Bar president of the southeastern provincial capital of Diyarbakır, Tahir Elçi, was slain by PKK terrorists in broad daylight in the town of Sur. Since then there have been all manner of disinformation being circulated that in fact Elçi was not assassinated by the PKK but by the Turkish state.

All this is part of a PKK campaign to survive against the odds and they are using the volatile situation in Diyarbakır to fulfill their goals.

Today there was a curfew in some parts of Diyarbakır and Sur where PKK terrorists are trying to keep up their fight against the Turkish state. In Sur, the PKK attacked security forces during the curfew time and one official was wounded.

So what is going on?

In the past three years as Turkey showed its utmost goodwill and kept alive the peace and reconciliation process with its Kurds, the PKK was unfortunately involved in a sinister campaign to spread its tentacles around the eastern and southeastern provinces massing arms and training its militants to control towns and cities "when the appropriate time came" instead of trying to contribute to the positive atmosphere of peace and tranquility.

When the PKK hijacked the Syrian Kurdish movement and managed to establish a foothold in northeastern Syria thanks to the Assad regime, it started gaining strength creating cantons in the area. Emboldened with their success in Syria, the PKK decided the time had come to embark on an adventure of secession in Turkey and today we are faced with the PKK trying to establish small cantons, autonomously run areas, in southeastern Turkey. They dig ditches, plant bombs and terrorize the locals in an effort to establish a foothold in these regions.

The only criticism that can be levelled at the Turkish state officials is: Why did you allow these PKK terrorists to establish such a foothold in these towns and cities and what were the intelligence units doing all that time?

At first the PKK was making good headway and the Turkish state seemed sluggish in responding to the menace. But in time, as we predicted, the Turkish state forces gained the upper hand and since then it has been a downhill adventure for the PKK.

Sur was one of the places where the PKK tried to occupy and terrorize the local people so much so that the citizens were even dissuaded from practicing Islam. There were curfews on and off in Sur and in one curfew the PKK damaged the local mosque. Diyarbakır Bar Association chief Elçi was just addressing a press conference outside the damaged mosque when an incident broke out when police in that spot tried to search a car and PKK terrorists in the vehicle shot dead two policemen and rushed through the press conference. At that point Elçi was shot. There are reports that a PKK sharpshooter killed Elçi firing a gun from a distance.

The PKK wanted to create the image that Elçi was killed by Turkish forces for saying he did not believe the PKK was a terrorist organization. It is strange that the prosecutors who tried to recover evidence at the scene of the incident came under fire from PKK terrorists. So the PKK did its best to make sure the truth never came out of Sur. But despite the odds the evidence was collected in full.The PKK is trying its best to prove it is alive and well and thus is making its last ditch efforts in Sur and elsewhere. However, defeat is certain. What is important, however, is that we still face the challenge of helping the ordinary Kurd feel he or she is a first class citizen of this country.