Davutoğlu as Turkey’s PM: Turning an idea into a reality


In Turkey, Kurds celebrated two arrivals on March 21, 2013: the first day of spring and a cease-fire between the state and the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan – first step to ending the 30-year conflict. It was not the first time that both sides have been trying to cease hositilities but everyone knew that this might finally be permanent. The likelihood made some happy while making others angry and scared.The negotiations between the two parties have proceeded as planned, surviving many crises throughout the 15 months of ongoing talks. The national and international circles that have benefited from the conflict were in charge within that period. The presidential election also staged the resistance of the will of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who set his mind to the continuance of the cease-fire in any case, and Öcalan as well. The period of crises starting with the Gezi events arranged to overthrow Erdoğan leading to the corruption scandals in December 2013 that targeted Erdoğan, his family, and close circle were all part of an attack on the 'New Turkey' ideal and its crucial initiative: the peace between the Kurds and the Turks. If the coup attempt organized by the 'parallel state' was successfully staged, Erdoğan would be in jail now and Öcalan most probably would have been executed. The heinous attack against the will of the establishment of New Turkey shows the importance of the cease-fire, and that a permanent peace is the core of the evolution in the country's sociopolitical realities as well as a huge alteration in regional dynamics.The success of the peace process is also a crucial variant for the future of the regional financial, economic, energy- and trade-related relations. The old regime had few diplomatic or economic relations with countries in the region, let alone the Kurds whose existence was denied by the Kemalist state for years. Seeing Arabs, Armenians, Persians, Greeks and Kurds as a threat was a common practice of Kemalist regime. Unfortunately, it takes time for people who were born under the propaganda of a fascist regime and live with it for years to change. It takes years for a society to abandon nationalist reflections, which were the basic symptoms of an illness caused by systematically imposed fascist ideology, and its fears in a post-national era.But the chaos that shook Turkey for months has one benefit. The concussions after the shake help people to wake up. Normally it would take years for Turkish society to accept that negotiations with the PKK leader is not a compromise but a necessity for peace, or that the hostility against Kurds was not about security but racism. Now, peace is adopted largely because they see the most attacked is the most precious. The biggest threat against peace has passed. More importantly, people woke up. 'The New Turkey' project has passed the earthquake resistance test. We can walk through the final road to New Turkey.The era of Ahmet Davutoğlu's prime ministry, following in the footsteps of Erdoğan's three-term prime ministry, with the help of Erdoğan's presidency, is to be a new era in Turkish politics that transforms an idea into a reality, and aims to complete a change that was already in the process of actualizing.