Our country has experienced a revolutionary process over the last 14 years regarding the Kurdish question, which was given specific emphasis in the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) charter and has always been placed at the top of its agenda. During this period, the dominant approach not only regarded the civil rights of individuals or groups - such as the equalization of citizens through a Habermasian cultural interpretation - but also envisaged the application of these rights to personal cultural spheres along with state support for identity building. In addition, this understanding had the potential to become deeper and, perhaps, serve as a model for the world. As you know, in current debates on cultural and civil rights, the rights of individuals and groups are considered exclusive of each other. However, these are frequently confused with each other, under the assumption that improvements to individual civil rights also should also apply to group rights. This is not the case, however, according to Habermas. The introduction of equal citizenship criteria does not ensure the equality of groups, nor does it automatically remove disadvantages and most individual rights are deemed group rights. This is a broad subject and we had better put further discussions to the wayside, for now.Numerous democratization reforms that can also solve the problems of our Kurdish citizens have been introduced in line with the EU legislation. Hence, around 300 pieces of legal reform that are directly related with this problem have already been undertaken. Denial of the Kurdish identity and the banning of use of the Kurdish language have officially ended. Important structural steps toward the normalization of life in the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey have been taken. And, these steps have already been reflected in the EU's monitoring reports of Turkey.THE AK PARTY LIGHTED A CANDLE INSTEAD OF CURSING THE DARKNESSOf course, the problem that I mentioned above manifests itself in Turkey's reform processes, as well. A lot of problems that mature democracies cannot yet agree on have arisen in Turkey as well, including categories of individual and group rights, the differentiation between what counts as an individual right and a group one, as well as ways to evaluate the demands of groups on a case-by-case basis; like we have seen from groups that defend their right to be racist - for the abuse of these rights. Consequently, Kurdish citizens welcomed the reform of individual rights and the eradication of denial of the Kurdish identity and Kurdish language, referring to it as a group right. But, Turkey's tense political atmosphere and the PKK's moves to use violent means to narrow the political space did not allow them to reach the desired level. However, all these complaints should not overshadow the fact that the process has settled on a positive track.Indeed, the real challenge for the government regarding the Kurdish question is not about meeting the demands for rights by Kurdish civilians, but rather by having the PKK disarm. Moreover, it is clear that violence poisons the atmosphere of reform during the implementation of democratic reforms that develop out of a process based on popular legitimacy. With the AK Party, this risky issue was addressed for the first time from a pro-freedom approach instead of a security-based one. The first process came to a halt when the PKK ended the cease-fire on July 14, 2011 by killing 13 soldiers in Silvan. Much later, the current process was launched in 2013 on the initiative efforts of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), under the name of the reconciliation process. Delegations from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) began to meet the PKK's imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı Island where he is incarcerated. MİT officers focused on preparing a legal infrastructure for allowing armed PKK militants to withdraw from Turkey.On May 8, 2013, the PKK officially announced before the world media that it started withdrawal efforts. But, later in September that same year it declared that the withdrawal was halted. Since such a 35-year bloody conflict cannot be settled in three months, the PKK is halting its withdrawal on the ground stating that the required steps have not been taken and raising doubts about the ambiguity regarding the actions to be taken. The PKK's move was seen as an attempt to take advantage of the difficult situation facing the government due to the Gezi protests and to maximize its demands. Another argument was that the PKK had never sincerely considered withdrawal. Indeed, Murat Karayılan, the acting PKK leader, said after last year's June 7 elections: "We were caught unprepared by Öcalan's call for withdrawal when preparing to wage an ultimate war on Turkey. Actually, we did not endorse this call. We made a mistake by not opposing it."In short, from May 8, 2013 on, the PKK has not taken any action it had promised and approached the process with a double agenda.TOO MUCH WATER UNDER OLD TURKEY'S BRIDGEAs the AK Party ended the denial of Kurdish identity and removed the ban on the use of the Kurdish language, both the nature of the problem and the PKK's relations with Kurds have undergone various changes. In "Old Turkey," especially during and after the 1980 military coup, the PKK gained legitimacy due to the state's violent practices that violated human rights and eventually came to be identified with the Kurdish problem.However, when the AK Party, as the representative of the largest social group that was excluded by the bureaucratic elite's guardianship, first became middle-class and then a political actor, it left behind the pro-status quo approach to the Kurdish question. With its share of the vote, the AK Party practically became the biggest pro-Kurdish party in Turkey. Turkey's perception of Kurds after the AK Party's rise to power is totally different compared to what it was before.Of course, it turned out that neither the PKK nor leading voices in Kurdish politics, which had been dominated and monopolized by the PKK, were ready for this unexpected change. The state's security-based approach, which had been maintained for years and was assumed to remain in place, changed both the PKK and the Kurdish party, both of which failed in figuring out how to respond. That development could have been seen by the PKK both as a huge opportunity to lay down their arms to save face and to decrease the risk of losing its status gained through violence. In fact, reforms, successive resolution processes and equal citizenship for Kurds have been perceived and considered, at least until now, unfortunately, as a threat instead of a gain.The first thing that Ahmet Davutoğlu, AK Party chairman, and current prime minister since Erdoğan was elected president on Aug. 10, 2014 with 52 percent of the vote, did in his new post was to meet the HDP co-chairs in order to revive the reconciliation process. But the PKK and the HDP responded by calling on people to take to the streets in support of Kobani on Oct. 6-8 2014. As a result, nearly 30 cities were ravaged and at least 50 citizens were killed. On June 7, 2015, the HDP won 80 seats in Parliament for the first time in history and avenues for politics and rights protection were more open than ever. Sadly, however, the HDP came closer to the PKK instead of the PKK embracing civilian politics. As such, the HDP has carried violence into the political arena by putting objective debates aside and excusing PKK violence. Eventually, two police officers were killed while sleeping on July 22 last year and scores of security officers were killed in front of their families. Amid this wave of violence, however, the HDP has used and is still using its political means only to legitimize the PKK's terrorist actions.Unfortunately, the other opposition parties have either categorically opposed the reconciliation process or exploited PKK terrorism as a political instrument just to undermine the AK Party. Since the resistance from the country's elite power groups to the AK Party's reforms arose out of a fear of losing their status, it overlapped with worries of the PKK and its political arm. And from an ideological perspective, the radical interpretation of secularism that had been used by the Republican People's Party (CHP), secularist Turkish business elite and the media was compatible with the PKK's Stalinist ideology. Thus, an alliance emerged that regards both the real ground and the political arena like Parliament as a field of struggle for dominance that harbors violence. Fethullah Gülen's "parallel structure" also provides direct support to this alliance.Today, the Gezi protests, which were essentially a revolt of the petit bourgeoisie against conservative democrats, is akin to and in alliance with the Oct. 6-8 uprising of the PKK. In Parliament, the HDP and CHP are in a cooperation that legitimizes the violence of the PKK as a way of protecting rights. The HDP ignores the killing of civilians and children by the PKK and conducts propaganda to put the blame on the government for the deaths. It constantly tries to disable Parliament and increase tension on the streets through fabricated stories. The CHP usually provides open support to these attempts, on one hand, and criticizes the reconciliation process as a betrayal process, on the other. But these two parties rarely criticize each other and, as a result, it becomes impossible to objectively discuss the issue in Parliament. There are efforts to create the impression that the government imposed curfews out of the blue and began to kill civilians. In such an irrational atmosphere it is also impossible to duly discuss rights violations, if there are any.KURDS' LONG-STANDING STRUGGLE WITH THE PKKOn the other hand, Kurdish citizens fleeing their homes due to the clashes resulting from the ditches the PKK dug and terror move not to Kobani, but to western parts of the country. Turkey is planning and taking comprehensive measures to relieve its Kurdish citizens' lives. Operations against the PKK and curfews last long because of an emphasis on protecting the lives of citizens the PKK use as human shields.The PKK has begun to target children on a daily basis. A PKK attack on a police complex in the Çınar district of Diyarbakır left an infant and two toddlers dead along with their mother and father. Our Kurdish citizens are uneasy about the PKK and HDP's groundless violence.In this regard, the PKK and its Syrian affiliate Democratic Union Party (PYD) are bloody terrorist organizations. That they fight DAESH in Syria does not alter this fact. Providing conjectural support for that terrorist organization, which dreams of establishing a "Pol Pot regime" in both southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, would pose even greater problems later, just like the local elements in Afghanistan that were supported against the pro-Soviet government in Kabul morphed into the Taliban and al-Qaida afterward. Beyond all this, the fundamental criterion of civil society is to reject the endorsement of violence as a method of struggle.There can be no exception to this.