Time to face up to Kobane

The resistance in Kobane and the following protests on Oct. 6-7 in Turkey have confronted us with the weaknesses of the peace process in Turkey, as well as the new reality in the region.

Ankara had been approaching the Kurdish question from a traditional, nation-state perspective, differentiating between the Kurds “inside and outside.” This attitude first changed during the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which eventually made the Kurds in northern Iraq its closest ally in the region. Today, Kobane urges Turkey to form a similar bond with the Kurds in Rojava (northern Syria). The fact that Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan said “Syrian Kurds are our natural ally,” implies this awareness.

The Oct. 6-7 incidents have also revealed the disunity in the approach and rhetoric toward the peace process. There have been on one hand constructive, revisionist, calming statements and on the other hand, status-quo oriented, destructive statements coming from the government and the Kurdish party.

 This disunity has harmed the emerging confidence between the two sides, which at the end have most benefited the ones who aimed at sabotaging the peace process.

Another weakness exposed is the government’s approach toward the Kurdish side. Government officials underlined the discrepancy between Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of PKK, and Kandil, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) main base in northern Iraq, by attributing positive adjectives to Öcalan, while demonizing Kandil. This attitude, however, enormously harms the peace process since different statements coming from different actors slow down the negotiations. Hence the government should not emphasize the existing discrepancy and instead...

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