Kurdish Peace Process Not Over, Davutoğlu Writes In Washington Post

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu promised in an article published on Saturday that Turkey will punish every terrorist act although the government's resolve against terrorism does not mean that Ankara's efforts to seek a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue is over.

“All terrorist organizations that target Turkey must know that their acts will not go unpunished and that we will respond to their acts with full resolve, as we have every right to under international law,” Davutoğlu said in an opinion article published on the Washington Post. “This is not to say that the process of seeking a solution is over; on the contrary, I am determined to take it forward, as rapidly as I am able, to its logical conclusion once a new government is in place in Turkey,” he added.

The government launched secret talks with the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group designated as terrorist by Turkey, the United States and the EU, in 2012 in an effort to solve Turkey's decades-old Kurdish issue through talks. The process, however, appeared to have collapsed after the military started air strikes against the PKK targets in Turkey and in northern Iraq late last month in response to the killing of two policemen in southeastern Anatolia.

Violence has escalated since then with the PKK resuming attacks on members of the security forces.

Davutoğlu said his government had launched the “historic process” to end decades of violence but emphasized that this process “cannot reach its culmination until the PKK lays down its arms, ends its violent attacks and removes its armed elements from Turkey.”

The air strikes against the PKK targets came right after the military hit the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in Syria after ISIL militants shot to death a Turkish soldier on the border.

But questions have emerged over whether Turkey is using its limited strikes against ISIL as a cover for attacks on the Kurds.

The prime minister insisted that Turkey has been “fully committed” to the fight against ISIL “since this monstrous organization first reared its ugly head” and added that a recent agreement with the US allowing the use of its bases in strikes against ISIL “will allow us, together with our other allies, to take the fight more effectively to the terrorists.”

“By clearing our borders of Daesh, we will not only degrade and eventually destroy a heinous terrorist entity, but also provide a lifeline to the moderate Syrian opposition who are the only actors on the ground fighting both the Assad regime and Daesh,” he said, in reference to the extremist group.

“We have come to this agreement with the United States because we firmly believe that if, as we have done many times in the past, we can act in concert, we will reverse the tide of extremism in the region and pave the way toward stability. Daesh is the common enemy and we will fight it together with every means at our disposal until their armies and their ideology are defeated completely,” he said.

But he also argued that the Syrian regime created the circumstances that led to the rise of ISIL and that the fertile ground for radicalization “cannot be eradicated until Bashar al-Assad and his circle of cronies leave.” (Cihan/Today’s Zaman)