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'The Butler Did It!' But Did He?

22.10.2014 12:13

Last Sunday, the Turkish government asked the "wise men" to come together again to discuss the current state of the peace process with the Kurds. The group had been formed in the spring of 2013 to travel all over the country and tell people the purpose of the peace process. The visits took two months,

Last Sunday, the Turkish government asked the "wise men" to come together again to discuss the current state of the peace process with the Kurds. The group had been formed in the spring of 2013 to travel all over the country and tell people the purpose of the peace process. The visits took two months, and everybody thought that the mission of the wise men was over. In fact, most of the intellectuals within this group wouldn't like to be labeled "wise" for the rest of their lives.
During their visits, the wise men told the Kurds that they must develop more acceptable political demands; to the rest of the society they said equal citizenship is crucial for the country's well-being.
The circumstances have changed much, however, with the Syrian civil war, and the Turkish political atmosphere has changed along with it.
Anyway, the wise men have come together again, and they have met with quite a number of Cabinet members. The prime minister participated in the meeting with the ministers of foreign affairs, interior, defense, finance and so on. In a sense, it was a summit between the wise men and the government. They talked for 12 hours and the government used this opportunity to clarify a number of matters. For example, the government insisted that it doesn't support the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Nusra or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and that instead, it is actually helping the Kurds all over the region.
Secondly, the government has announced that a roadmap on the Kurdish problem was prepared a month ago and sent to the parties involved, such as the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and other important political parties and organizations representing the Kurdish movement. All of them have told the government that they agree with the roadmap, according to which the first step in the process would be the retreat of all armed militants from Turkish territory.
So why have more than 40 people died if there was an agreement between the government and the Kurdish political movement? All these deaths, these lootings and burnings, have after all damaged the peace process. As a consequence, we are not talking about peace anymore, but about increasing security threats. Once again, the Turkish people are being asked to choose between more security or more freedoms. Who would benefit from this situation? Kurdish politicians are asking for more freedoms and more rights, so naturally they are unhappy with this sabotage. The government keeps saying they are determined to pursue the peace process, so it would not make sense to think they have provoked the recent bloodshed on purpose.
The press was full of reports about masked men who were attacking, burning and looting. As one is unable to identify them, it is hard to know for sure who they were and what their real intentions were. We have some reasons, however, to believe that probably they were not just "angry Kurds."
It is perhaps more correct to look into the depths of the bureaucracy to find these masked men, probably all of them trained militarily. One can even suspect terrorism experts trained by those who were put in jail during the Ergenekon trials.
Now everyone is blaming the Kurds, and the government feels bound to reinforce security-based policies; this atmosphere is serving the interests of military circles. It is clear that these circles have decided to carry out this sabotage, but it is not clear yet who the foreign partners of these circles were. Maybe one day we will learn about them, too. Who knows, maybe we'll have more scandals like Wikileaks.
Columnists would probably be glad with such a scandal as they will have new subjects to comment on, but the political leaders of countries who play global games will pay a very high price.

BERİL DEDEOĞLU (Cihan/Today's Zaman)



 
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