Turkey Should be Hawk on the Mountain, Dove on the Plain

Since Sunday we have been discussing the air assault Turkey carried out against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) command and control centers in the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq.

Following this air operation – which we are sure was successful through the help of the night-vision systems and the real-time intelligence provided by the US – according to information we obtained yesterday from some news agencies, some Turkish military units advanced into northern Iraq and engaged the PKK militants.

It seems that the new strategy Turkey has been trying to follow with utmost care is to turn the mountainous areas, where those opting for terrorism hide, into hell. Without a doubt it is not possible to treat a terrorist group ready to strike with weapons and bombs in hand in any other way. However, nor is it possible to say that this much is sufficient. While turning the mountains into hell for terrorists, Turkey should create a heaven inside its borders for Kurdish citizens who voice their demands through civil channels and Kurdish politics.

While making the mountains as unlivable as possible for terrorists, the government should build "large roads" for those who want to descend from the mountains and also build impregnable blockades on the road to the mountains by taking social, political, economic and cultural measures. While striking all the necessary blows to end the PKK's existence, one after the other, the government should also take all sorts of measures to win over our Kurdish citizens, at all costs. Having garnered over 54 percent of the votes in eastern and southeastern Anatolia in the July 22 elections, the government has sufficient public will and support behind it to realize such policies. In fact some social, political and economic preparations carried on simultaneously with the military operation launched after the international conjuncture was diplomatically and politically convinced show that these policies are partially being put into practice.

While the range of what is dubbed as the "homecoming law" – called a "pardon" by some – is being debated in favor of those PKK militants who haven't participated in any violent acts, there are economic and social measures on the table for the region. Maybe more important than these is that some civil society organizations and movements are taking the initiative to achieve the Kurdish-Turkish and the East-West reunion. The schools, courses and reading halls opened in the region by some civil society organizations working for the Gülen Movement – probably the greatest civil movement in the world ever – are providing the youth in the region with an alternative to going to the mountain and giving hundreds of thousands of Kurdish boys and girls a chance for a new and different future.

Furthermore, thousands of Western businessmen preparing to spend the upcoming Feast of the Sacrifice with our Kurdish citizens in the Southeast instead of spending it with their families, and the Kimse Yok Mu? foundation planning to provide food and clothing aid to 60,000 families are very important steps in terms of the Kurdish-Turkish reconciliation and in the name of social peace. Also according to the information we have received, placing the cause of national unity and social fraternity above everything, hundreds of businessmen who voluntarily support the Gülen Movement are preparing to launch projects in the region that will create new job opportunities.

We can now state comfortably that Turkey has caught a great and historic opportunity for permanently eliminating the trouble of the PKK terrorism to which it has lost tens of thousands of lives and because of which it has suffered for the last 25 years. Of course, this step is not without any preconditions. First of all, the military should be extremely careful in its operations inside and outside Turkey so as not to hurt civilians. On the other hand, the political and civil channels whereby Kurds can express themselves should be opened as much as possible.

It is obvious that arresting Democratic Society Party (DTP) Chairman Nurettin Demirtaş under the pretext of his having obtained false documents that exempt him from military service will not serve the second condition. The state of the Turkish Republic should be more tolerant and flexible in politics on the plain than it is unrelenting and inexorable on the mountain. It should also always bear in mind that meeting the second condition is a far more difficult test than the first one. Conversely, had he not been the chairman of the DTP, would his files have still been taken off the dusty shelf? I really doubt this would be so, in a country where there are 400,000 people evading their mandatory military service.