Negotiations for PKK elimination have started

I did not anticipate the two-day visit would go beyond political content and send messages about friendship, fellowship or featuring embraces and back-patting. Turkey, after 33 years, was about to enter a display of friendship. What else could be expected? Some conversation about the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, of course. That’s about it.

However, as soon as I entered the aircraft, all of a sudden, I felt that the compass needle was pointing in a different direction. We found out, for example, that President Gül insisted, until the last minute, on including Arbil, Kirkuk, Basra and Najaf in this trip but was convinced otherwise because of security reasons. That is to say that he tried to squeeze Arbil into the program. Afterward, you read about the statements.

Gül made a statement that was equivalent to recognizing the Kurdistan administration and for the first time openly referred to the "Kurdistan regional administration." He formally accepted the prime minister of this administration. (1) Talabani said, "The PKK either puts down its weapons or leaves the country." I know that something is cooking but cannot quite comprehend it. Finally I pulled up my sleeves and started to talk one by one to Neçirvan Barzani, prime minister of the northern Iraqi administration, other upper-level authorities of the northern Iraqi administration and those on the president’s committee. A totally different scene resulted. Today and tomorrow I will draw a broad picture.

I might be mistaken about details or developments and change estimations. But I’m positive that the general frame is correct.

The moment you ask this question you might find an important clue to the puzzle. The reason is basic: The rapprochement between Turkey and the Kurdistan regional administration has developed in such a way that the PKK, at least for a while, had to stay away from attempts at violence. This is a symbol for how the consensus between Ankara and Arbil has deepened. We are not very much aware of it but the mutual trust between Ankara and Arbil is beyond our imagination. Northern Iraqi Kurds have made their choice.

They decided whether to lean their backs on Iran or Turkey: Turkey É And Turkey has very well understood that without the help of northern Iraqi Kurds it will not be able to cast off the PKK from the region. The former politics, which were based on pushing the Kurds around and thinking of them as anything but human, have been banned. Turkey has adopted an approach of treating Barzani the way he deserves to be treated. Behind Gül’s addressing the Kurdistan regional administration (despite the fact that he denied it later on) lays the new approach. For this word in an indirect way implies that "sometime Kurdistan will be recognized."

One other piece of the puzzle is the attitude of the Turkish Armed Forces, or TSK. Be it matters regarding northern Iraq or the PKK, it is hard to come to a solution without cooperation with the TSK. During this trip I learned that at the top level of the General Staff and the government there is a consensus. The TSK has slowly started to change its implicit attitude toward the northern Iraqi administration. It has openly accepted in important divisions of the TSK that the struggle with the PKK is not to be solved with weapons. To help with the process, it accepted Barzani’s suggestions and decreased operations directed toward the PKK to a certain extent.

This means, the approach "as long as the PKK does not shoot we will monitor them from a distance," has gained importance. Of course, if tomorrow a bomb goes off somewhere, the whole process may change in an instant. So who leads this process and how? Who influences it? What is the process? I will try to explain all of it in my article tomorrow.

Did Gül say Kurdistan or not?

1- Arguments still continue, but I wrote about my opinion yesterday. I would like to repeat: Upon his arrival in Turkey, the president said that he did not pronounce the word "Kurdistan." Maybe this word he did not pronounce, but he pointed at the "Kurdistan regional administration" as formally written in the Iraqi constitution of the northern Iraqi Kurds. He talked about Kurds living in the north of the country. As a matter of fact, he said they count as our siblings and relatives and touched on how meaningless it would be to deny it. He said this word is not an obsession for Turkey. All journalists present there heard his words. It was openly argued between himself and diplomats of foreign affairs about the meaning and importance of saying "Kurdistan regional administration," for that matter. We were informed about how historical and brave the president’s statements were.