Fatma Bostan Ünsal said regional developments are encouraging Turkey to seek a solution to the Kurdish question and underlined that “security-focused” assumptions must be re-evaluated.
Fatma Bostan Ünsal spoke to ANF and recalled that many different opportunities have emerged since 1993 regarding the Kurdish question. She said various initiatives were attempted, but none of them reached success and stressed the importance of the point reached within the past year. Ünsal said: “In the face of this development, which I consider to be critically important and a genuine opportunity, I believe that politicians as well as the public will approach it differently this time, learning lessons from the past. In fact, unlike previous periods, we see that there is no longer a large opposition bloc against the process, for many different reasons. The fact that the party that was most opposed to peace processes in the past is now the initiator of this process, the fact that the main opposition party, which once strongly opposed these processes, is now standing side by side with the Kurdish political movement in various ways, and of course the external conjuncture, all give me hope that these critical moments will not be wasted again.”
Legal process must be activated
Ünsal pointed out that the state must take the necessary steps to ensure peaceful coexistence and said: “In the Commission established within the Parliament, these steps have been repeatedly stated by many different civil society organisations. Turkey does not need to make radical changes; most demands will already be met simply by implementing Turkey’s existing legal framework. The fact that the demand for the implementation of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and Constitutional Court rulings was the most frequently repeated demand in the Commission shows this clearly. Since the last peace process was derailed, Turkey has been rapidly regressing both in terms of the rule of law and freedoms, and economically as well, causing young people and the entrepreneurial class to leave the country. For this reason, the conditions are now pressing Turkey to show the will to move away from the environment that caused the Kurdish question to emerge and become acute.”
The situation compels a solution to the Kurdish question
Ünsal said regional dynamics are encouraging Turkey to seek a solution to the Kurdish question and added: “We are no longer in a period when the Shah of Iran and Saddam agreed between themselves, leading to repression and mass slaughter against Kurds. Today, there is the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, which is officially recognised, has significant oil revenues, and for historical and geopolitical reasons, has developed good relations with Turkey. Likewise, instead of Kurds who were repressed during the Assad eras in Syria, we now have the reality of the Democratic Syrian Forces (SDF), in the other words, the Rojava reality, which militarily may be the strongest actor in a country that has gone through civil war, has ensured stability in a pluralistic environment, and maintains good relations with powers such as the United States and Russia that are present in the region.”
Security-focused assumptions must be re-evaluated
Fatma Bostan Ünsal also said: “Turkey therefore has the opportunity to see these new forces to its south as potential partners with whom good relations can be developed, based on language, culture, tradition and shared historical memory, rather than as threats. For this reason, Turkey must re-evaluate its inward-looking, ‘security-focused’ assumptions that perceive the country as surrounded by enemies and treat all neighbours as hostile, both domestically and externally. In order for Turkey to achieve all of this, it must resolve the Kurdish question, which it has neglected for years, failed to solve, and which has victimised not only Kurdish citizens but the entire population. I sense that this reality has now been understood, in one way or another, even by the forces that have prevented the solution of the Kurdish question until now.”
Change in social perception
Ünsal said, “In this process, society must have the opportunity to clearly see and evaluate these regional changes. Because the public has been exposed to one-sided propaganda until now, the overwhelming majority approach peace processes not from a ‘win-win’ perspective, but rather from the perception that they themselves will lose something, as a bargain or concession. For this reason, politicians entering a peace process are hesitant to break these old patterns. The most recent example is the accusations directed at Parliamentary Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş by Good (IYI) Party Deputy Chair Erhan Usta, such as calling him a ‘PKK lover’ or a ‘supporter of terrorism’, and then we all saw how ‘vulnerable’ Mr. Kurtulmuş was to such attacks.”
Positive responses must be given to calls for the rule of law
Ünsal also added: “Even if the fact that state powers have begun to change their view on the matter seems like it could make the process easier, the most important measure that can eliminate the overwhelmingly negative public perception created through past and ongoing counter-propaganda is to end the growing lawlessness and to respond positively to calls for human rights and for the rule of law. Within this framework, as I have mentioned before, steps such as implementing the rulings of the ECtHR and the Constitutional Court, ending discrimination against political prisoners, allowing ill and elderly detainees to spend their final days with their families, ending the practice of appointing trustees to elected administrations, amending the Anti-Terror Law, and preventing ordinary situations from being prosecuted as terrorism, will be the changes that millions of people are expecting and will support. These steps would also alleviate very serious concerns about the process and increase trust. If the process is carried out alongside these steps, and if more specific issues, such as the use of Kurdish as a language of education and in cultural activities, the participation of former fighters in social life, accompany the resolution of the general structural problems, and if this serves Turkey’s goal of becoming a participatory state governed by the rule of law, then the effect of one-sided propaganda that society has been subjected to for years may weaken. It would also make clearer why the Kurdish question emerged in the first place, which environments it fed, as we saw most clearly in the Susurluk scandal, and the damage it caused to the whole population of Turkey, and thus support for the process would increase.”
Turkey can take initiative
Ünsal concluded her remarks as follows: “All these problems, perceptions and legal changes we are talking about cannot happen at once, but only within a process. As someone who believes that voluntary interventions by political parties, the media, civil society or independent individuals will shape social processes and bring social change, I trust that Turkey, at this critical turning point, will take initiative, will solve its problems domestically, and will assume the responsibility of being in a position to secure peace in the region.”