Seasoned columnist Mehmet Y. Yılmaz says Turkey may be poised for a historic breakthrough in its 40-year Kurdish conflict – but only if President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan finally practices the transparency and pluralism his parliament now promises.
Writing in T24, Yılmaz notes that the newly formed Grand National Assembly commission, tasked with shepherding the PKK’s disarmament and drafting the legal architecture for lasting peace, convened behind closed doors on its very first day – despite being introduced as a model of “openness.”
“Saying transparency and locking out the press are mutually exclusive,” he argues, warning that the public’s right to know cannot be sacrificed to political stage-management. If the meetings remain secret, neither transparency nor accountability can be credibly claimed.
The veteran reporter is equally unsettled by Erdoğan’s silence: the president, usually eager for televised podiums, offered “not a single word” when the commission launched. Yılmaz sees that reticence as evidence that the real decision-maker may harbour alternative, undisclosed calculations.
His skepticism is rooted in two decades of observation: the Erdoğan administration, he writes, has repeatedly equated democratic reform with personal political gain, making “democratic civilian politics and Erdoğan rule” an oxymoron.
Yet Yılmaz insists the opportunity is real. MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli’s suggestion that jailed PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan publicly call for disbandment, combined with Öcalan’s critique of separatist maximalism, signals that “the armed phase is over.” Achieving that outcome, he contends, now hinges on credible constitutional and legal reforms that widen the democratic arena.
“Missing this chance by surrendering to conspiracy theories would be tragic,” the columnist concludes, but so would allowing a peace process to unfold in darkness. For now, his hope remains conditional: he will believe Ankara’s new vocabulary of pluralism only when the doors – and the microphones – finally open.
Photo: T24