Ergun Babahan on the news site Özgür Düşünce writes that AKP never intended to reach an agreement with PKK and solve the Kurdish problem on the basis of a Western model. It assumed that it was going to be able to dilute the Kurdish identity within a Sunni Muslim identity and that it would solve the problem with economic investments and individual rights. When the Kurds mobilized around HDP and the party crossed the ten percent threshold to parliament that not only jeopardized Erdoğan’s dreams of an executive presidency. It also jeopardized the founding paradigm which the 1980 coup had put in place specifically in order to ensure that the Kurds were kept out of the parliament and politics. Different schemes were enacted to block the path of HDP and to neutralize the Kurds politically (after the June 2015 general election.) This is the development that those who are accusing the PKK of having fallen into the trap of the state, or of AKP fail to fully read. The state openly chose to settle the accounts with the Kurds by the means of violence. 

Kadri Gürsel on Diken news site notes that the Turkish regime has vowed to fight the war to the end. I guess what they mean by this is that the war is going to continue until PKK has been finished off. Those who haven’t lost their minds will realize that trying to finish the Kurdish problem with military means in 2016 will amount to finishing off Turkey. But while a military solution is not possible, what about a political solution? Is that possible? Let alone a political solution, not even a secretly or openly negotiated cease-fire with PKK is possible when someone’s priority is a “presidential system.” For how could a cease-fire with PKK be explained to the nationalist and conservative voters who will have to be courted in a coming referendum to amend the constitution? It could only work if PKK surrendered during 2016, and there are no signs of this happening. On the contrary, PKK is vowing to “overthrow Erdoğan.”  The regime is unable to solve this historical crisis which has erupted only as a result of its own policies, either militarily or politically. 

Fatih Yaşlı in Birgün writes that at first glance, the terror attack in Ankara on March 13 would appear to have been “wrong and a mistake” from the view point of PKK, which has also been pointed out by leftist circles that are close to the Kurdish movement. These make the point that the massacre in Ankara circumscribes the political room of maneuver of the leftist-democrat forces in the west of the country and that it has undermined the position of those who call for a democratic and peaceful resolution of the Kurdish problem. What this criticism overlooks is the fact that the dynamics of war has changed since the state abandoned the “solution process”, and that the PKK – in response to the state violence that has been escalating since then – no longer gives priority to forcing a solution with “democratic” methods. Instead, PKK is spreading the war in the Kurdish areas to the rest of the country. As war has become the way of conducting politics, it leads to new alignments: MHP edges closer to the government, while CHP’s statist reflexes are triggered and the party’s discourse becomes similar to that of the governing party. And we know who’s going to benefit from that.  Unfortunately, we can expect that the worst is yet to come, lest the two sides are bluffing, which they don’t seem to be doing. When the “spring war” intensifies, attacks like these are going to become routine, and with growing polarization in society, there will follow an increased risk that civilians are going to take on each other directly.

Soli Özel in Habertürk observes that the reaction of the Turkish public to the March 13 terror attack in Ankara has been different, that unlike after previous attacks, panic has spread. Larger society didn’t care much after the first Ankara attack (on October 10, 2015) because those who were killed were Kurds and leftists. Similarly, the second Ankara attack (on February 17, 2016) didn’t either lead to any panic in society because it was understood to be an attack mostly against the state. The January 12 attack in Sultanahmet (in Istanbul) was not either taken too seriously as the victims were “foreigners,” while people in the central, northern and western parts of the country view the physical and human destruction wrought by the ongoing war in the cities in the southeast as legitimate punishment of an “ungrateful” population. In none of these instances, was there any direct impact on the “normal” individuals of society. Now, with the latest Ankara massacre, the daily lives and routines of ordinary citizens were targeted, and that has made larger society angry. Its first reflex is going to be to call for more violence from the state, as if the state hadn’t already amply demonstrated its capability to be violent.

Fehim Işık on the news site Haberdar writes that political Islam, represented by AKP and Erdoğan has succeeded in bringing Kemalist nationalism, represented by Baykal (the former CHP leader) and the Turkic nationalism of MHP together on the shared ground of enmity against the Kurds. And by pulling the army fully to his side, Erdoğan is aiming to make his power eternal. Can he do it? I don’t belong to those who believe that the Kemalist forces of the status quo, sustained by the army, are ever going to offer that opportunity to Erdoğan. That is so because the military and the defenders of status quo are not only against the Kurds but also against the pious. At one point, this alliance is going to end, and it is the Erdoğan side of it that is set to sustain the heavy blow. The military is not going to switch allegiance. It is possible to predict that Kemalist nationalism and Turkic racism are going to be the winners.