The prosperity of the Western cities in Türkiye unfortunately is not seen in its Eastern cities where Kurdish minorities used to live. Lack of education and employment, in addition to economical hardships in Southeastern Türkiye, force the local young people either to emigrate to the Western Türkiye with a hope to find better conditions, or the same conditions force them to be guerrillas in the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) troops. This shows that the Kurdish youth don’t have many options: dying of hunger or of a bullet seems to be the unchangeable fate of them unless they can get out of their poor backward region.

In Türkiye, it is the duty of military forces to fight against any separatist movement like Kurdish terrorism created by PKK. This has been the most accepted way of keeping state unity since the early days of the young Turkish Republic. Yet, no success in resolving this critical problem could have been achieved in the last two decades through such a brutal approach which costs the government $8 billion annually. Although the Turkish military with its mobilized staff of 1.5 million is the most dissuading and strongest force in the near east region, it has been unable to cope with the Kurdish terrorists’ guerrilla tactics. James Brown, director of John G. Tower Center for political Studies, at Southern Methodist University, says that "conflicts such as these are not easily resolved, but they may be contained. In the case of Türkiye, the Kurds are not in a position to win. On the other hand [the government in] Ankara will face great costs in containing this conflict politically, economically, and humanistically (128).

The experience of the last 20 years shows that Turkish politicians should seek for a civil method rather than martial means of healing this ever bleeding wound in Southeast Türkiye. It is time to decide for the happiness of all Turkish citizens, including both Kurds and Turks as well as other minorities, rather than fighting for a victory of the army.

Because the PKK’s Kurdistan (land of the Kurds) dream or a federation of Turks and Kurds in Türkiye neither workable nor acceptable for the Turkish government, a new solution becomes inevitable. Under the existent conditions it is wise to assert that instead of using funds to fuel the civil war with more weapons, the Turkish government should divert its means into educating the people of Southeastern Türkiye, namely the Kurds, and also investing in the local economy. Doing so will surely help create a stable peace to be established in the region. To understand why this is the best solution, we must look at four undermining issues which explain us the relationship between Turkish government and the Kurds:

Türkiye, known as the bridge between Asia and Europe is one of the near eastern countries, that is surrounded by the Black Sea in the North, the Aegean Sea in the West and the Mediterranean Sea in the South. Being a neighbor to Iran, Iraq, Syria in the East and Southeast, and Greece in the West --all friendly countries!-- makes it very difficult for Türkiye to cope with the existent geopolitical problems. One of these problems which has turned out to be the most important one in the last ten years--thanks to the support provided by above mentioned "friendly" countries--is the Kurdish imbroglio emerging from the southeast region of Türkiye.

Kurds had fought in the troops of Atatürk during the Turkish War of Independence against the occupying forces of Anatolia to establish a new state, namely Turkish Republic, over the ruins of the Ottoman Empire right after the World War I. By doing so, they had automatically become a part of this new state, and they were considered so by the central government in Ankara too. Later on however, they started to revolt against the Turkish government. Criss says that "the history of Kurdish rebellions in Türkiye in 1924, 1926, and 1936-1938 is colored with religious sentiments against a secular state" (22). So we can accept that those early revolts were based on religious reasons, in other words, they were against the secularism principle adopted by the new state. The government at the time had been able to suppress all these revolts; however, the rising power of the PKK since the late 70s became a major problem for the country. Established as a Marxist-Leninist separatist organization in 1978, the PKK started to attack civilians as well as militia forces with hit-and-run operations and killed thousands of innocent individuals majority of whom were their own Kurdish kin who did not support them (Criss 19).

Brown gives a brief background of this renegade--first a communist and then an opportunist--terrorist group known as the PKK:
It was in the late 1970s, a chaotic period in the political life of Türkiye, that various Kurdish groups began to develop nationalist agendas. Dev Genç (Revolutionary Youth), a radical, leftist student organization, helped set the background for much of the leftist violence of that time. From this organization the most violent and radical Kurdish movement emerged, the PKK. From its inception, its leader has been Abdullah (Apo) Öcalan, a dropout from the Political Science Faculty of Ankara University. Initially espousing Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, it engaged in Vietcong-style terror tactics designed to frighten the local population in the southeast into supporting it(118).

The mission of the PKK was to make a communist revolution through direct action, or more explicitly, by bloody guerrilla warfare which would eventually prepare a way for a Kurdish state separate from the Turkish Republic. However, lack of finances forced the PKK to deviate from its initial mission and be a group of bandits robbing banks and jewelers (Criss 19). Moreover, they are the strongest organization in Europe in drug trafficking today.

If we are to dig out the reasons for the emergence of the PKK, economical hardships and illiteracy seem to play the most important role among other historical and nationalistic motives. Underdevelopment, has been the fate of Southeastern Türkiye for centuries. Andrew Mango, by quoting two authors, one from Western and the other from Eastern Türkiye, gives a very striking comparison which shows us the sharp difference of these two regions:

Musa Anter, a Kurdish nationalist journalist begins his memoir by quoting Recaizade Ercüment Ekrem Talu, a famous Turkish author:

In response to this entry Anter writes these words:

This shocking comparison of the two persons--one was born in a mansion and the other in a cave--clearly gives us the contrasts between the two regions: Western and Eastern Türkiye. Although terrorism cannot be justifiable under any circumstances, the reality of the problems in the Southeastern Türkiye as framed by above quotations show us that the militaristic approach to this problem is not a workable solution.

While Western cities, such as Istanbul, Izmir, Antalya, etc., are enjoying the benefits of both state and private sector investments made in the past, the Eastern cities are lacking the same blessings. The investors’ justification for not having much interest in the region was basically lack of substructure, remoteness, lack of communication means, etc. So it is not surprising to see a totally inferior East in comparison to the West. Poverty, lack of education, lack of employment, and the ongoing blood shedding of last two decades due to PKK terrorism have forced the inhabitants of the East to immigrate into the developed cities of Western Türkiye. Edgar O’Ballance explains that the deliberate neglect of the government, both administratively and economically is the main focus of Kurds’ complaints. He also states that illiteracy and unemployment are higher in the region in comparison with non-Kurdish areas, in addition to lack of hospitals, doctors, clinics, schools, and good roads (160-1). Brown also agrees on the same approach:

Many of the Kurds who emigrated to Western Türkiye in the past succeeded there, and started to get many important roles within the society. As long as they were not asserting Kurdish nationalism, they were not treated differently from the other citizens. Brown states that, "to the extent that the Turkish Kurds conform the constitutional order, they have been free to participate fully in Turkish society since they are Turkish citizens" (117). Many of them gained education and became doctors, teachers, engineers, officers, mayors, governors, and even took their place as representatives in the national government assembly. Another surprising fact is that today approximately one third of the Turkish house of representatives is of Kurdish origin (Brown 117). Moreover the late Turkish President Turgut Özal himself admitted that he was also of Kurdish origin.

This scene was the great Turkish leader Atatürk’s dream when he said that "Happy is he who says I am a Turk." This statement was first interpreted to mean that being a Turk is something to be proud of and desirable, but it actually means that being a loyal citizen of the Turkish Republic, no matter what one’s ethnic or religious origin is, makes him/her happy. It is a pity that the Kurds who are members of PKK or those asserting their nationalism in favor of separation cannot perceive the hidden message under this statement of Atatürk. Günay Evinch, a Turkish-American with a Kurdish background stated: "As all Turks are, when we say we are ‘Turkish,’ we’re saying we’re citizens of Türkiye. we have various ethnic groups that comprise us" ("Briefing" 17).

The separatist Kurds’ justification for their direction action is that the Turkish government has been pursuing discriminative and suppressive policies towards the Kurds. Michael Gunter says:

Although the above assertions cannot be denied, the Turkish government had good reasons to apply such a policy in the past. The first reason is the fear that the country will be exploited by the foreigners whose main policy is to pull it into pieces ("Survey" 13). The second reason is that all the Turkish citizens are equal before the law, and if the decision makers start talking about problem of minorities, especially the Kurds who represent only 20 percent of the entire population, there is no end for it, because then the other minorities will ask for their sovereignty too ("Survey" 13). Late Adnan Kahveci, one of the late Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Özal’s top advisers, once stated that: "If the founders of the [Turkish] Republic had decided that each ethnic group could have its own language . . . Türkiye would be like Lebanon" (qtd. in Gunter 124). The Helsinki Watch Committee that was sent to the region for a survey also made a remarkable comment: "Kurds who think of themselves chiefly as Turks appear to be accepted as such. It is the Kurds who strongly identify themselves as Kurds who run into trouble" (qtd. in Gunter 124). It is also noteworthy to add that president Özal "presented the language bill permitting Kurdish to be used in everyday conversation and folklore music recordings; met with representatives of the Iraqi Kurds; and granted an amnesty that applied to many Turkish Kurds, such as the former mayor of Diyarbakir, Mehdi Zana" (Brown 120-1). Recent President Süleyman Demirel also stated when he was a prime minister that, "Türkiye’s border, flag, and official language cannot be defeated, but ethnic groups [that]demand to retain their own ethnic identity and culture should not be rejected. . . . They have their own history, language, and folklore. If they wish to develop them, let them do so" (qtd. in Brown 121). Criss also made a very good comment on the discrimination issue: "While a Kurdish identity based on nationality has not been acknowledged, . . . a cultural identity has always been acknowledged tacitly, and, as of the early 1990s, officially. Moreover, accusations of discrimination do not account for the continuous and numerous intermarriages that have been taking place for centuries" (22).

On the other hand, it should be admitted that it is the biggest failure of the Turkish government to ignore the Southeastern region. If the above mentioned needs were filled in time, today Türkiye would probably not be suffering the bloody consequences of the PKK terrorism. The fact is that there is no Kurdish or any minority question in Türkiye, but the problem the country encounters is a bloody terrorist campaign of the PKK whose aim is to break the stability and territorial integrity of Türkiye (qtd. in "Survey" 13)

According to separatist Kurds, especially PKK leaders, the only solution is a federation of Turkish and Kurdish people. The ironic point here is that in the early days of PKK, its leaders were seeking for their own sovereign country. The impossibility of their survival without relying on Türkiye for sustenance should have had an effect on changing their minds. Another striking point is the fact that the majority of the approximately 12 million Turkish-Kurds live in the Western cities and only about 5 million live in Southeastern region (Criss 26). So the challenging question arises: Would Kurds living in the west be forced to go live in the east? Since this means there will be an ethnic cleansing in the western areas of Türkiye, there is no reasonable application for the Kurdistan dream of separatist Kurds. As Criss also noted, the idea of a federation is not acceptable and such suggestion means trespassing on Türkiye’s sovereign rights. Such a federation would also mean surrendering to the PKK. It would be the last resort for the Turkish government to establish a negotiation with terrorists, namely the PKK (35).

The situation Türkiye is facing today with its Kurds and the terrorist group PKK--which is assumed by the separatists to represent the Kurds--is comparable to the situation that the British government encountering with Northern Ireland and IRA, or to the situation that Spanish Government experienced with its Basque region (Gunter 126). The only difference is that, Türkiye’s cosmopolitan structure allows it to be a melting pot for many different ethnic groups. Since other minorities are not complaining about any discrimination and feel happy about their Turkish citizenship, it is only some Kurds, in other words, separatist Kurds, who dream of an independent state within the territories of Türkiye. This is mainly because they have suffered the absence of many things in the region they live, which has led to poverty and illiteracy. Although the main cause of this scene is attributable to the hold of tribal leaders over the populace in the region, it is the Turkish government’s duty to implement substantial policies for improving the region and the inhabitants before it is too late.

When we think about the enormous amount of $8 billion spent on the military annually to combat the PKK in the last decade, the reason for the high inflation rate (approx. 90% ) in Türkiye becomes very clear. It is sad but true that Türkiye missed a lot of opportunities by not acting wisely and timely on this issue. Yet, it is not too late to wrap the wounds and make a fresh start. Turks and Kurds have been two brother nations lived peacefully in a single state for several centuries. Why can’t they continue this brotherhood and maintain a strong and stable country? Separatist ideas such as establishing a federation can only benefit the surrounding enemies of Türkiye waiting for a weak time in the country to attack.

The mighty $32 billion GAP (Southeastern Anatolian Project) seems to be the medicine for the illness that Kurds of Southeastern Türkiye caught. With its 22 dams under this project there will be millions of new employment opportunities as well as abundance of energy and irrigation for the areas which were previously arid ("Survey" 15). Involvement in the terrorist activities can only be the characteristic of idle and poor individuals. It is very likely that when the people of Southeastern Türkiye start to enjoy blessings of the huge GAP project, they will not any more be interested in the ideals of PKK which only brought them suffering and death until today. The ever longed prosperity in the area will cause ceasing, or at least weakening, of PKK’s bloody activities.