Now the ball is in Sharon’s hands

Now everybody is wondering about the post-Arafat era.

The world is the kind of place that the day you die, life continues and people immediately start talking about what happens next.

The post-Arafat era won’t be easy. There will be political clashes among the Palestinians. A fine-tuning of their policies will take time. He left a large gap, and it’s natural to expect a certain degree of instability.

However, the key to regional development will not be the person who replaces Arafat as leader of the Palestinians but rather Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Sharon’s attitude might result in a serious conflagration and throw the Palestinian hierarchy into disarray, but it may also create an environment that will foster the establishment of peace.

I don’t believe the state of affairs in the Middle East will change significantly after Arafat’s death. The leaders will continue the way they have for the past few decades, and U.S. President George W. Bush and Sharon will be the ones who choose where the region goes from here.

A new page in the Kurdish issue
We are faced with a great opportunity. If we, as a country, can utilize it, we’ll be very comfortable.

I would like to talk about the Kurdish issue.

For years, we didn’t treat each other very well. We refused to understand the other side.

Some Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin began to pursue Kurdish nationalism. Others hoped terrorism would provide an answer. Their separatist outlook deepened the social animosity between people.

State officials reacted very harshly to such opinions. For a long time they ignored the fact that there was a problem. Violence begets violence. Things got out of hand when overseas incitement started occurring. We lost around 30,000 of our citizens and about $100 billion. Moreover, Kurds and Turks both are poorer as a result of these losses.

The times have changed.

International developments have forced people to stop considering terrorism as an option. Since Sept. 11, everybody knows that terrorism will not yield an answer and will only result in more bloodshed.

We are all more experienced as a result of these developments and are equipped to change our opinions.

New developments and new opportunities
The most important developments can be seen among our Kurdish citizens. At the top of the list comes the desire of the people of the Southeast to live in peace.

Then came statements made by former Democracy Party (DEP) deputies Leyla Zana and her friends after their release. When viewed from the outside, it appears that the Kurdish groups want to reform themselves, eradicate the division and initiate a democratic process.

They repeatedly say their aim is to unite, not divide, Turkey.

There are important changes within the Turkish state, too. The nation has made it clear that it no longer desires war but instead wants to increase its wealth while living in peace. Within this context, a very important development was Turkey deciding to adhere to the Copenhagen criteria and realizing that these rules will become even more important during the membership negotiations in the coming years.

In other words, a mutual balance has been put into place, and it is very hard to topple.

What to do and what not to do?
We will all bear important responsibilities in the near future.

1. Our Kurdish citizens, especially those leading political parties, should make their stance on terrorism very clear and turn their backs on the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK/Kongra-Gel).

2. They should explain to us how the parties they will establish are going to address not only the concerns of Kurds but also those of the entire nation. They should prove what they say with deeds.

The government and the state of the Republic of Turkey need to take important steps to help in this process.

1. The 10 percent election threshold needs to be lowered to sensible levels in order for the entire nation to take part in the election process. Parties with different agendas should not be left out of Parliament. Kurdish deputies should not be discriminated against just because of their ethnicity.

2. A general amnesty for PKK members who were not involved in murder should be passed, and this unfortunate saga should be ended.

Mutual agreement and sacrifice result in peace
If we want to secure social peace, concentrate on EU membership negotiations and create prosperity, we all need to make sacrifices.

We all need to realize the fact that the attitude, "What I say is right," will lead nowhere.

Even if we don’t want to, we need to take certain steps.

You can be sure that, eventually, we will all win.