The reactions were bitter among the Kurds, a key segment for the Turkey’s democratic progress. A BDP deputy, Ertuğrul Kürkçü, said, “Same old, same old.” At the BDP’s Diyarbakır headquarters, people told daily Today’s Zaman that their demands were not included in the reforms.
BDP Co-Chairman Gülten Kışanak said the government’s proposals will not help the settlement aimed at ending the conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the state. She said the package does not address the need for democratization, broader freedoms and rights, solutions to problems and an acceptance of citizens as they are.
She added that the reform package has no “capability to solve the problems” or tackle the stalemate in the settlement process. Saying that there are still thousands of political prisoners in jails, Kışanak said the package was drafted to meet the needs of the AK Party, not the people, “a package falling short of calling an Alevi an Alevi, a Kurd a Kurd.”
“It is not a democratization package; it is an election package,” she concluded.
Although the Kemalist and nationalist opposition parties were routinely categorical in rejection of Erdoğan’s menu of reforms, his loud declaration today will surely add fuel to the ongoing debate on Turkey’s thorny path.
Observers in the liberal segments of domestic media were keen on underlining the positive elements (such as lifting the nationalist oath in schools, granting villages their original names, Kurdish education in private schools and lifting the ban on headscarves in public service, etc.). But the question remains how the package will effect the course of the Kurdish Process and the overall tone of the Progress Report on Turkey, due very soon in Brussels.