Turkey is not achieving success in its fight against terror by making concessions on democracy. As a matter of fact, while fighting terrorism, it is taking action with the self-confidence of leaving the Kurdish question behind and while strengthening internal peace.

For years we were conditioned to a mentality that presented terrorism and the Kurdish question to us in the same imposing package. It was believed that once the Kurdish question was solved, terrorism would also be over. All the necessary serious steps concerning the Kurdish question were taken. Assimilation was put an end to. The Kurdish identity gained state recognition and it was literally stated that Kurds are first-class citizens of this country. Just as there were no more bans on the Kurdish language, the country’s national public Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) launched a broadcast policy – that basically serves Kurdish culture with the most authentic Kurdish language – with full support from the state and is continuing it. Kurds are already fully utilizing all kinds of services and rights benefitted by any Turkish citizen in Turkey.

Kurds are able to exist everywhere in the country as equals both geographically and socially. Hence, Turkey’s Kurdish question is not a graver or more serious problem today than Iran’s Kurdish issue as it is believed. If, despite this, there are still those who use the Kurdish question as an excuse, who impose the Kurdish question and terrorism in the same package, then, it has been proven that the problem is something else.

Back in the days when the Kurdish question was used as an excuse for terrorism, there was a discourse the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) leaders tried to impose on us: “We,” they would say, “are the last generation with whom the Turks can talk and solve the problem; you can solve it with us alone, otherwise, it will be impossible to establish dialogue with the next generation.”

Regardless of the impertinent threat underlying these words, there were those who even advised that we surrender to the guard the terrorists wanted to impose on us in the name of so-called democracy and human rights. Whereas that older generation was simply slyly provoking the aggressive, radical child-young generation with these words. It was not calling them to dialogue, humanity or peace, it was in no way recommending moderation to them. They were sneakily and slyly gathering power for themselves through the aggression, vandalism and terrorism of those obstinate youth.

So many children, youth, young men and women were sent to their deaths for the sake of those old politicians’ power greed. Despite making serious progress in relation to the real problem they talk about, they still continued to insist on claiming the existence of a problem that will create an area of power for them.

Turkey has actually ended the Kurdish issue that is exemplary for all countries in the region. It did this in two ways.

First, serious progress is made in relation to the remaining problem of terrorism. As the PKK used to be the most effective means of propaganda in the past, it was able to increase the problem, making it bigger than it really is. Today, the terrorism in Turkey no longer increases the problem, on the contrary, it has the completely opposite effect due to the effective fight carried out against it.

Last week, we had drawn attention to the real tragedies caused by the terrorists targeted by the armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in comparison to the sloppy dramas the Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman and CHP Deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, who felt sorry for the terrorists killed by the armed UAVs, tried to create. The terrorists who knocked on the door of former Kemerli village’s headman M. Salih Aslan, 65, in southeastern Siirt province, took him 50 meters away from his house and executed him in front of his son’s eyes. Normally, such actions would have a serious propaganda effect in the region, giving the people a sense of the terrorist organization’s power in the area. In a statement by the Siirt Governorate, it was reported that as of yesterday, a seven-member group that carried out operations in the region, were neutralized. It is considered that Justice and Development Party (AK Party) member Aslan’s killers are also among these seven people. Those complaining about the armed UAVs know very well what they have lost. They are losing their terror card against Turkey. The PKK is slipping away from their hands as a useful tool. Who else should complain but them?

Second, of course by taking serious steps that will make the Kurdish people feel that Turkey really and truly is their own country, their own state. By really solving the Kurdish question and leaving no room for doubt in the minds of Kurds that they are first-class citizens of this country.

The Kurds of Turkey know today that Kurds already have a state and that is the Republic of Turkey.

Unfortunately the regimes in Iraq and Syria failed to give the same feeling to Kurds. The regimes established post-U.S. intervention and under U.S. supervision also further supported the processes that would ordain Kurds’ leaving their country under U.S. guidance, rather than providing the conditions that would make them feel like an equal and founding element in this country.

Kurds were detached from Baghdad back in Saddam Hussein’s time as well, and, instead of getting closer to Baghdad during the post-U.S. invasion period, they were further distanced. Kurds who did not even have an identity in Syria in the past are now being turned into the actors of ethnic cleansing through U.S. backing.

It is very clear what role has been cast for Kurds in this process by those who deem us worthy of separations, divisions, detachments, while they themselves are constantly pursuing unity.