President of the Southeastern Journalists Association Faruk Balıkçı gave bianet his impressions of Chief of Staff İlker Başbuğ’s meeting chiefly with the organizations of Diyarbakır’s employers.
According to Balıkçı, Başbuğ concentrated on the economic development, but he claims that if solution to the Kurdish Problem is desired, then it is imperative that the political dimension of the problem is addressed.
“Meeting to prevent people from ‘going to the mountains’”
According to Balıkçı, Başbuğ, who says that the operations will continue and the PKK is at the point of breaking, organized this meeting to find some answers to the problem of why they cannot prevent people from joining the PKK.
“Since the Chief of General Staff assumes that the problem is mainly economic and social, he called only the economic organizations to the meeting. He asked them how to prevent people from joining the PKK.”
“They did not give information about the content of the meeting”
Balıkçı said since the governor simply told them they were invited to a meeting with Başbuğ, but did not give any information about the content of the meeting, they could not prepare for it.
According to him, Başbuğ chose Diyarbakır, because it is the heart of the region.
“The political dimension was missing”
Although the word democracy was mentioned from time to time, Balıkçı said, there was no mention of the political dimension of the Kurdish Problem. He thinks that Başbuğ’s approach was based on marginalizing the PKK by concentrating on the economy.
“However, I think the Kurdish Problem also has a political dimension and this is really the most important part. The economic approach may have a partial effect on the whole problem, because people become guerillas for a variety of reasons. There are those who go to the mountains for the economic reasons and there are those who go there for not being able to unite with their sweethearts… But there are also those who go to the mountains for the political reasons. We have to see the whole picture. Otherwise, the problem will go on.”
Başbuğ’s concern with the GAP
Balıkçı says that Başbuğ is hoping that with the launching of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP), a major agricultural project designed to boost the economic development in the region, the economic problems will start going away. For this reason, Başbuğ said he would be following up the project. (TK/EÜ/TB)
