A new momentum for Kurdish talks?

It is hardly surprising to read the statements from the Turkish Presidential Palace regarding a different approach to the Kurdish issue after CIA Director Mike Pompeo's visit to Ankara. İlnur Çevik, a former journalist and currently advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said Turkey may start looking at the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) from a different perspective. He even cited the example of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (KRG) and Massoud Barzani's relations with Ankara. "Why shouldn't the PYD be like Barzani?" Çevik told the New York Times.

Çevik knows the issue very well. For a long time he was a close confidant of President Barzani and helped smooth out some of the troubled issues with Ankara. He not only knows the sensitivities in Ankara but also has a very realistic view about Kurdish politics, its credentials in Washington DC, and its relevance in the region. 

But it is not just Çevik who has hinted at the possibility of a solution on the Kurdish front. Cevat Öneş, a former Deputy Undersecretary of the National Intelligence Agency (MİT), has stressed the need to revive the Kurdish peace talks inside Turkey as soon as possible due to the fast-changing facts on the war theater.
"It is time to rethink and restart the democratic solution process right now," Öneş said last week in an interview with me on CNN Türk. "And this should be kept away from the daily discussions of referendum." 
His remarks coincided with the visit to Turkey of CIA Director Pompeo and amid debates on the possibilities of a safe zone inside Syria. The U.S. policy towards the PYD/YPG will not change overnight. President Donald Trump's decision-making shows us he will give enough freedom to generals on the ground to choose their partners. For the time...