Kurdish problem at Turkish flag test

After a peaceful period of nearly two years following the Turkish government’s initiative to pursue a political solution to the chronic Kurdish problem, the tension has disproportionately increased in the last two weeks, reaching its top, when a Kurdish militant jumped into the garden of a major Air Force base in Diyarbakır despite warning shots, climbed the mast, pulled down the flag and ran on June 8.

The militant was a part of the rallies by the supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) protesting the killing of two supporters the day before in the Lice township of the southeastern city of Diyarbakır, when the gendarmerie opened fire on demonstrators, responding to “being fired upon with long barreled guns,” as an army statement said later on.

When that was heard, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), sharing the same grassroots with the PKK called for an emergency meeting and decided to make its weekly parliamentary group meeting in Lice on June 10, that is today, instead of Ankara, where Parliament is. But in the meantime, the outlawed Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the popular front of the PKK, released a statement asking all Kurdish youth to take to the mountains and join PKK, Kurds of all ages to join the “revolt wherever they are” and for the first time to “Turkish revolutionary youth” to join forces with the PKK.

The HDP deputies, who knew that the strong language and call to fight after a period of silence was not in line with the messages they had been receiving from Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK during their contacts, immediately asked the Justice Ministry to allow another meeting with Öcalan at the İmralı Island-prison south of...