Adile Hanım: Tayip Temel asks, "Why do those who watch war from afar oppose peace?"

Rastinews — Tayip Temel asks, "Why do those who watch war from afar oppose peace?"

I ask exactly the opposite

Is what is being offered to Kurds today really peace?

Or, at the end of a half-century-long struggle, are Kurds being asked to abandon their political and military positions one by one, without receiving any serious guarantee regarding the state's democratization?

Asking this question is not longing for war. Not asking this question is learning nothing from history.

Who is surrendering what at the table?

The simplest way to understand whether a peace process is fair is this: which side is giving something concrete and irreversible, and which is only giving its word?

Let us look at today's picture.

What is being given on the Kurdish side is concrete and measurable: weapons are being laid down, the organization is dissolving itself, guerrillas are coming down from the mountains, and the SDF's military structure is being integrated into Damascus. All of these are steps that are hard to reverse and have been recorded.

What is being given on the state's side, so far, is purely verbal: expressions such as "a new era," "brotherhood," and "coexistence" — none of these have been turned into constitutional text, law, or a binding guarantee.

This is not a negotiation; it is a one-sided disarmament. And history has taught us time and again that the side that lays down its arms also loses its power at the table.

What is happening in Turkey in these same days?

We are not asking this question in a vacuum. Looking at Turkey's domestic politics in the same months the process has been underway is the most honest way to test the state's claim of "transformation."

Mayors from the main opposition party are being arrested. Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu is still in prison. Five CHP mayors have received heavy prison sentences. A comedian is held for months over remarks made during a stand-up show; a release order is issued, but before he can even leave through the door, he is taken back into custody over a new investigation into the same show.

These are not isolated cases, but a pattern. And this pattern shows the following: in today's Turkey, there is a price to pay even for opposing, for laughing, for being an elected official. In such a political climate, telling Kurds "trust us, this time will be different" seeks its credibility in the state's own practice — and fails to find it.

The question is clear: while Turkey cannot even open a normal space for opposition to the CHP, what political freedom will it offer to Kurds in a *permanent and guaranteed* form?

The Kurdish issue did not begin with the PKK, and will not end with the PKK's end

The debate is often framed as if the Kurdish issue began forty years ago when a few people took up arms, and will end once those arms are laid down. This is the easiest way to trivialize the issue.

Yet the Kurdish issue existed before the PKK as well: in the 1920s, in the 1930s, in Dersim, in Zilan; in the years when Kurdish was banned, when people could not give their children Kurdish names, when Kurds were called "Mountain Turks," and when people were tortured in Diyarbakır Prison after the September 12 coup to force them to deny their own identity.

The PKK did not create the Kurdish issue — it emerged from within that issue. It is not possible to understand today without making this distinction. Because an organization can be dissolved, weapons can be laid down, guerrillas can come down from the mountains, but the state mindset that gave rise to the Kurdish issue does not change on its own. No one is asking whether it has changed.

A one-sided transformation is not a transformation

The biggest contradiction of today's process lies exactly here. Kurds are expected to undergo an extraordinary transformation: the armed struggle should end, the organization should dissolve itself, Kurdish politics should adopt a new language, Rojava should integrate into Damascus, and the SDF should cease to exist as an independent military structure. Almost all of these have already happened: it was announced that the integration of the SDF's military, security, and administrative institutions into the Damascus state structure had been completed; the SDF declared its dissolution as an independent military force; Mazlum Abdi was appointed as an adviser to President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

So what has changed in Ankara? Has Kurdish-language education received constitutional guarantee? Has the trustee (kayyum) system been completely abolished? Have the collective rights of Kurds been recognized? Has the constitution become more democratic? Has the judiciary become independent? Has freedom of expression expanded?

No. There isn't even a single article.

There is a strange bargain at play here: one side is giving up the concrete power it holds, the other is making promises about the future. Every definition of "peace" that ignores this asymmetry is, in fact, a definition of surrender.

Öcalan can negotiate with the state, but he cannot speak on behalf of the people

Abdullah Öcalan's negotiating with the state is not surprising in itself — if a conflict is to end, the parties talk; that is the nature of politics. Our objection is not to the negotiation itself.

Our objection is to every word emerging from these talks being presented as an indisputable truth for Kurds.

Öcalan can decide on his own life. A political movement can decide on its own organizational future. But no one has unlimited authority over the future of Kurdish children not yet born. Saying this is not an insult — it is the most basic rule of politics: a people does not belong to a leader; a leader is accountable to the people.

What did we gain in Rojava, and what did we give up?

We must ask the same question about Rojava, this time with figures and names.

When ISIS attacked Kobanê, the world saw how Kurds fought. It was not only Kurds from Rojava who died; people who went from Turkey, Kurdish youth born in Europe, and internationalists who were not even Kurdish lost their lives there. Those people did not die so that someone could hold a position in Damascus — they died so that Kobanê would not fall, so that Kurds would never again be at the mercy of others in their own cities, so that women could have a say over their own lives.

Now the SDF has been dissolved, its military structure has been placed under Damascus, and its administrative institutions have been integrated into the central state. Perhaps circumstances required this, perhaps there was no other option left — we do not rule out this possibility. But then explain the outcome to us in concrete terms: what is the constitutional status of Kurds? What remains of autonomy? What is the legal guarantee for Kurdish-language education? What is the future of the system built by women? If Damascus goes back on its promises tomorrow, which agreement, which international mechanism will protect the Kurds?

Is Ahmed al-Sharaa's word today the law of the Syrian state ten years from now? If not, in exchange for what guarantee did the Kurds hand over the power they held?

Asking these questions is not wanting war — it is demanding accountability. And demanding accountability is indispensable to every democratic process.

Turkey is not withdrawing from Syria; it is settling in

Another key to understanding this process is this: while Kurds are being asked to dismantle their military structures in Syria, Turkey is not withdrawing from Syria — on the contrary, it is expanding its military and logistical presence.

The Abu Zuhur Air Base in Idlib has become a point where Turkey's military plans in the region are discussed; Israel struck the base on August 18, and Turkey officially condemned the attack. In the same period, joint activities between the Turkish Armed Forces and the Syrian army are expanding.

The picture is clear: the Kurds' independent military power is disappearing, Damascus is being strengthened as the central state, Turkey is deepening its military relationship with Damascus, and Ankara is becoming a more permanent actor on the Syrian stage. And all of this is being presented to us under the heading of "peace."

The question that must then be asked is simple: are Kurds a partner at the table of this new regional order, or are they the party being decided upon at that table?

You cannot bury these questions by telling us "you watched the war"

This is where my real objection to Tayip Temel's piece lies. No one needs to teach us the value of peace — Kurds know the value of peace, because they know the price of war. But that price is not found only in graveyards.

Non-political Kurds paid too. Kurds who went to work in the morning and came home in the evening paid too. The student who saw people's faces change once it was learned they were Kurdish at university, the worker afraid to say where they were from, the mother who could not speak to her child in her own language, everyone who had to change their name, hide their accent, and lock their identity inside their home for years — all of them paid.

The price of the Kurdish issue is not only political but social, intergenerational — a price etched into the body and memory of human beings. That is why the right to speak about the solution belongs not to a few politicians, but to all of us.

Why should I entrust my future to a state that has shown me no democracy?

Is there truly a democratic regime in Turkey today? The main opposition party is under heavy judicial operations, elected mayors are in prison, and a comedian can be released over remarks he made only to be arrested again the same day.

In such a country, why should I, as a Kurd, say "the state has changed now"? Based on what data, trusting which institution? Without Turkey becoming democratic, who will convince us, and how, that the Kurdish issue can be resolved democratically?

I look at practice, not intention. Because history has taught us to look at practice rather than intention.

We want peace, but we will not leave our memory at the door

I am not against peace. I do not want another young Kurd, another Turkish soldier to die. I do not want another mother to embrace her son's coffin.

But if this is to be called peace, that peace must eliminate not only the Kurd's weapons but also their fear. It must guarantee their language, identity, and political will. It must not leave their gains in Rojava at the mercy of other states. And most importantly, it must never again make Kurds feel that "the state can take everything back if it wants to."

Otherwise, let us not rush to call this peace.

Because the Kurds' past is heavy enough already. No one has the right to mortgage their future as well — not Ankara's, not Damascus's, not any organization's, not any leader's.

I want to leave my own child a dignified future. That is why I speak, that is why I ask, that is why I object.

And no one can tell me, "You watched the war from afar, be quiet," because in this nation, hardly anyone truly watched the war from afar.

The real issue now is no longer the end of the war, but how Kurds will emerge from that peace: as a people with their rights guaranteed, or having given up all the power they held, once again trusting the word that states will give?