As Turkey is gearing up for its biggest political challenge – to solve an armed conflict that has already killed more than 40,000 since 1984 – it is depressing to see that no national platform for free and open exchange of views exists.<\/p>\n
The greater the task in front of us, the lower the quality of public debate becomes.<\/p>\n
The Justice and Development Party have never had an inclusive and consultative approach to politics.\u00a0 Prime Minister Erdogan\u2019s speeches often polarise or even demonise his rivals.<\/p>\n
In return, the opposition is always on the defensive. Instead of offering durable solutions and an alternative vision, they resort to predictable and clich\u00e9d positions.<\/p>\n
When political leaders fail to build relationships based on mutual respect for democratic traditions, as well as for each other, compromises necessary for addressing major national challenges become even harder to reach.<\/p>\n
At the end, both sides resort to appealing to the lowest common denominator, populism.<\/p>\n
In Diyarbakir, Prime Minister Erdo\u011fan attended a mass wedding of 400 couples with the president of Iraqi-Kurdistan Masoud Barzani. Ordinarily, this should have been an occasion to feel hopeful.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will witness a new Turkey where those in the mountains come down, the prisons empty, and the 76 million citizens become one,\u201d Erdo\u011fan promised.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Diyarbak\u0131r, the city of brotherhood, we have been brothers for time immemorial\u201d.<\/p>\n
The next day, still in the region, he talked of a new process, a new climate and a new spring atmosphere being experienced not only in Turkey, but also in the region.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it was the sparkle of gold coins distributed to happy married couples by the visiting Kurdish leader Barzani that prompted this level of optimism. \u00a0Or was it the haunting Kurdish songs of the iconic singer Sivan Perwer, freshly returned from exile?\u00a0 Elsewhere in Diyarbakir, a counter rally was organised by the main Kurdish party, Peace and Democracy (BDP).<\/p>\n
Dismissing the prime minister\u2019s appearance with Barzani as a party-political show with an eye on municipal elections next March, BDP officials complained about \u201cthe lack of concrete steps by the government for the rights of the Kurdish people.”<\/p>\n
Further away from the south-east, young people have been harassed by police following the prime minister\u2019s comments about offence caused to conservative society by male and female university students sharing accommodation. They could not quite see the signs of this new climate. \u00a0For those tear-gassed and water-cannoned on streets of Istanbul or Ankara, the air smelt neither brotherly nor democratic.<\/p>\n
As for a new spring environment being experienced in the region, an increasingly dim picture in Syria threatening both Turkey and Iraq, made this claim somewhat delusional.<\/p>\n
It was surely more about a package of deals with Iraqis, in the north and south, to build a multi-billion-dollar pipeline to export oil and gas to world markets.<\/p>\n
A day after the Diyarbakir ceremony, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a Brookings Institute audience in Washington DC, that he had apologised to Kurdish singer Sivan Perwer for being forced into exile for 37 years.<\/p>\n