Turkey is going through a period with terror escalating, the PKK is digging ditches to seize cities and an intense conflict is taking place. As suggested by Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş before the June 7 general elections, it was normally expected that the HDP, which received 13 percent of the vote in the elections to gain 80 seats in Parliament, would play a facilitating role in the resolution of the Kurdish question and thus politics would gain strength. He even said in a threatening manner that if the party could not pass the 10 percent election threshold it would not be able to restrain its base and a civil war would break out. The HDP passed the election threshold and this success resulted in the total opposite of what Demirtaş had said. The PKK considered the 13 percent vote share almost as a signal to begin attacking. Well, why has it progressed like this?

Those who voted for the HDP did not vote either because they wanted violence or the reactivation of weapons. There were different motives behind the people's support for the HDP. They voted for it either because they were incited by Kurdish nationalism or because the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) shifted away from the Kurds and adopted a more nationalist discourse. There were also those who supported the party because of their obsessive opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Demirtaş's strictest opposition to Erdoğan. Also, some Turkish leftists voted for it since they considered the HDP as the party closest to their ideologies. However, the PKK leadership in the Qandil Mountains perceived these votes as if they were cast for themselves. Furthermore, Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) Co-Chair Cemil Bayık recently called on people to vote for the HDP in the Nov. 1 elections, implying that they can achieve their goals through votes cast for the HDP. The PKK considered the 13 percent vote that the HDP received as a power that would legitimize it, and partly because of the Suruç attack, it aimed to instigate an uprising by using this.

The Middle East has certain dynamics. Irrespective of how one is critical of them, the one who is perceived as an authority has power and support in this region. In order to avoid harming the reconciliation process, the state preferred to remain invisible during the process. This boosted the PKK's power in the region and the people of the southeast were convinced that the PKK was the master of that region. Then the Suruç massacre took place and the PKK took it as an attack against itself. The attack was taken as a signal by the PKK and it began attacking to show its strength. This was not because the attack was allegedly conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), but because PKK supporters were killed in an area that the PKK considered as if it were its own area of domination. Certainly all of these are brutal incidents that claimed the lives of many. Unfortunately, in the Middle East, power struggles are staged with a mentality that ignores human life.

After all, what is taking place today is the Turkish state's self-defense against a terrorist organization that attacks its sovereignty and kills soldiers, police and civilians. This also means the state is still there as the true and single legitimate authority. If the state can maintain this struggle by aiming at the PKK alone and without harming people, and if it can remind people of the true authority, it will emerge victorious from this war.