The air strikes launched by Turkey against Kurdish bases across the border are part of a misguided strategy aimed at eliminating an entire people.

Turkish leaders now seem to have discarded dialogue in favour of what has been described as a “Tamil solution” to the Kurdish question. This will lead to disaster for the country and more death and destruction for a region that is already in flames.

Turkey seems clearly intent on pursuing a military option and pressing on with its cross-border assaults on Kurdish positions until guerrilla units are "rendered ineffective", as the BBC reported (18/08/2011).

This course of action is a great tragedy for the Kurds in view of the mood of optimism that they were swept up in as the election results were announced. The 12 June election saw great gains for the pro-Kurdish candidates illustrating the strength of feeling among the wider Kurdish population for a democratic settlement to the conflict with the Turkish state that has been going on for decades. The AKP government and Turkish state cynically refused to accept the democratic outcome and quickly proceeded to undermine the results by both legalistic and military means. 

The democratic solution to the Kurdish question which seemed to been emerging as a real possibility before and during the election has now receded with the latest resort to full scale military action against the Kurds. This is a gross miscalculation on the part of Turkish leaders as it is based on the fallacious assumption that the issue is simply one of security and terrorism when in fact it is about the denial of the rights to an entire people. 

The only realistic option for peace, which was on the agenda during the election campaign only a few months ago, is the drawing up of a new democratic constitution for the country that will guarantee Kurdish civil, political and social rights. The notion that the Kurds are “separatists” hell-bent on breaking up Turkey is erroneous; the Kurds have proposed “democratic autonomy” which is a form of devolution that would underpin not undermine the proposed new constitution.

It is a stark indication of the current fatalism prevailing in the media outside Turkey that the BBC can report in a matter of fact way by stating that there is little talk now of renewing the so-called "democratic opening".

The continued bombing of Kurdish positions is likely to intensify with disastrous consequences and huge loss of life unless Turkey is persuaded to change course now. 

Turkey’s leaders are seeking to project an image of peace and reasonableness to the outside world. In his latest international intervention, Prime Minister Erdogan has been seen accompanied by his wife on a visit to Somalia to express sympathy for starving children in the famine-struck African country.

This is little more than rank hypocrisy in view of what his AKP government is doing to the Kurds in his own country. They should not be allowed to get away with it.

Turkey’s resort to military action must be stopped immediately before it embroils the country in a conflict whose long term consequences are potentially disastrous for the country and the wider region and before thousands of people are killed.