New spiral of violence

After the deadly attacks of the PKK Turkey threatens to plunge into a spiral of violence once more, writes the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung: "The Kurdish problem is the biggest dilemma Turkey must now solve. ... The PKK has always been dealt with as a symptom without getting to the cause. The real problem lies in the support that these fighters receive from large sections of Turkey's Kurdish population - because they don't trust the Turkish state, which in particular in the 1990s burnt their villages, killed their children and tortured their men. Turkey is experiencing great pain with the death of the 26 soldiers. What many Kurds don't understand is that the state still hasn't recognised their pain: the conflict has claimed 50,000 lives since 1984 - 40,000 of them Kurds, and the logic of violence and counter-violence still hasn't been disrupted."

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