Kurds dare to hope as PKK fighters' ceasefire with Turkey ta

[Aslan]

In a region that has been on the frontline of conflict for decades, the long years of intimidation, violence, and humiliations in south-east Turkey are giving way to tentative hope for a normal life.

Springtime has come to the places where fighting between the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) and Turkey's security forces has been at its most violent. For the first time in more than a decade, Semdinli residents are looking forward to the new season.

"Since the ceasefire was declared a month ago, Semdinli has started to live again," said Pinar Yilmaz, head of the local women's committee of the main Kurdish political party, the BDP.

Sitting outside her house on a mild Sunday evening, she is happy and enthusiastic about the ongoing peace negotiations. "Only last year, we would never have been able to go out after nightfall, because it was too dangerous. The army did not allow it; there was constant fighting. We would not have been able to understand our own words over the sound of bombings and missiles. But now things will get better."

Nestling in Turkey's easternmost corner between the Iranian and Iraqi borders in Hakkari province, Semdinli is where PKK fighters led their first armed attack against Turkish security forces in 1984. It might now be the place where it all ends.

On Sunday night, hundreds of football fans followed a match on a big screen in the centre of town, surrounded by two heavily fortified military bases. Teahouses spill their light on to the street, and young men set off fireworks in honour of their favourite team.

Peace negotiations between the PKK and Turkey began gingerly last October, when Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish prime minister to openly engage in dialogue with the jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, deemed the state's enemy No 1. After the declaration of a ceasefire on 21 March, rebel commander Murat Karayilan announced the withdrawal of PKK fighters stationed in Turkey, starting tomorrow .

The withdrawal would mark a vital step towards the end of one of the world's longest-running and bloodiest ethnic conflicts, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives in 30 years.

"We have seen so many things we cannot forget. But still, all we want is peace, and an end to this conflict," Yilmaz says. "People used to dread the coming of spring here. As soon as the snow melted, the fighting would start again. But this year, spring is full of hope."

When she was 10, her father was killed by the military. "I had to pick up pieces of his body myself," she recalls. "They drove over him with a tank."

Eight years later, she was kidnapped by Turkish secret police. "I was active in [the pro-Kurdish party] HADEP at the time, and they wanted to force me to work for them. I refused." She takes a deep breath. "They tortured me for days to break me. In the end they threw me on to a pile of rubbish because they thought I was dead."

After recovering, she spent several years in prison for political activities, the last time between 2010 and 2012.

Pinar and her husband, Seferi Yilmaz, also used to run the famous Umut Bookstore in Semdinli before it was bombed by non-commissioned military officers pretending to be PKK members. The case was never fully solved.

Despite the thirst for peace, many still have mixed feelings about the planned withdrawal of PKK fighters. "The 8th of May is a day we both anticipate and fear," Pinar Yilmaz said. "We don't trust the government at all. Many people here are afraid that once the guerrillas are gone, the Turkish military will crack down on us again. And after all we have been through, it is impossible not to understand why people are worried."

For more than a month, the BDP has been organising events and meetings in Semdinli to explain the details of the ongoing peace process to worried residents, to make sure that everyone is on board.

"People here still have many questions," she explains. "In order for this to work, all these questions need to be answered as best as we can."

She criticises the Turkish military for erecting 14 new forts around Semdinli since the ceasefire was announced. "They say they only want to prevent smuggling, but history has shown us that they cannot be trusted."

But she adds that the overwhelming majority of Kurds trust the judgment of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan: "Everything we have won, including the current peace talks, we have won through the PKK and through resistance."

It would not be the first time that hopes of a peace deal have been shattered. In October 1999, eight PKK fighters crossed into Turkey as part of a peace delegation, ordered by then newly jailed Ocalan as "a sign of goodwill". All of them were arrested and imprisoned, some for up to 12 years.

"This first peace delegation entered through the mountain pass in Semdinli just above our village," Yusuf Ozcan from Tekeli village recalls. "Back then, we were so happy, so excited! They were greeted by a large group of soldiers. They embraced. But it turned out that Turkey did not want peace at all. They had lied to us."

Trying to withdraw, 500 additional PKK fighters were reportedly killed by Turkish security forces, smothering any hopes of peace.

The Turkish government seized part of his land 18 years ago to build a military base just across from his house.

"They never asked me, they simply took it. At some point they offered me a quarter of the market price in compensation, so I refused."

He recounts the constant intimidation, the nightly raids on his house, the beatings and countless humiliations. Only two weeks ago, his 21-year-old son took to the Iraqi mountains to join the PKK after Turkish nationalists attacked him at his university in Adana.

But Ozcan underlines the importance of not giving up: "If this peace process fails, we will all lose – Kurds and Turks. Enough blood has been spilled. I have family members in the PKK and in the military, and all I want is peace, no matter what." He says life in Tekeli has improved since the ceasefire was called on 21 March.

"We did not have permission to go out after six o' clock in the evening; we were imprisoned in our villages, and lived in continuous fear of military operations.

"Last year our house shook with the sounds of missiles being fired, bullets were whizzing around our heads."

For the first time in over more than 15 years, he has bought a herd of sheep: "The high meadows were off limits by order of the military, and even if we were allowed to go, the constant fighting made it too dangerous to graze animals there."

Ozcan hopes that shepherding and beekeeping, formerly a main source of income in the Semdinli region, will take off again. "We will need some financial aid from the government to make it work. Most people had to sell all their livestock because of the conflict and now cannot afford to buy new animals."

Like many of his fellow villagers, he relies on smuggling petrol, cigarettes, tea and rice. "For literally every household here, smuggling is the only possibility to get by. There are no factories here, and no work at all."

He underlines that many families simply do their own shopping across the borders, because local staples are too expensive, risking high fines, prison terms and death. "For example, rice costs five times as much here as in Iran. Turkish gasoline is the most expensive in the world! How would we afford it?"

He is worried that some people may take up arms against the Turkish military out of desperation if all smuggling routes are shut down, but argues that peace is worth the sacrifice: "I would accept going hungry, and I don't need any money if we get peace in return. Money can be lost, and it comes back, but a lost life is lost forever."

Some names have been changed

The long war: high cost in lives and lira

The Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) launched its armed struggle for autonomy and greater rights for Kurds in 1984.

Almost 30 years later, the conflict has claimed more than 40,000 lives and has cost Turkey up to 800bn lira (£290bn).

The PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured in Kenya in 1999 and imprisoned for treason. He is still being held in solitary confinement on the prison island of Imrali, south of Istanbul.

According to the International Crisis Group, the past 18 months have been the most violent in more than a decade, leaving more than 900 dead.

Over the same period, the Turkish state imprisoned more than 8,000 Kurdish activists, politicians and journalists under arbitrary terrorism laws.

In the autumn of 2012, Kurdish prisoners started a hunger strike involving up to 600 inmates that lasted 68 days until Ocalan ordered an end to the protest.

Tentative and secret peace talks got under way late last year between Ocalan and Turkey's intelligence chief, leading to the announcement of a ceasefire in March and the expected announcement tomorrow of a PKK withdrawal from Turkey into mountain strongholds in northern Iraq.