How did Turkey’s Kurds view the protests that recently engulfed most of its western cities? This was the question I had in mind when I briefly visited the country’s Kurdish southeast in June. The prevailing mood I encountered was a far cry from the jubilant and self-assured atmosphere back in Taksim Square, still occupied by demonstrators at the time. 

Erupting at a rare moment of optimism surrounding the negotiations for a permanent settlement between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, the protests in the country’s west had puzzled people in the east and led many to worry about their impact on the nascent peace process. Echoing the logic of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — a divisive figure in the southeast, as in the rest of the country — several Kurdish friends suggested that "a button" had been pushed to derail the talks. 

The skepticism that often gives credence to conspiracy theories in this geography is understandable: over the course of the brutal three-decade conflict, Kurds have seen their hopes crushed repeatedly as cease-fires were sabotaged by "deep elements" within the Turkish state or the PKK. Such suspicions are stoked by images of flag-waving Turkish nationalists at the protests, which evoke harrowing memories of the military-led repression during the 1980s and 1990s.

Yet, the protests also offered unusual messages that challenged this narrative, adding to the overall sense of puzzlement. For one, among the diverse mix of demonstrators, there were also Kurds donning banners of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and even PKK flags and portraits of its incarcerated leader, Abdullah Ocalan. A popular BDP lawmaker, Sirri Sureyya Onder, emerged as a symbol of resistance by throwing himself in front of demolition machines at Gezi Park.