Two very important developments in recent days in military and political fields are allowing us to be more optimistic that the peace process the Justice and Development (AKP)-led government began with the Kurdish movement could actually reinforce democracy in Turkey.

The first was an historic event. Murat Karayilan, the military leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), in a news conference covered by about 100 journalists at his main headquarters in the mountainous Qandil region in Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government territory, announced that their armed units would start leaving Turkish territory on May 8.

This development would be first major concrete outcome of the peace process and would open the way for further positive developments. Although not as spectacular as the first, the second major development that is at least as much vital for unhindered progress in the process was in the political field.

Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairman of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), the legal Kurdish political party represented in the Turkish parliament, in an interview to daily Taraf on April 22 said that even if the AKP agreed to come up with a constitution that would meet all the Kurdish demands, they would never support a constitutional amendment that would introduce an “oppressive and authoritarian presidential regime.”