Kurds seek to fast-track peace process

To prevent things from getting out of hand in Turkey's peace process, both the government and the Kurds need to be acutely aware that they have much to lose from a total collapse of the talks.
Demonstrators hold Kurdish flags and portraits of jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan during a gathering to celebrate Newroz in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir March 21, 2013. Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan ordered his fighters on Thursday to cease fire and withdraw from Turkish soil as a step to ending a conflict that has killed 40,000 people, riven the country and battered its economy. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds gathered in the regional centre of Diyarb
Demonstrators hold Kurdish flags and portraits of jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan during a gathering to celebrate Nowruz in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, March 21, 2013. - REUTERS/Umit Bektas
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Cengiz Candar
@cengizcandar

A day before Christmas Eve 2014, Turkey’s mass circulation daily Hurriyet ran the headline: “Imrali Masasi,” meaning "Imrali table." Imrali is the prison island where Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), is serving a life sentence; the "table" is the negotiation table.

Another headline reading “The New Period in the Process” was placed atop a picture of a table ringed with empty chairs. 

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