"We are at a point today when the guns will fall silent and ideas will speak," declared Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey, on March 21. "Turks and Kurds fought together (in World War I), and launched the Turkish Parliament together in 1922. The basis of the new struggle consists of ideas, ideology and democratic politics." And with that, he declared a cease-fire.
Ocalan has declared cease-fires before, but the Turkish government made no substantial concessions on Kurdish rights so the fighting resumed.
Nor is "democratic politics" a phrase you would readily link to Abdullah Ocalan, who tolerates no dissent in the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the organization he created 30 years ago to fight for independence from Turkey. But this time really may be different.