I have had 30, almost 40, years’ experience of conflict and peace-building in Northern Ireland, and in the wider context of the island of Ireland. Despite the Belfast Agreement and the much more recent agreement about Criminal Justice and Policing, Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society. Some of its people have a British identity and others and Irish identity. Symbolic issues are still very important. Flags and emblems can divide. Different sports, different songs and stories and even different language and religious allegiances, can identify people and keep them apart. In spite of these problems, which date back over many generations, the great majority of people want to live in peace and to co-operate across the boundaries and borders.

I am very grateful to Ireland, because it is there that I have learnt most of what I know about human rights, about non-violence and about peace-building. A friend of mine from West Belfast, who lives near the Peace-Line in that city, got me involved in the Republic of Moldova in 1992. This country had been part of the Soviet Union, and lies between Romania and the Ukraine. When the Soviet Union broke up, the Romanian identity and the Russian identity could not find agreement. The result was a short civil war, followed by a frozen conflict, leaving the smaller part of Moldova, called Trans-Dneistria, broken away and in a state of unrecognized independence. In this, it is similar to Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

 My friends and I worked, as independent third parties, with every level in Moldova. We had contact with villages and mayors, with universities and political parties. We worked with both Governments and with the official mediators. Despite many meetings, conferences and seminars, no over-all political agreement was reached. We had used the methods of community development and of analytical conflict resolution. I think this work failed because we had insufficient impact on the internal decision-makers and never succeeded in bringing together the external players, especially Russia, Romania and to a lesser extent, the Ukraine. Two of the three official mediators were also at the same time interested parties.

At present I am I close touch with friends, working on Israel and Palestine, Iraq and Kosovo. In the last case they hope to assist the Serbian Orthodox Monasteries, to defuse their relations with their Albanian neighbours. In all these places there is historic mistrust. Peace-builders have to try to reduce this by patient listening, by building relationships and by improving communication. Does this, I wonder, make sense to you the context of the Kurdish question in Turkey?

If progress is to be made on the Kurdish issue, the difficulty seems to me to lie in, how one gets from where we are now, towards recognition of identity, reasonable regional autonomy, together with respect for all minorities. A major campaign of public education is probably needed, on order to change attitudes.

At the level of government and political leadership, a conflict-resolution seminar or series of meetings might be helpful. The background is the government’s refusal of dialogue with the DTP, the subsequent dissolution of the Party by Court Order, and the arrest of MPs, Mayors and party officials.

Would it be possible to bring together senior government advisers, with opposition politicians (or their advisers), and perhaps some representatives of civil society and academia? Numbers could be quite small at first, and international experienced facilitators would probably be helpful.

In an analytical process, the first aim should be to reach as much agreement as possible on the causes of past Kurdish up-risings, and on the violence which has continued intermittently since 1984 (25 years) and before.

A second item might be to cost the consequences of denying full recognition of identity to a large section of the total population. Such costs will include military police and prison expenditures. In addition, there will be costs arising from social disruption and displacements of population, together with harm to the education system. These are likely to lead to reduced savings and missed investment opportunities, causing deprivation and poverty.

Confidence-building measures could be considered to improve the climate for full negotiations towards a new constitution. Confidence-building measures should be designed to remove the attractions of violent action and to increase democratic participation on all sides. Analysis of urgent human needs in Turkey should also be agreed if possible. Conflict can only be considered to have been resolved, when its causes are understood and removed, and when win-win measures are implemented, which satisfy the genuine needs (including mental and identity needs) of all parties and groups involved. Conflict-resolution should be distinguished from mediation.