Discovering MENA and other thoughts

On the occasion of the start of the Kurdish new year and before hundred of thousands of feverish supporters, imprisoned PKK (Kurdistan Worker Party, branded by many countries as terrorist organization) leader, Abdullah Ocalan, surprised many by announcing last week both a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all the group's forces (experts reckon they amount to more than 3,000) from Turkey, in what some consider the culmination of years-long efforts from both sides to put an end to a decades-long bloody conflict that has left behind more than 40,000 deaths (a vast majority of them Kurdish), as well as thousands of ravaged families. With this declaration, the group meets one of the conditions PM Erdogan has repeatedly established to set off formal negotiation talks. A similar process was put into motion in 1999, following the capture of Ocalan by Turkish forces, but failed and, as a result, the Turkish army severely attacked the group. The second failed effort reached the 2010 "Os...