Described sometimes as the Southwest issue or Kurdish problem, speakers, most of whom are influential figures on their fields, tried to find a common ground to discuss the problem. The opening of the conference witnessed hot debate between Ahmet Turk, the former deputy of the defunct Democratic Party (DEP), and Umit Firat, one of the organizers of the conference during the second session titled “Organizations and Experiences” that took place in the morning. Mr. Turk criticized Umit’s interview with Hurriyet, a daily newspaper that contained angry statements over not inviting Leyla Zana. While Firat responded by refuting Hurriyet’s news the reporter of the news Sefa Kaplan claimed he had evidence to confirm the news article published.

Sertac Bucak, the founder and former president of the International Center for Human Rights of the Kurds, called PKK, the Kurdish Worker’s Party, for disarmament during the first session titled “The Evolution of Kurdish Issue and its Historical Background” and added “Armed resistance fits well in with the policies of status quo in Turkey. However, anyone who acknowledges the existence of the Kurdish issue should not be claimed as separatist.

During the session on nationalism, Professor Ahmet Insel claimed that nationalism is an exclusionist discourse when he said: “Nationalism is the non-modern part of the modern human being and all kinds of nationalism such as good or bad, vulgar or sympathetic are on the same continuum. Nationalism is an identity given to the human being and separates one from another. Therefore, those claiming themselves as nationalist can not talk about a peace. The nationalism of both the winner and loser are modern but the black sheep of the modernism. Just as the nationalism of Ataturk contains the discrimination in it, the nationalism of the Kurds does the same thing.” He further deepened his speech saying “the burden on the shoulders of the Kurds is more than that of the Turks.” One of his strongest emphasize was on the militarism and disarmament. He proposed to develop a new consciousness to solve the problem saying “there should be no loser and winner.”

Mumtaz’er Turkone, professor at Gazi University, started to his speech paying attention on the concepts’ not being understood by the sides. He claimed that the Turkish nationalism is not created by the Turks. “Perhaps the Kurds contributed more to the Turkish nationalism than the Turks did,” said Turkone, “It is the Macedonians and Circassians who founded the Republic and they created the nationalism in order to protect the state. Ziya Gokalp, the author of The Basics of Turkish Nationalism, was also of Kurdish origin.” He categorized the kinds of nationalism into three saying “there is the nationalism of Ankara, Diyarbakir and Istanbul and I thing the problem should be approached with the nationalism in Istanbul.”