By STEPHEN KINZER

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- To outsiders, the solution to Turkey's long
conflict with Kurdish insurgents may seem easy and obvious. Over
the last few weeks, the rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan has made it as clear
as the air that envelops the rugged mountains in the war zone. Let us
Kurds use our language freely, let us have a television station, and
acknowledge our ethnic identity, he said at his recently concluded treason
trial. Then we will stop waging a war that has cost Turkey more than
$100 billion and the lives of more than 30,000 people over 15 years, in
the process tearing the country apart and blackening its name abroad.

Naturally it is difficult for Turks or their leaders to imagine negotiating
with Ocalan or others who have touched off such destruction. But the
world has become accustomed to watching governments grudgingly deal
with Palestinian, Irish and Basque groups that engaged in horrific
terrorism. In Britain, the murderers of several police officers and a
bomber who nearly succeeded in assassinating Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher were recently freed from prison as a painful gesture of good will
aimed at resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland. Spain has granted its
Basque region almost complete autonomy, and as a result the
assassinations that wracked the region for years have all but ceased.
Why not a similar formula in Turkey?

The capture of Ocalan, and his subsequent trial and death sentence
pronounced last week, present Turkey with its best chance in years to
test a new approach to Kurdish nationalism. Military commanders, who
hold the final word in such matters, will probably have many months to
reflect on the matter while Ocalan's appeals proceed through Turkish and
European courts. But choosing the path of conciliation would represent a
radical departure for leaders who, with broad popular support, have for
years considered force the only appropriate response to what they call
terrorism.

Part of the reason for Turkey's implacable resistance to Kurdish
demands lies in history. For 200 years before the the Turkish Republic
was founded in 1923, the Ottoman Empire had been steadily shrinking.
The Republic was formed after a military force led by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk defeated Greeks and their Western allies who were trying to
slice up even the Anatolian mainland. Fear of losing more territory
consumes many Turks, and when they hear Kurds demanding autonomy
or cultural rights, they sense the start of secession.

Turkey has come a long way from the days when it did not even
acknowledge the existence of Kurds, calling them "mountain Turks" and,
in 1981, sentencing a former member of parliament to a year in prison for
declaring: "There are Kurds in Turkey. I am a Kurd." But many people
here cannot bring themselves to view Kurds, who constitute at least 15
percent of the population, as a minority. They still use the definition of a
minority as it was used in the Ottoman Empire. In those days, minorities
were given broad powers of self-government, but only non-Muslim
groups qualified. Since most Kurds are Muslims, the idea that they could
be considered a minority seems absurd to many Turks. These Turks also
fear that conceding special status to the Kurds could lead to claims by
other groups in Turkey, which is far more ethnically diverse than some
admit.

In the 15 years since the Kurdish war began, emotion has taken over
much of Turkey's reaction to it. Thousands of grief-stricken parents have
buried their sons at funerals that afflict entire towns. The press is
forbidden to question the conduct of the war or the value of fighting it,
and instead whips up popular passion. No coverage may be given to the
grief felt by mothers of slain Kurdish fighters, nor can writers portray the
conflict as Kurdish militants see it. Ordinary Turks have no idea what is
actually happening in southeastern provinces where the war is being
fought. Knowing how Turkish police and soldiers operate, they realize
that things are not pretty there. Most believe, however, that there is no
other way.

"Being tough and not giving in is a very important value in this part of the
world," said a foreign military officer who closely follows the Kurdish
conflict. "If you negotiate or compromise, it's seen as a sign of weakness.
That's one of the main reasons why this thing is such a tough nut to
crack."

The Turkish ruling elite considers rebellion by Kurds profoundly
illegitimate because in Turkey, Kurds are granted every individual right.
Once a Kurd accepts that he or she is above all Turkish, anything is
possible. Many Kurds, especially those living in Istanbul and other cities
far from the war zone, have accepted this offer and been successfully
assimilated. Some have risen to the highest ranks of politics, business and
entertainment. But others refuse society's offer. They acknowledge that
Turkey gives them individual rights, but they also want something more:
group rights. They want the right to their Kurdishness, meaning the right
to speak their language without restriction and to maintain a distinct
cultural identity. That is something the state steadfastly refuses to
concede.

In this climate, it is inconceivable that Turkey will grant Kurdish provinces
any form of autonomy or self-rule. But this is a highly centralized country,
and the southeast is not the only region clamoring for more power. Some
who have studied the Kurdish problem suggest that one way of resolving
it would be to grant every part of the country more local authority,
broadening democracy for all citizens. Combined with a serious
economic development package for the Kurdish region, much of which is
mired in poverty, such a "devolution" package might work wonders.

With Turkey's collective mind so frozen in traditional approaches to
Kurdish nationalism, what can the outside world do to encourage new
departures? Remarkably little, it seems. It is part of Turks' psychology to
believe that the world is constantly plotting against their nation. Advice
from abroad is often considered naive or ill-intentioned. But that does not
rule out some delicate encouragement from the United States, which is
Turkey's closest ally and supplies much of its weaponry, and from
Europe, whose club Turkey would love to join.

Because military commanders maintain the right of veto over Kurdish
policy, and because most Turks trust their judgment, they alone can
decide on a change of course. That is not such a discouraging reality,
since many senior commanders are well-educated, worldly and
sophisticated. But it seems extremely unlikely that they could lead the
country toward a new Kurdish policy unless one of two things happens.
The military leaders could decide among themselves that the time is ripe,
or they could find themselves forced to do so by a civilian leader with
broad popular support. The last civilian with such power was President
Turgut Ozal, who died in 1993, and in the splintered political climate of
today's Turkey, no other such figure is on the horizon.