DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — "Happy is he who is a Turk," the nationalist slogan etched across bleak hillsides and grim police stations in this largely Kurdish province, is being replaced by a more inclusive motto: "This country belongs to us all."
Buoyed by military successes against Kurdish separatists and the capture last year of their elusive leader, Abdullah Ocalan, the Turkish government has launched a campaign to win the hearts and minds of the country's alienated Kurdish minority. Security officials who once scowled and pointed their guns are now more likely to smile politely when asking civilians to show their identity cards. Kurdish villagers, uprooted by 15 years of fighting that has claimed more than 30,000 lives, are being allowed to return home.
A mood of hope is palpable in Diyarbakir, would-be capital of the would-be Kurdish state that Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers Party has long fought to carve out of southeastern Turkey.
At an art gallery in the city's ancient gray fortress, 21-year-old university student Sefik Ozcan greets visitors in front of his work, which shows fluttering white doves set against a deep blue background. It is titled "Peace."
Outside, Hasan Caglar, a farmer in traditional baggy trousers held up by a checkered cummerbund, negotiated a cart full of squawking chickens through heavy traffic. "I am 67 years old, and it's the first time I am being treated like a human being," he said. "Tell me, will it last?"
The answer depends on how Turkish leaders manage what many agree is their best opportunity to settle the long-running conflict. A peaceful outcome could advance Turkey's dream of joining the European Union and serve as a model for Kurdish minorities' relations with regimes in Iran, Iraq and Syria.
Turkey's 12 million Kurds make up about one-fifth of the population. The Kurdish rebellion is the biggest challenge yet to the Turkish republic's longtime ideology that demands assimilation by the country's ethnic minorities.
Since Kemal Ataturk founded the republic in 1923, Kurds have been fighting on and off for an independent Kurdistan in a mountainous region that extends from Turkey into parts of the same three neighboring Mideast states. An additional estimated 11 million Kurds live in those countries.
The government's hearts-and-minds campaign has gathered pace in recent weeks, after European Union leaders on Dec. 10 invited Turkey to start lengthy negotiations to join the bloc. Days after that decision, Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem called for easing restrictions on broadcasting in the Kurdish language.
