I have a lot of discussions with about this too and try not to approach this topic with emotions. So here I will engage in a devils advocate debate because I abhor echo-chambers and this issue is not one-sided - this here is the hearts and minds mistake. This isn't really a war with weapons, but a conflict of idealogy that is barred from being waged with words. Idealogy is hard to remove with weapons.
There are very legitimate grievances in the south east and no political space to address it or will to by the opposition. I think it's fairly obvious it's going to get worse and worse given the massive amount of polarization under Erdogan. We are also witnessing the infancy of the international 'Kurdish lobby', this is new. This is not about the PKK but a deep social cleavage as noted by Turkish political scientists. These guys are sidelined in favour of a more Yeni Safak outlook and this is where we are. We didn't even know we had prisoners because of this government.
Modern media means news is widespread between different Kurdish groups in each country and it is reflected now in the KRG. Polarization within Turkey affects them too. Barzani is the most Pro-Turkey group there and just barely, in order to offset Iran. The deputy prime minister of the KRG just last week had a skype video call with Enes Kanter. The 4th largest ethnicity in the middle east generally don't like our government because to them, we are the 'racist' enemy and this is being reflected more in international media. As a result, what are we expecting ?
Did we appear different ?
We just have to agree to disagree.
The kurds in the southeast live fine and pretty much get everything paid for. Not to mention how much money the government invested in the region to get the kurds working and away from terrorism.
Also the majority of kurds don't live in south east Turkey, they live in western Turkey. Istanbul alone has 3 million Kurds, that's 3 times as many as in Diyarbakir.
I don't buy Kurdish victimhood in Turkey, its mostly a myth a lefty myth. The truth is if you push separatism and have designs on Turkish land and sovereignty while being backed by the west, Russia and Israel, you deserve to get the full weight of the state on you.
The PKK problem started up after Turkey allowed millions of kurdish refugees from iraq to flee into Turkey.
If tomorrow the Kurds ever made the majority in London, they would start calling it Kurdistan. But then again the english would utterly destroy them for separatism on their land. Not like Turkey where we let things drag out to breaking point before doing something about it.