as well as to the cities of western Turkey and even to western Europe. The causes of the depopulation included the Turkish state's military operations against Kurdish population, some PKK atrocities against Kurdish clans they could not control and the poverty of the southeast. In the 1990s, hope for an end to the conflict emerged, as the PKK has declared several ceasefires and the political society has organized several campaigns to facilitate a reconciliation. "Evacuations were unlawful and violent. Security forces would surround a village using helicopters, armored vehicles, troops, and village guards, and burn stored produce, agricultural equipment, crops, orchards, forests, and livestock. They set fire to houses, often giving the inhabitants no opportunity to retrieve their possessions. During the course of such operations, security forces frequently abused and humiliated villagers, stole their property and cash, and ill-treated or tortured them before herding them onto the roads and away from their former homes. The operations were marked by scores of “disappearances” and extrajudicial executions. By the mid-1990s, more than 3,000 villages had been virtually wiped from the map, and, according to official figures, 378,335 Kurdish villagers had been displaced and left homeless." 21st century In 2009, under the lead of Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, a short-lived peace process was started, but was not supported by the Republican Peoples Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) over concerns over the ethnic and national unity of the state. It ended in December 2009, following an attack on Turkish soldiers by the Kurdistan Workers' Party on the 7 December and the ban of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) on the 11 December 2009. In 2010, after clashes between the PKK and the government forces in eastern and southeastern Turkey, several locations in Iraqi Kurdistan were attacked by the Turkish Air Force early in June 2010. The air attack was reported 4 days later in a news article released immediately after the attack. The tense condition has continued on the border since 2007, with both sides responding to each other's every offensive move. Following Turkey's electoral board decision to bar prominent Kurdish candidates who had allegedly outstanding warrants or were part of ongoing investigations for PKK-links from standing in upcoming elections, violent Kurdish protests erupted on April 19, 2011, resulting in at least one casualty. On the eve of the 2012 year (28 December), the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said