BDP set to announce leak source

DİYARBAKIR – Doğan News Agency

BDP's co-chair Demirtaş announced on March 9 via twitter that he intends to reveal the source behind the leak that sparked a huge controversy following its publication in daily Milliyet on Feb. 28. AA photo

Peace and Democracy (BDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş announced on March 9 that his party would reveal the sources behind the leak of the Kurdish talks until March 12. He also later added that the document was not leaked by the BDP’s deputies or organization. “But it is understood that they were obtained through our party,” Demirtaş said.

Demirtaş claimed that none of their deputies had leaked the notes. “We do not accept that our deputies are being treated with suspicion. We are finishing our investigation into this issue. We will publicly share some of its conclusions on Tuesday [March 12] at the latest,” Demirtaş said, via his Twitter account, before adding in a statement that it was nevertheless understood that the document was obtained through the BDP.

‘Collective negligence’

Demirtaş’s confession that the documents relating to the meeting with outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan were leaked from the BDP, together with his denial of the BDP deputies’ responsibility, indicates that the leak must be attributed to the party’s collective negligence, daily Radikal said yesterday. The leak was caused by the negligence of the party, as the main copy of the documents was recopied during a lunch break during which the deputies had left it in the meeting room, daily Radikal reported. 

According to the BDP’s investigation, the party met on Feb. 26 to discuss the meeting with Öcalan. BDP co-chair Gültan Kışanak read the documents to the MPs. It was agreed that the documents would be read and wouldn’t be copied before the meeting. However, they left the documents in the room when they left the room for lunch. Two MPs took two copies and put the main document in its place. Two more copies were subsequently taken. 

On Feb. 28, Turkish daily Milliyet published a document purportedly written during a Feb. 23 meeting between Öcalan and three deputies from the BDP on İmrali island. The meeting had been arranged as a part of efforts to solve the Kurdish issue. 

Following the leak, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan demanded the newspaper reveal their source behind the leak. k HDN