AKP's security draft ‘puts peace bid on hold’

Deputy leader of HDP, Pervin Buldan, is seen in Diyarbakır.

A senior official from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has said a fresh debate about a controversial security bill – which was seasoned with a fistfight in parliament – has begun hampering efforts to solve the Kurdish issue. 

“A joint statement with the HDP is on the agenda [of the government],” Pervin Buldan, a deputy leader of the party’s group in parliament, told reporters in Diyarbakır on Feb. 20. 

“I don’t think this is possible with this homeland security bill,” she said. “Efforts could have been spent on this but there is now there is no base for it.”

Buldan said the resolution process, a title for the efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue, contradicts the security bill, which is antidemocratic for all opposition parties, adding that she could not understand how both could progress simultaneously. 

“You should ask this to the AKP, to the government,” she told reporters, sending the ball into the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) court.
 
Noting that the security code was not the sole hurdle to the process, Buldan said the efforts had not turned into a phase of official negotiations yet.

The government has argued that it has taken necessary steps and that outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leaders were avoiding progress, but Buldan said such assertions were false.

Buldan also part of the team that regularly visits jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı Island. 
The prisoners near Öcalan have not changed, Buldan said.