Bahçeli harsly rejects talks with PKK leader

ANKARA

(MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli rejects the possibility of a dialogue with Öcalan. Daily News Photo

The leaders of Turkey’s opposition parties are beginning to react to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s suggestion Sept. 26 that new talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) may include its jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli has harshly and categorically rejected the possibility of involving Öcalan in a new round of talks aimed at bringing an end to the ongoing fight between security forces and the PKK, while for his part main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in a speech delivered on the morning of Sept. 27 at the opening of a two-day party meeting, didn’t touch upon Erdoğan’s remarks at all.

“Prime Minister Erdoğan said talks with the İmralı murderer [İmralı is the name of the island where Öcalan is imprisoned], who is responsible for bloodshed and savagery, could restart, and the justice minister said the baby-killer could be included in the so-called ‘resolution process,’ as if they are both crippled by the bends,” Bahçeli said in a written statement released on Thursday, calling the AKP’s current mentality “an unforgivable delirium.”

There had been no statement on the issue from the CHP’s leadership as of yesterday evening when Hürriyet Daily News went to print.

“When so many are being killed in the country, how can the AKP say ‘Let’s go and agree with Öcalan’? Let them kiss his hands; bring him and let Erdoğan appoint him as the minister responsible for terror,” CHP Tunceli deputy Kamer Genç said, however.