BDP: Permanent solution needed

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

This file photo shows Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy chair Nazmi Gür (R) next to Selahattin Demirtaş, the BDP’s co-chair. The main target of the talks should be a permanent solution to the Kurdish İssue, says Gür. Hürriyet photo

Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) deputy chair Nazmi Gür has said the government’s recent initiative for the Kurdish question should not remain limited to the disarmament of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“The prime minister says the main objective of recent talks [with convicted leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan] is the disarmament of the PKK, but this objective alone will not contribute to a resolution. A peaceful and permanent solution should be the main objective of these talks,” Gür told the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday.

Turkey entered the new year with new hopes and expectations for a possible resolution to its decades-old Kurdish woe, after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publically announced Dec. 28 that his agents were meeting with Öcalan in İmralı Island, where he is serving life sentence. BDP deputy Ayla Akat Ata as well as independent deputy and the co-chairman of the Kurdish-umbrella organization Democratic Society Congress (DTK), Ahmet Türk traveled to the island and held a three hour-long meeting with Öcalan on Jan. 3 following government permission for their visit. Aside from voicing hope for a resolution and delivering supportive messages for the recent process, the two have not yet disclosed the content of their meeting with Öcalan.

Required conditions

The other co-chairperson of the DTK, Aysel Tuğluk, called on the government to create the required negotiation conditions for Öcalan. “In order for the dialogue process to evolve into a negotiation process, heath, security and free movement conditions for Öcalan should be secured,” Tuğluk said in Diyarbakır on Jan. 6.

Excluding the PKK and Kandil from a possible resolution process is not a realistic attitude, Tuğluk further said. Kandil is a mountain in northern Iraq where the PKK has its headquarters and training camps. Recalling that Erdoğan’s chief adviser, Yalçın Akdoğan had said the PKK would be excluded from the recent resolution process, Tuğluk said: “If we are talking about a real resolution, it will be naive to believe in a resolution without the PKK and Kandil [involved]. For this reason, conditions for direct contact between Öcalan and Kandil should be created,” Tuğluk said.

In a recent interview to the Kurdish service of the Voice of America, Gür said the PKK will “take considerable steps” for the resolution, if the government paces in that direction. “The matter is the resolution of the Kurdish issue. [Oslo] talks held for two and half year were very important, but the government aimed to eliminate the PKK, that’s why those talks were failed,” Gür said. “If Erdoğan launched recent initiative for his election calculations, both Turkey and Kurds will lose,” he said.