Few know details of İmralı process: Parliamentary Spokesperson

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Parliamentary Spokesperson Cemil Çiçek attends an opening ceremony of an Istanbul exhibition gathering Japanese artworks in the Ottoman court.

Only a limited amount of people know the details about of a road map of the Kurdish issue solution process, said Parliamentary Spokesperson Cemil Çiçek on Feb. 22, criticizing the lack of open information on the issue.

“As I have mentioned before, the number of people with knowledge about the issue cannot be counted with the fingers of one hand,” Çiçek told journalists on the sidelines of an opening ceremony of an Istanbul exhibition gathering Japanese artworks in the Ottoman court.

“Frequent statements, or sometimes news stories filed by writers, create different perceptions among the public,” he said. “This results in information pollution.”

Rather than the names picked to visit Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the results achieved during the process are what matters, he said.

Some democratic countries have faced similar problems to Turkey, Çiçek said in reference to the Kurdish issue. “They came to a point as a result of a long-term struggle.” Asked whether he was hopeful about the process, Çiçek said “hope” was not a right word. “I am not an author or something … One should be rather realistic in this matter,” he said.

Parliament Speaker Çiçek also said he would be making a detailed speech on state television on Feb. 23 about the ongoing process to write a new Constitution.

Çiçek is the head of the Constitution Conciliation Commission, which is charged with forming a new charter.