Interior minister addresses intelligence service for leaking Oslo talks

ANKARA

AA Photo

Interior Minister Efkan Ala has addressed National Intelligence Organization (MİT) members for the responsibility of leaking recordings in 2011 about secret talks between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish officials that took place in the Norwegian capital Oslo.

“The Oslo talks were leaked over sabotage within state units,” Ala said speaking in parliament on late March. 2.

His remarks were in reply to a motion of censure issued by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for Ala, in which the opposition party accused the establishment of the so-called “parallel state” and for destroying the unitary state. The motion was refused by the parliament members.

The peace process that aims to end three decades of Kurdish insurgency was attempted to be interrupted by several provocations, Ala said. 

The minister labeled a series of incidents as provocations to harm the peace process, including the MİT crisis, when a prosecutor in an alleged terror case summoned MİT’s chief and two ex-officials for their contact with the PKK, the Gezi demonstrations, the graft probes in Dec. 17 and Dec. 25 of 2013 and the Oct. 6-7, 2014, unrest, which led to the deaths of dozens of people in clashes between rival groups, following protests for solidarity with Syrian Kurds in the town of Kobane in northern Syria.

The minister also said he did not recognize the current constitution, as it was a “coup charter.”

According to the alleged recordings, the MİT and the PKK met at least five times in Oslo, Norway, under the presence of a representative from the coordinator country.

The deputy undersecretary of the Prime Ministry at the time, Hakan Fidan, who became the head of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) later, MİT deputy undersecretary Afet Güneş and three members of the European wing of the PKK, Mustafa Karasu, Sabri Ok and Zübeyir Aydar, attended the meeting.