Kurdish peace process has nothing to do with PKK leader: President Erdoğan

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks at the presidential palace, Nov. 6. AA Photo

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has refuted claims from Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) officials that the Kurdish peace process was launched by the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and would end with him.

“This process was initiated through a democratic opening and is continued as a national unity and fraternity project. The peace process is a follow-up to this,” he said.

“This has nothing to do with İmralı,” Erdoğan said at a press conference before his departure to Turkmenistan, referring to the island on the Marmara Sea where jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan has been serving a life sentence since 1999.  Erdoğan said they initially aimed at finding a way to end terror in the country and to provide comfort and peace for the people.

Explaining that the process later was turned into a peace process with the inclusion of some political parties and with the involvement of wise persons’ group, Erdoğan said: “Those who claim that the process began and will end in İmralı have never been supportive of the resolution process.

If you call on the people to take to the streets in a full ethnic approach and become responsible for the deaths of 40 people then you prove that you have no intention for a solution. If you really want peace, than you should make calls for peace. But they have no will for peace or freedom.”