‘No more one-sided ceasefires,’ senior PKK figure says

ISTANBUL

REUTERS photo

A senior outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) figure has responded to calls from the co-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to halt violence, ruling out any “one-sided” move to silence arms.

Speaking to German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council Co-Chair Cemil Bayık said there could be no “one-sided” moves to down arms after its previous experiences. 

“He [Demirtaş] was not the only one to make the call [to silence arms]. We also find it valuable. From our point of view, neither Turkey nor we can solve this problem with arms. But we have called for a one-sided ceasefire eight times. During the last one, we even began to withdraw our forces. Turkey first delayed everything and then denied it. So there will be no more one-sided calls to silence arms,” said Bayık after being reminded of HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş’s recent remarks.

Demirtaş had on Aug. 23 called on the PKK to halt a month of violence against security forces “without ifs or buts.”

“The PKK must stop its armed attacks and bombings in towns and the mountains, without ifs or buts,” he said.

Arrest warrants issued for PKK figures

Meanwhile, arrest warrants were issued by an Ankara court for 49 outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) officials, including senior figures Sabri Ok, Murat Karayılan, Cemil Bayık and Duran Kalkan, on charges of “disrupting unity and integrity of the state.” 

Issued upon the request of the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on May. 5, 2015, the Ankara 5th Criminal Court of Peace ruling stated that the outlawed organization aimed to establish a Kurdish state on an area covering Turkey’s eastern and southeastern regions and that the PKK had committed armed offensives and violent acts to this end.

The ruling also stated that suspects had been abroad for a long time and the only way to arrest them was by issuing arrest warrants through Interpol.

The suspects for whom arrest warrants were issued include Zübeyir Aydar, Zeynep Baytar, Şahabetttin Çotak, Süleyman Şahin, Seyithan Sinet, Servet Aydın, Serdar Özdemir, Saliha Bişkin, Sabri Ok, Rıza Altun, Remzi Kartal, Nuriye Kesbir, Nurettin El Muhammed, Nulifer Koç, Nizamettin Toğuç, Muzaffer Ayata, Mustafa Karasu, Musa Çetiner, Murat Karayılan, Mehmet Tahir Kılıç, Mehmet Şah Yildeniz, Mehmet Can Gürhan, Mehmet Tören, Mehmet Ballı, Medeni Sayılgan, Layika Gültekin, İzzettin İnan, İskan Akyüz, İsa Teres, İbrahim Çoban, Hülya Oran, Hacı Türmak, Gönül Tepe, Filiz Duman, Fethi Şarlatan, Ferhat Abdi Şahin, Fehmi Atalay, Fehman Hüseyin, Fatih Özden, Emine Serinyel, Duran Kalkan, Dalokay Şanlı, Cemil Bayık, Canan Kurtyılmaz, Aynur Hülakü, Ali Haydar Kaytan, Ahmet Talva, Abdurrahim Delibaş, and Abdulkadir Zenger.