President, PM out of tune on Kurds: HDP

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

HDP co-chair Figan Yüksekdağ speaks during her party's parliamentary group meeting, Oct. 21. DHA Photo

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Head Figen Yüksekdağ has criticized the government and president for having mixed approaches in the peace process for the Kurdish bid while speaking at her party’s parliamentary group meeting on Oct. 21.

“Who will we look to for answers in the solution process? The ministers say the current situation of [the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, leader Abdullah] Öcalan may be changed and opened to discussion. But the president says, ‘we will not give [Öcalan] a villa.’ Can there be such a frivolous approach? We have a president who challenges and rejects the statements from the prime minister and other ministers,” said Yüksekdağ during an address to her party.

She also called on the government to focus on taking new steps in the peace process, rather than on Öcalan’s situation, adding that the jailed PKK leader is not demanding to be moved to a villa.

Her statements came as a delegation from the HDP traveled to İmralı Island prison in the Marmara Sea to visit Öcalan.

“The government keeps saying ‘the peace process is my major policy,’ but it does not take the actions that the process necessitates. The day has come, it is time. The solution process cannot survive another dangerous halt,” Yüksekdağ added.

She criticized Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu for "failing to understand the importance" of the Syrian border town of the Kurdish-populated Kobane.

“[The prime minister] has just realized Suruç [near the border with Syria] is no different than Kobane. These people have tried to tell you this for months. Did it take 48 people to die to make you understand this fact? These 48 people would be alive today if you had realized this a month ago,” she said, criticizing Turkey’s policy over the developments in Kobane, which prompted violent protests across Turkey.

She also accused the government and president of "playing politics through death ... But we are not participating in politics through death. We are dying when we want to participate in politics.”