Probe aims to block dialogue, BDP says

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Independent lawmaker Tuğluk expresses concern over the move to investigate Fidan and MİT officials. DHA photo

Leading Kurdish lawmakers praised National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Chief Hakan Fidan as a “historic figure” in efforts to end the Kurdish conflict, voicing concern the current developments were aimed at blocking a negotiated settlement.

The move to investigate Fidan and other MİT officials who have reportedly been involved in talks with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was “an attempt to prevent the solution of the Kurdish issue through negotiations” and “amounts to a warning to any politician who may consider dialogue,” independent lawmaker Aysel Tuğluk, who also co-chairs the Democratic Society Congress (DTK), told the Hürriyet Daily News.

“The Justice and Development Party [AKP] has two options: to back the negotiation process or insist on a war strategy. I hope the AKP will stand behind the negotiation process. Hakan Fidan has a historic role in this context,” she said.

Tuğluk also said the AKP had nobody to blame but itself on the failure to end the conflict.
“We had cautioned [the government] that leaving the [Kurdish] issue to the police and the judiciary is very dangerous. But they did not listen and applauded the KCK operations. Now it’s got out of control,” she said.

BDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş said the probe reflected a power struggle not within the state but within the AKP. “The AKP had seized the tutelage regime in Turkey. This is a quarrel between their own cliques and fractions,” NTV news channel quoted Demirtaş as saying. He also blamed PM Erdoğan of failing to “throw his political weight behind the dialogue on the Kurdish problem.”