BDP calls for joint effort for captives

ANKARA

BDP'S co-chair Kışanak has invited opposition parties to join a delegation that will accept captives abducted by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the coming days. AA photo

Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-chair Gültan Kışanak has said that ruling and opposition parties may join a delegation that will accept captives abducted by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the coming days.

When asked whether lawmakers from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) may join the delegation that will assume responsibility of the captives, Kışanak said yesterday, “This is our party’s initiative, but if they want to join, we would respond positively. Some human rights associations request to take part in that delegation; if other parties make such requests, we will consider it.” Captives being held by the PKK have been occupying the public agenda after the jailed leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, sent an indirect message to the PKK in his public statement after the visit of a delegation of BDP deputies to İmralı prison on Feb. 23.

Commenting on controversy over records of the latest parliamentarian visit to Öcalan that was published in daily Milliyet on Feb. 28, Kışanak said nobody from the BDP leaked the record of the İmralı visit.
“There has never been a leakage from our party. We are investigating the incident and we would make it public if there had been any negligence or mistake that led to stealing or acquiring of the record,” Kışanak said, describing the incident as a “judicial case.”