BDP urges gov’t to take step for process

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

The prime minister should either end the peace process or take the necessary steps to advance it, Peace and Democracy Party co-chair Gültan Kışanak has said. DHA photo

The prime minister should either end the peace process or take the necessary steps to advance it, Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-chair Gültan Kışanak has said, in a message echoed by the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan.

“Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan must give the answer to whether he is determined or not. The prime minister should either end the process or take steps to advance it,” she said.

“This is no longer a process that can be managed by being left to its own course. At this stage that has been reached, tensions are increasing. An intervention in the positive sense is required. Here the responsibility falls on the government,” she said.

Kışanak, speaking to reporters at the party headquarters hours before addressing a parliamentary group meeting of the BDP at Parliament July 2, said there were certain international and regional powers that wanted the peace process to be blocked.

Kışanak further argued that the government was trying to accuse Kurds of drug trafficking, in a similar way to when they criminalized them as terrorists. She underlined that the perpetrator guilty of the shooting of Medeni Yıldırım, an 18-year-old protester killed during a June 28 clash with the gendarmerie in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır’s Lice district, had remained at his post despite being identified. The protest was held against the construction of a gendarmerie outpost.

“For the police station, they say that ‘It is not new, we are making reinforcements.’ They are insulting our minds, our ideas and our logic,” Kışanak said while pointing to the incident’s impact on the peace process. “People are rightfully asking: ‘Are the guerrillas pulling out for this? Are they exploiting the peaceful environment for this?’”

On a related note, Mehmet Öcalan, the brother of Abdullah Öcalan, quoted his brother as saying that the government must take urgent steps for the peace process since it could not advance with one-sided action. Mehmet Öcalan also said his brother demanded that light be shed on the Lice attack, according to the Dicle news agency (DİHA).

On the Lice turmoil, Mehmet Öcalan, who visited his brother on July 1 on the prison island of İmralı, conveyed his brother’s remarks, saying, “This is not a healthy course.”

“This is not a promising course. The agreed steps need to be put into practice immediately. The government must fulfill its responsibilities concerning the Lice attack and launch an urgent investigation into the attack and shed light on the incident. This is what we expect the government to do,” the PKK leader reportedly said.

Öcalan was further quoted as saying: “From my point of view, the first stage was completed by June 1, although some others say it is continuing. We are about to enter the second stage but without witnessing any remarkable progress.”