CHP calls on HDP to form commission in parliament

ANKARA

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Selin Sayek Böke, the deputy leader and spokeswoman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has called on country’s opposition parties and specifically the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to form a commission in parliament in order to find a solution to the Kurdish issue.

“I’m calling on all the opposition parties, especially on the HDP, that if you want a solution and a free Turkey, then don’t point to the ‘Dolmabahçe Agreement’ again in which the PKK [the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party] and the AKP [the ruling Justice and Development Party] were sitting around a table,” daily Birgün quoted Böke as saying on April 3. 

“The CHP will point to parliament for the solution to all problems,” Böke added.

A joint press conference between the AKP government and the HDP was held at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul on Feb. 28, 2015, in which both sides read their own statements, while HDP deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder listed 10 articles summarizing the priorities of Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the PKK.

Since last summer clashes between Turkish security forces and PKK militants have intensified, while talks between the two ended.

Stating opposition parties should form a front, Böke added that “everything would be different” if the parties, who rejected the conciliation commission that the CHP proposed in parliament, stated the necessity and significance of the commission in terms of finding a solution to the clashes.


HDP offers to make Öcalan chief negotiator

Meanwhile, the HDP presented a legislative proposal titled “Negotiations to Construct Social Peace” to the parliament speakership, putting forth Öcalan as the chief negotiator in talks between the government and the PKK.

“In order to make progress on peace, which is above politics, regardless of governments and elections, a law that will describe the roles, positions, authorizations and locations of the sides and that will make the negotiations permanent is urgently needed,” read the reason for the proposal carrying the signatures of HDP group deputy chairmen Çağlar Demirel and İdris Baluken.

“In this law, the clear description of who the negotiators will be will present a facilitative situation in terms of the continuity of the negotiations and respondents. Abdullah Öcalan, who has been insistent on the solution of this conflict since 1993 with a solution perspective that is grounded on living together, is the chief negotiator in the solution of this conflict,” the statement said.

The HDP’s proposal came after recent remarks by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who lay down the PKK sending its armed components abroad as a condition. “We didn’t end the peace process. The ones who set up barricades, dug holes and called for a civil war ended it,” Davutoğlu said, according to daily Habertürk.

“What the public expects from the peace process is the abandonment of arms completely. If that happens and we go back to May 2013 and if the PKK sends all of its armed components abroad, leaving no armed element in Turkey, then everything can be talked about. The PKK has to lay down arms, there is no other way. Why wouldn’t the talks take place in peaceful conditions after the guns are laid down?” Davutoğlu added.