CHP says PKK talks should continue

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Kılıçdaroğlu says talks should go on if it leads to the laying down of arms. AA photo

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said talks between Turkish officials and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) should be revived “if it leads to the laying down of arms,” but his party still has reservations.

“If it leads to the arms being laid down, these talks should be held, the talks should continue,” Kılıçdaroğlu told the Habertürk television station yesterday. “However, the issue we as the CHP oppose is negotiating the Constitution and the country’s administrative system with the terror organization. Such issues should not be on the table when talking to the terror organization,” Kılıçdaroğlu added.

The CHP made a document public on Sept. 17 which the party claimed was the agreement hammered out by the government and the outlawed PKK during talks between the two parties in Oslo, Norway.

According to the CHP, the text was agreed upon by National Intelligence Organization (MİT) officials, including Hakan Fidan, who later became the chief of the agency, and representatives of the outlawed PKK, following meetings that were held between 2009 and 2011. The talks collapsed after a PKK attack killed 13 soldiers near Silvan, Diyarbakır in July 2011.

“Did MİT chief Fidan, on the issue of education in mother tongues, tell the PKK: ‘In any case you will have an autonomous region. Education, including the appointment of teachers, will be left to the municipalities’? Do you stand by these words?” CHP spokesman Haluk Koç said at a press conference.

Also yesterday, CHP deputy leader Faruk Loğoğlu said the party was not opposed to the talks. “We are not asking why you met, we are asking what you talked about?” he told the aHaber news channel. “We will applaud if the violence stops. As the CHP, we are ready to pay any price to solve the problem. But we cannot solve it on our own, that is why we see Parliament as the only address for the solution.”