Deputy PM says peace process ‘unsustainable’

ANKARA

AA photo

The resolution process cannot restart like nothing has happened because it has become “unsustainable,” a senior Turkish governmental official has stated, adding that the “security vacuum” due to deadly attacks of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) will be entirely filled.

“These operations weren’t launched for pleasure,” Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan said Sept. 28. Three months has passed since the most intense fighting since the 1990s has engulfed the predominantly Kurdish-populated eastern and southeastern provinces of Turkey after Ankara launched air strikes against the PKK in Turkey and Iraq. More than 100 security personnel and hundreds of militants have been killed thus far.

Speaking at a local governance consultation meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Akdoğan said some people asked why the government didn’t restart the process aimed at ending the three-decade long conflict between Turkey’s security forces and PKK militants, as they have already launched military operations.

“We cannot just say ‘What were we talking about? Let’s go back to the beginning.’ Here, a security vacuum has emerged. The organization [the PKK] has exploited the process and betrayed it. Here is what I’m telling them: ‘You cannot resume even if you want to resume.’ Because with these actions, the process has become unsustainable,” Akdoğan said.

“If some interrupt roads, kidnap [people] to mountains and put pressure [on people], then how can you resume something there? If it gets armed and composes brand new armed organizations, how can you resume? If it goes through illegality, then, here, that process has become unsustainable. This security vacuum will be entirely filled,” he said, while reiterating earlier arguments that the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has engaged in cooperation with all kinds of enemies of the resolution process.

Last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested the process could restart when positive momentum is captured.

“The ‘democratic initiative’ [process] has been left behind, the national unity and fraternity [project] has been left behind. As I said earlier, the resolution process is in the fridge at the moment. Why wouldn’t it resume when we capture positive developments? There is no obstacle for this but this process has unfortunately been torpedoed by the political party in parliament which is backed by the separatist terrorist organization,” Erdoğan said.