Official Kurdish bid talks may start in 10 days: HDP co-leader

MOSCOW / ŞANLIURFA

Peoples’ Democratic Party co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş. AA Photo

Official talks on the Kurdish peace process may start in 10 days, the co-chair Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has said in Moscow at an affiliate of a U.S.-based think tank.

At the same time, remarks by Yalçın Akdoğan, the deputy prime minister, also implied that the government was working on a process for a “final solution.”

“The dialogue process has continued for about two years,” HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş said in reference to talks that involve Turkish officials and Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.

 “We expect this to turn into a negotiations process that will start in a week or 10 days,” Demirtaş said.
He also said that what the HDP had in mind was an autonomous model. “We think that a self-management model should be discussed not in only Turkey but the whole Middle East,” daily Cumhuriyet quoted him as saying.

Speaking in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, Deputy PM Akdoğan said the government would not take any steps that would not be approved by society. “The nation is drawing the route,” he said. “We are continuing the process to finalize it that would fulfill the nation.”

Hope is rising in the region about the process, Akdoğan said.

“As our prime mistier has put, we have reached a positive stage. Today, the efforts continue of on content due to the consensus on the method [of the talks]. This is not a process that could be finalized from today to tomorrow,” he said, adding that a number of democratization packages were approved at the Parliament in links to the process. “We have to reach the final solution from now on,” he said, highlighting that public order remained a major concern for the government.

Another indicator was the contribution of all parties involved.

The deputy PM also said what the senior PKK leaders at the mountains said would not decide the future of the process.

Both the government and the HDP simultaneously announced Dec. 21 that the peace process has entered “a new phase,” as committees under the guidance of the Undersecretariat of Public Order and Security will meet with the imprisoned leader of the Öcalan while the İmralı delegation of the HDP will also join the meetings.