PM’s attitude a cause for concern: MP

ISTANBUL - Doğan News Agency

PM Erdoğan is using an aggressive language, Ahmet Türk says. AA photo

The ongoing peace process with the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) could be disrupted by forces who want it to fail, a senior Kurdish lawmaker has warned, while expressing worry at the premier’s attitude on the matter.

“The prime minister is like the ‘Mehter Marşı’ [a traditional Ottoman military band march]. Sometimes you see him taking a step forward. Then you look again, and he’s taken two steps back. I really do not understand what the prime minister is thinking and why he uses such [aggressive] language,” Ahmet Türk, who met the jailed PKK chief last week, told private broadcaster CNNTürk on Jan. 9.

“Without the provision of the Kurdish people’s freedom, Turkish people will never be free,” he added.
Hopes have been raised about possible peace after Türk and a colleague visited Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, on Jan. 3 on İmralı island.

Speaking about Öcalan’s role in the process, Türk also said the PKK leader had “constitutional demands that Turkish people can accept” such as the protection of minorities’ cultures and their right to association, as well as a new definition of Turkish citizenship that is not based on ethnicity.

The process should also be monitored by a committee of wise men, the veteran deputy said, adding that Öcalan was “the key” to the solution and had the authority to make decisions on behalf of the Kurdish people.