Ruling AKP's Çelik warns of peace bid provocation

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

The Justice and Development Party Speaker Hüseyin Çelik (R) has met with a group of journalists in Sulaymaniyah during his visit to Iraq earlier this week. AA photo

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Speaker Hüseyin Çelik has reacted to some provocative attacks on the ongoing peace process, saying that the government would act flexibly to achieve a result.

“Hopefully we will not face a road accident,” daily Hürriyet quoted Çelik as saying yesterday. “There might come out some people who would like to sabotate [the process], but the government is determined. We will keep on our way. We will use the spare wheel if we have a puncture. If the engine breaks down, we will repair it. If it is not fixed, we will change the car and keep on our way. Because we have to save Turkey from a hindrance in any case,” he said. 

However, the politician did not address a concrete source of concern. Commenting on reactions to the process, mainly from the nationalists, Çelik said the efforts were also receiving a high level of support: “Even some families of martyrs say, ‘Finalize this so that no more people will feel the pain.’ Some of our veterans who fought in the southeast might be reacting emotionally, this is quite normal. Because they feel anger, pain and we do not regard this as normal.” 

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a surprise meeting with his ministers, advisers and an intelligence official in Ankara on May 1 in the evening, discussing recent intelligence reports, according to sources. 

This meeting comes less than two weeks before the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is to withdraw from Turkish soil.

PM holds summit 

Deputy Prime Ministers Bülent Arınç, Bekir Bozdağ and Beşir Atalay, Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin, Culture and Tourism Minister Ömer Çelik, Prime Ministry undersecretary Efkan Ala, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan, ruling Hüseyin Çelik, and the prime minister’s senior adviser, Yalçın Akdoğan, were present at the meeting which took place at the AKP’s headquarters in Ankara. 

Prime Minister Erdoğan discussed reports from the Turkish Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry and the MİT about the ongoing process of the Kurdish issue. 

Atalay delivered the preliminary reports from the “Wise Persons Commission” members who have been meeting with people across Turkey for more than three weeks now to discuss the peace process.
The meeting came as senior PKK leader Murat Karayılan told a press conference held in the Kandil Mountains of northern Iraq on April 25 that the PKK would start a withdrawal from Turkish soil on May 8.

After that meeting, another surprise meeting took place in the same place on May 1. The AKP’s legal staff came together and discussed the work on the new Constitution.