Turkish government, HDP still differ on notion of public order

ANKARA

HDP Istanbul deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder (2nd L) speaks to the media after a nearly two-hour-long meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan. AA Photo

Despite holding a lengthy meeting that did not reflect a particularly negative mood, neither the government nor the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have stepped back in their position regarding the definition of public order and its place in the resolution process.

“The place from which the government looks at public order is extremely troubling. We have conveyed our views on this,” HDP Istanbul deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder told reporters on Dec. 8.

Önder was speaking after a nearly two-hour-long meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan. He was accompanied by HDP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chairs İdris Baluken and Pervin Buldan, as well as veteran politician Hatip Dicle. Their meeting with Akdoğan is estimated to have been the longest public meeting between the HDP and the government so far in the ongoing peace process.

“We also have extremely different views with regard to the issue of maintaining public order,” Önder said. “The government is looking at the matter as if it is a public order issue. When we look at the issue, we see historical and sociological problems and questions.”

The debate between the government and the HDP executives over public order and security was particularly heated after street unrest that peaked on Oct. 6 and 7 and led to the deaths of dozens of people in clashes between rival groups. The unrest followed protests over the government’s perceived inaction toward Syrian Kurds besieged by jihadists in the town of Kobane.

Earlier in the same day, speaking at a press conference ahead of his departure for a working visit to the Polish capital Warsaw, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu reiterated his government’s will to resuming the resolution process, while also again underlining the significance it attached to "maintaining public order."

“I want to state once more that no such activity - under the guise of a quest for rights, but having been launched with secret purposes, such as destroying public order and harming the country’s integrity - will be allowed,” Davutoğlu said, referring to the Oct. 6-7 incidents.