Öcalan renews call for PKK talks on ending armed campaign

HDP politician Sırrı Süreyya Önder (C) read out a letter from Öcalan in Turkish during Nevruz celebrations in Diyarbakır. (Photo: Today's Zaman, Mehmet Yaman))

March 21, 2015, Saturday/ 11:38:02/ TODAYSZAMAN.COM / DIYARBAKIR

The jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, sought to maintainprogress in Turkey's precarioussettlement process with the Kurdson Saturday, repeating his call for a PKK congress to discuss laying down arms and begin an “era of peace.”

"History and our people are demanding from us a democratic solution and peace in line with the spirit of the age,” Öcalan said in a letter read out to a crowd of tens of thousands attending Nevruz celebrations in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır. “We are entering an era of living in peace and brotherhood,” Öcalan said in the message, read out both in Kurdish and Turkish by two politicians from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Öcalan said the PKK’s three-decade armed campaign was not in vain but added that it has reached an “unsustainable” level, calling for a PKK congress to determine its "political and social strategy in harmony with the spirit of the new period.”

The PKK leader’s 2-page letter came as part of a settlement process, which consists of secret talks between Öcalan in his prison in İmralı island off İstanbul and state officials, particularly representatives from the National Intelligence Agency (MİT).

The message is a confirmation of a call by Öcalan in late February on the PKK to convene a congress to discuss laying down arms on the basis of a 10-article declarationthat sets out a rather vague stepsfor democratization of Turkey and resolution of the Kurdish issue.

Some had expected Öcalan to set out a timetable for the PKK congress in his Nevruz messagebut the PKK leader mentioned no date. He alsosuggested that the Turkish government should take thesteps outlined in the declaration.

Öcalan’s call for peace came against a backdrop of tensions in the run up to the June 7 parliamentary elections.

Kurdish politicians criticized Erdoğan for recent remarks in which he denied there was a “Kurdish problem,” accusing him of seeking to appeal to the nationalist voters who are opposed to the settlement process.

At a congress in Ankara that coincided with Nevruz celebrations in Diyarbakır and other southeastern provinces, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli accused the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the PKK of collaborating in a scheme of “treason” to divide the country and vowed to resist it.

In another sign of increased tension, HDP Co-Chairman Selahattin Demirtaş vowed to never allow Erdoğan to assume greater executive powers under a presidential system he covets.

Critics accuse Erdoğan and the Kurds of collaborating to bring about a constitutional overhaul that would pave the way for transition to a presidential system in return for autonomy for the Kurds and freedom for Öcalan.

Demirtaş denied being part of any “dirty bargain” with the AK Party and said Erdoğan can never be the president under a presidential system as long as the HDP existed.

Tensions also appeared to emergebetween Erdoğan, who first initiated the settlement process in 2012, and the government over the planned establishment of a monitoring committee to observe the talks between the Turkish state and Öcalan.

Erdoğan expressed opposition to the planned move despite a government statement that the committee will soon be established, drawing an unprecedented response from Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç who said on Saturday that the government was in charge of the settlement process and is determined to go ahead with the establishment of a monitoring committee as agreed upon as part of the process.

Öcalan declared a ceasefire in his Nevruz message in 2012 and the PKK members began withdrawing from Turkey to the PKK bases in northern Iraq, raising hopes for a permanent solution to the decades-old conflict that killed tens of thousands of people.

But the PKK halted the withdrawal in September 2013, accusing the government of not keeping its promises. The ceasefire has largely held but distrust runs deep, exacerbated by the perception among Kurds in Turkey that Ankara has done too little to support their brethren fighting against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in neighboring Syria.

Keywords: Nevruz , Diyarbakır , Abdullah Öcalan , PKK