Istanbul — A delegation from Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish party met with leaders of the Kurdish movement inside a prison on Saturday, in what they said was the latest step in a tentative process towards ending the country’s four-decade conflict. The party announced.
Three leaders of the Democratic Party for Equality (DEM) met with the party’s former co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas at the Edirne prison near the Greek border.
The meeting with Demirtas comes after Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, whose DEM members are jailed in 2016 on terrorism charges that most observers, including the European Court of Human Rights, have deemed politically motivated. This took place two weeks after I met with Mr. P.K.K.
The PKK has led an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s, but DEM is the latest party to represent leftist Kurdish nationalism. Both the DEM and its predecessors have faced state measures largely criticized as repression, including the imprisonment of elected officials and the banning of political parties.
In a statement released on social media after the meeting, Demirtas called on all sides to “focus on a common future where everyone and we all win.”
Demirtas believes it was Öcalan who made it more likely that the PKK would lay down its arms. Mr. Öcalan has been imprisoned on Imrali Island in the Marmara Sea since 1999 on charges of treason against the leadership of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and most Western countries.
Demirtas led DEM from 2014 to 2018, when it was known as the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), and remains widely respected. He said that despite “good intentions” there was a need to “take immediate concrete steps…that will bring confidence”.
Ahmet Turk, one of the DEM delegates, said: “I believe that Turks need Kurds and Kurds need Turks. Our hope is that Turkey will reach a stage where it can build democracy in the Middle East. .”
Several attempts at peace have failed in the armed conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state that began in August 1984 and has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Despite being imprisoned for a quarter of a century, Mr. Öcalan remains a key figure in Turkey’s chances of success because of his continued popularity among many Kurds. In a statement released on December 29, he said he intends to “actively contribute” to the new initiative.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the disbandment of the PKK and the surrender of its weapons in a speech to ruling party supporters on Saturday in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish-majority southeast.
This gives the DEM an opportunity to “develop itself and strengthen its domestic front against the escalating conflicts in the region. It means closing down half a century of separatist terrorist groups and making them immortal in history.” “It will be left to the authorities,” he said. TV comments.
The latest push for peace comes after Debret Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party and a close ally of President Erdogan, suggested in October that Öcalan would be granted parole if he renounced violence and disbanded the PKK. It was brought to everyone’s surprise.
A week later, Erdogan expressed tacit support for Bahçeli’s proposal, and Öcalan said in a message from his nephew that he was ready to work for peace.
