DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey’s Kurdish region,— The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is isolating the imprisoned Kurdish leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, putting the peace process at grave risk, according to a delegation that recently applied to visit Ocalan.
After visiting senior officials of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), a political umbrella group linked to PKK, in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan Region, members of the delegation warned in a press conference in Diyarbakir on May 19 that Ocalan was being “isolated” by the AKP.
“The AKP has put a new isolation system in progress. It has put the isolation card on the negotiation table in an attempt to halt the process. If peace is the goal, we call on the AKP to approach Ocalan. If Ocalan is the key to this process then we demand an end to this isolation,” said delegation member Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Idris Baluken.
Baluken added that the KCK is “ready to take action” and call a congress to discuss laying down arms immediately if the AKP takes steps in the process.
He accused President Recep Tayyip Edogan of bringing the process to a halt with recent remarks in which he said “There is neither a table nor parties.”
“The state would not be part of these sorts of negotiations. There is no Kurdish conflict,” Erdogan said.
The Imrali delegation, made up of Baluken, fellow HDP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Pervin Buldan, Democratic Society Congress (DTK) Co-Chair Hatip Dicle, and Ceylan Bagriyanik, a Liberal Women Congress representative, applied several times to the Justice Ministry to meet with Ocalan, but their applications have received no reply since April 5.
The Kurdish peace process started in late 2012 to put an end to the decades-long armed conflict between the Turkish military and the PKK, which has led to tens of thousands of deaths.
Since it was established in 1984 the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state, but now limited its demands to establish an autonomous Kurdish region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds,who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 75-million population but have long been denied basic political and cultural rights, its goal to political autonomy. A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.
Read more about Turkish-Kurdish Peace Process
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