DEM co-chair Tuncer Bakirhan (pictured) told parliament on Tuesday: “Mr Ocalan is preparing to make a historic call in the coming days for a lasting solution to the Kurdish issue. Everything is now in Erdogan’s hands.” [Getty]
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish political party said on Tuesday that Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the PKK group, will make a “historic call” soon, amid a political effort to end its decades-long conflict with the Turkish state.
“Ocalan is preparing to make a historic call in the coming days for a permanent solution to the Kurdish issue,” DEM Party co-chairman Tuncer Bakirhan told his party in parliament.
“We are ready for a permanent and radical solution,” he said. “We attach importance to this call and support it.”
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 with the aim of carving out an ethnic homeland for Kurds.
Peace talks between Ankara and the PKK collapsed in 2015, leading to a resumption of the conflict, in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
Turkish media have reported that Ocalan could choose February 15, the anniversary of his capture in Kenya in 1999, as a possible date for a statement. He has since been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul.
Bakirhan did not say what Ocalan would announce. His remarks suggested that any call for PKK disarmament could be conditional on steps taken by Turkey, rather than an outright declaration.
President Tayyip Erdogan’s government has backed an offer first made in October by Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the nationalist MHP party and a key Erdogan ally, for Ocalan to call on the PKK to disarm.
Bahceli said at the time there was no need for a new peace process, saying that the PKK should surrender unconditionally to Turkish justice and serve prison sentences.
But Bahceli also spoke in October of the prospect of Ocalan being given the “right to hope”, if the PKK disbanded, suggesting he could potentially be set free and address the DEM in parliament.
He also proposed the implementation of unspecified democratic reforms – a contrast to his usual strident rhetoric.
Bakirhan said the DEM, parliament’s third biggest party, urged the government “to strengthen the ground that will correspond to the seriousness of this call and to play its role in the historic solution”.
