A delegation from one of Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish political parties met a leading figure of the Kurdish movement in prison on Saturday, the latest step in a tentative process to end the country’s 40-year conflict, the party said. .
Three senior people from the People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) along with former party co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas in Edirne prison near the Greek border.
The meeting with Demirtas – jailed in 2016 on terrorism charges – which most observers, including the European Court of Human Rights, have described as politically motivated – came two weeks after DEM members met with imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) chief Abdullah Ocalan . ,
While the PKK has led an armed insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s, DEM is the latest party to represent left-leaning Kurdish nationalism. Both the DEM and its predecessors have faced state measures condemned as widespread repression, including jailing elected officials and banning parties.
In a statement released on social media after the meeting, Demirtas called on all parties to “focus on a shared future where everyone, we all, win.”
Demirtaş credited Ocalan for giving him the opportunity for the PKK to lay down its arms. Ocalan has been jailed on Imreli island in the Sea of Marmara since 1999 on charges of treason over his leadership of the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and most Western states.
Demirtas led DEM between 2014 and 2018, when it was known as the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and is still widely praised. He said that despite “good intentions”, “concrete confidence-building measures…to be taken quickly” were necessary.
Ahmet Turk, one of the DEM delegation, said: “I believe that Turks need Kurds and Kurds need Turks. Our wish is that Turkey comes to a point where it can support democracy in the Middle East. Can build.”
The armed conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state, which began in August 1984 and has cost thousands of lives, has seen several failed attempts at peace.
Despite being imprisoned for a quarter of a century, Ocalan remains central to any chance of success due to his ongoing popularity among Turkey’s many Kurds. In a statement issued on 29 December, he indicated his desire to make a “positive contribution” to the new efforts.
Meanwhile, in an address on Saturday to ruling party supporters in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for the PKK to disband and surrender its weapons.
This will provide the DeM an opportunity to “develop ourselves, strengthen our internal front against the growing conflicts in our region, in short, close down the half-century old separatist terror infrastructure and forever write it down in history.” Will be done,” he said. Comments were broadcast on TV.
The latest campaign for peace came when Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement party and a close ally of Erdogan, surprised everyone in October when he suggested Ocalan be given parole if he gave up violence and disbanded the PKK. May go.
Erdogan offered tacit support for Bahceli’s suggestion a week later, and Ocalan said he was ready to work for peace in a message delivered by his nephew.