ANKARA
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party has been duped by enemies of the country’s solution process to end conflict between Ankara and the Kurdish population.
This was the claim made by Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan on Wednesday who said that the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) had been “used” to finish off the solution process between the government and the illegal Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Akdogan told the Anadolu Agency’s Editors’ Desk that “supporters of the status quo” had manipulated the HDP into sidelining Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader currently in a Turkish prison.
Akdogan said the HDP caused a “big provocation” by targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the run up to Turkey’s June 7 general election.
“It was this move that triggered the tensions,” Akdogan said, recalling HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas saying: “‘We will not allow you to be elected president’” – a reference to Erdogan’s campaign to change the country to an executive presidential system.
The HDP – which won 80 seats in the election – has been accused of harboring links to the PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and European Union.
A recent wave of violence across Turkey has been sparked by the killing of 32 people in Suruc on July 20 in a suicide bomb attack blamed on Daesh.
The bombing and later deadly attacks on security forces led to a nationwide crackdown on militant groups – primarily Daesh, the PKK and the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front – that have seen over 1,000 suspects arrested since July 24.
Turkey has also launched air strikes against the PKK in Iraq and Daesh in Syria.
Such violence has raised concerns that the Turkey’s solution process with the PKK has come to an end.
The Turkish government launched an initiative in early 2013 publicly known as the ‘solution process’ to end the decades-old conflict with the PKK, a dispute which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people over 40 years.
Akdogan said that nobody should try to blame the Turkish government for recent operations, as “the [PKK] organization has said many times: ‘We are breaking the truce.’”
The deputy prime minister also accused the HDP of delaying a call by Ocalan for the PKK to convene a congress to lay down arms. Akdogan said that Ocalan had given such a call in early February.
“Ocalan gave all kinds of messages, oral, written and signed,” Akdogan said, “but the HDP refused to announce it.”
Akdogan accused HDP leaders of lying when they say that the president was informed of what was to be announced during a meeting on February 28 at the Prime Ministry’s office in Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul.
“That is completely untrue,” Akdogan said. “On that day I absolutely did not have any contact with the president.”
Akdogan also denied that the Dolmabahce discussions had lead to a “framework agreement".
Ocalan said in a Newroz message on March 21 that the “PKK must convene a congress to end the 40-year armed conflict against Turkey.
“We face the duty of initiating a new process based on the 10-point historical declaration made officially public in Dolmabahce Palace,” the message added.
Akdogan said during the Dolmabahce meeting Ocalan's call was read out and he expressed government's stance.
-Future of solution process
Akdogan said that it is a “mystery” how the solution process would go on “with such actors which make such intrigues and betray the process”.
He said that the PKK is not in the position to make conditions.
Akdogan said that “if they [the HDP] have such power, if they can have an impact, let them call on the organization to leave Turkey and lay down arms. If there is anything to be talked about, it can be talked about afterwards.”
Akdogan said that the party "played a game. For passing the [electoral] threshold, it was involved in a dirty relationship and sacrificed the process.”
He added that the PKK never withdrew from illegal activity like kidnapping, blocking roads and committing violence. He said that PKK militants did not leave Turkey, despite promises to do so back in 2013.
The deputy prime minister also accused the “parallel state”, referring to the Gulen movement, of running a “very dirty campaign” with the PKK.
“They are trying to legitimize the [PKK] organization by masking the struggle they are carrying out with Daesh,” Akdogan said, adding that in this framework they are also accusing Turkey of cooperating with the terror organization to put it in difficulty in front of the international community.
The ‘parallel state’ is an alleged group of Turkish bureaucrats and senior officials embedded in the country's institutions, including the judiciary and the police, which is allegedly trying to undermine the Turkish government.
Ankara alleges that the network is run by the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.
