Davutoğlu declares that HDP co-chair Demirtaş will be responsible for any violence in protests against a controversial new security package.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has upped the stakes in the Kurdish peace process, declaring that Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş will be responsible for any future bloodshed in the country.
“Our minds have always been clear about the resolution process. We haven’t hesitated. But the statement by Demirtaş saying, ‘We will stop the security package in the streets,’ is very irresponsible,” Davutoğlu was quoted as saying by CNNTürk, speaking to a group of journalists on board a plane returning from Warsaw to Ankara on Dec. 9.
The prime minister’s remarks came in response to an earlier statement by Demirtaş, the co-leader of the HDP, a key player in the Kurdish political movement represented at Parliament, which appeared in daily Bugün earlier in the day.
Demirtaş particularly criticized the controversial new government-led security package, saying “protests in the street” will halt the bill in its tracks. The package, which is still yet to be adopted, would lead to the adoption of a controversial judiciary bill that has stirred angry debate about measures allowing searches to be conducted on the basis of mere “reasonable doubt,” without any concrete evidence.
“I’m warning Demirtaş. If he is saying they will turn the streets into lakes of blood, then he is responsible for each drop of blood to be shed. Public order is a need for everybody – for Demirtaş, too,” Davutoğlu said.
According to Demirtaş, the government is using the deadly Kobane protests of Oct. 6-7 as a pretext for the security package, the implementation of which would result in the “killing of young people who would fall like flies.”
“If you adopt this bill, it will backfire. People will not be scared, and they will take to the streets,” the HDP co-chair said.
The debate between the government and the HDP executives over public order and security was particularly heated after street unrest that peaked on Oct. 6 and 7 and led to the deaths of dozens of people in clashes between rival groups. The unrest followed protests over the government’s perceived inaction toward Syrian Kurds besieged by jihadists in the town of Kobane.