peace deadline for Turkey Archives

July 31, 2013

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey’s Kurdish region,— Kurdish rebels have demanded that the Turkish government take steps to advance the fragile peace process by September or face unspecified action, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported on Wednesday.

“A step must be taken. September 1 is the deadline,” Cemil Bayik, the new hawkish leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was quoted as saying by Firat news agency.

Cemil Bayık, co-chair of the KCK Executive Council said in an interview with Ronahi TV that the September 1st is to be considered a deadline in the process towards peace initiated by jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan.

“If no step is taken before September 1, it will be understood that the aim is not a solution,” he said, warning that Kurdish people would then have to defend themselves, without elaborating.

Bayık said that the government should show its genuine will to reach a just and lasting peace by taking the steps require to enhance the process initiated by Öcalan. “If no steps are taken by the government – said Bayık – Kurds will understand that the message the government want to send is not one of peace but one of continuing the conflict and the destruction of the Kurdish people”.

His comments came after the PKK earlier this month issued a “final warning” to the government, accusing it of sabotaging the peace process designed to end nearly three decades of insurgency.

The PKK had criticised the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for building new army barracks in the Kurdish region,www.ekurd.net while allowing Kurdish militias to continue operating on behalf of the regular army.

Jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan has been in negotiations since late 2012 with Turkish authorities for an end to the Kurdish conflict.

Ocalan, serving a life sentence for treason and separatism on Imrali island off Istanbul since 1999, announced a historic ceasefire with the government in March.

As part of the truce, the PKK agreed to withdraw its estimated 2,000 fighters from Turkey to their bases in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

In return, it is seeking wider constitutional rights for Turkey’s 23 million Kurds.

But the peace process has been rattled by the death of a young Kurdish man during an anti-government protest in the Kurdish majority southeast last month.

Since it was established in 1984, the PKK has been fighting the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, , who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 75-million population, to establish a Kurdish state in the south east of the country. By 2013 more than 45,000 people have since been killed.

But now its aim is the creation an autonomous region and more cultural rights for ethnic Kurds who constitute the greatest minority in Turkey, its goal to political autonomy. A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.

The PKK wants constitutional recognition for the Kurds, regional self-governance and Kurdish-language education in schools.

PKK’s demands included releasing PKK detainees, lifting the ban on education in Kurdish, paving the way for an autonomous democrat Kurdish system within Turkey, reducing pressure on the detained PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, stopping military action against the Kurdish party and recomposing the Turkish constitution.

Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish language and private Kurdish language courses with the prodding of the European Union, but Kurdish politicians say the measures fall short of their expectations.