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ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party kicked off a series of talks with Turkish political parties on Thursday. The talks are part of efforts to initiate a peace process between the state and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) delegation, consisting of veteran Kurdish politician Ahmet Turk and the party’s lawmakers, Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder, first met with Numan Kurtulmus, speaker of the Turkish parliament.
Buldan and Onder were granted rare access to Imrali prison on Saturday to meet jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Then they visited far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli who had previously opposed talks with the PKK, but in a surprise move was the one to launch the current efforts.
Diyadin Firat is a DEM Party lawmaker. He told Rudaw that they want "sincerity" in the talks.
"Politics requires permanent grounds for meetings and dialogue. Without a permanent system, results will not emerge. Today the DEM Party is having a meeting with the parliament speaker and MHP leader, but Ahmet [Turk] is also involved. Now, Ahmet has been removed from his position and a trustee has replaced him, but now you're saying come be a mediator. This won't work. Sincerity and honesty are necessary," he said.
Also part of the DEM Party’s negotiating team is Turk, who was removed from his position as mayor of Mardin for alleged PKK links.
Ahmed Faruk is a politician and a former lawmaker. He involved in a failed 2013 peace effort.
"In previous processes, no one outside the government supported the process. But now the person who was most expected to oppose, namely Devlet Bahceli, has initiated this process with a call. Because of this, both across Turkey and in parliament, a delegation with significant weight is emerging to support the process. Of course, taking parliament as an interlocutor is very critical. But developments in Syria ultimately have a critical place," he told Rudaw.
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